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Exotic dance is a social scene in which patriarchy, feminine resistance, desire, fantasy and power intersect. In this heterosexual social scene, women dance nude or semi-nude for male customers, and get paid for their work on stage, tables, and in cages; and, in many clubs, for their work on the laps of their customers.1 Exotic dance, as a site of commodified erotic exchange, is a large and lucrative component of the overall sex industry, and the number of exotic dance clubs in North America has doubled in the last 15 years (Liepe-Levinson 4). With this expansion, the form and function of exotic dance as a social phenomenon has also changed (Egan 17). Exotic dance has shifted from a burlesque site in the 1920s and 1930s wherein dancers mainly strip-teased for men with short and titillating dance numbers where little to no nudity was shone (Allen 281), to the contemporary scene, wherein women provide the full specularity of their breast, vagina, and buttocks and high levels of contact both emotionally and physically (vis-à-vis lap dancing) (Egan 25; Frank 177). Moreover, exotic dance is one of the only forms of erotic labor where legal physical contact (in the form of lap dancing) is permitted in certain states.2 Therefore, with the significant changes that have taken place in the scene of exotic dance, it is imperative to understand how these shifts have effected the psycho-social interactions within the parameters of this cultural milieu. The question which guides this article is how do desire, fantasy, and power intersect in the relationships between exotic dancers and their regular customers?
I am particularly interested in the intersubjective relationships between dancers and their regulars because these men consume exotic dance in a vastly different manner than cursory or non-regular customers (Egan 4). Cursory customers frequent exotic dance clubs for entertainment purposes: “to see the show” and be turned on by women on stage. This is often for “sp