about striptease
Striptease
A striptease or exotic dance is a performance, usually a dance, in which the performer (stripper) (sometimes called an ecdysiast), “strips off clothing to arouse sexual desire by displaying the naked body in motion.” Striptease is usually performed in strip clubs. The “stripping” part involves the slowness of undressing, while the audience is eager to see more nudity. Delay tactics include additional clothes under clothes being removed, putting clothes or hands in front of just undressed body parts, etc. Emphasis is on the act of undressing along with sexually suggestive movement, not on the state of being undressed: in some cases the strip show is finished as soon as the stripper is finished. (Before the sexual revolution, striptease performance often ended with the performer wearing a g-string and pasties).
Along with physical attractiveness and appropriate clothing, the main asset and tool used by the stripper in recent years is the stripper pole. Almost all strippers are drawn to the profession by the potential for high earnings in the form of tips and commissions from lap/couch dances and champagne rooms.
Lap dance
A variation on striptease is private strip show, which often involves lap dancing or contact dancing. Here the performers, in addition to stripping for tips, also offer “private strip shows” which involve more attention for individual audience members. Varitions include private dances like table dancing where the performer dances on or by customer’s table rather than the customer being seated in a couch.
For certain events, including bachelor/bachorette parties, the stripper’s job often involves holding games or contests with sexual themes.
The contact between a stripper and a customer is regulated in ways that vary in response to local laws and strip club rules, ranging from “air dances” with minimal or no contact to “friction” lap dances at the stripper’s discretion.
History of striptease
The ancient art of the strip tease traces its origins in the Sumerian tablets, on which were written the myth of the descent of the goddess Innana into Hades to retrieve her lover Damouz. At each of the seven gates, she removed a veil and a jewel. As long as she remained in hell, the earth was barren. When she returned, fecundity abounded. Her strip dance lived on as the famous strip of the seven veils of Salome, who stripped for King Herod in the New Testament. Many forms of the striptease made their way throughout Sumeria, Mesopotamia, into Asia and west into the near east and southern Europe, via Gypsies.
In South India, the strip evolved through the Devadasi temple and court strippers.
In the nineteenth century, French colonists in North Africa and Egypt “discovered” and seized upon the strippers of the Ghawazee, especially a courtesan stripper known as Kuchuk Hanem, and exoticized the image of the nonwestern woman as one who would disrobe as part of a strip performance. It is likely that the women performing these strip shows did not do so in an indigenous context, but rather, responded to the commercial climate for this type of strip entertainment.
Middle Eastern belly dance, also known as Oriental Dancing, was popularized in the US after its introduction on the Midway at the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago by a stripper known as Little Egypt.
American striptease nurtured its roots in carnivals and Burlesque theatres. The art and business enjoyed prosperity as the United States economy grew out of the depression of the 1930’s through the fifties. In the sixties and seventies, with changing cultural expressions of sexuality, it declined in profitability and status. In the eighties and technology boom of the nineties, those in the profession enjoyed better acceptance and better working conditions.
Burlesque
Member of the Burlesque Troupe, Chitty Chitty, Bang Bang in 2004.
The People’s Almanac credited the origin of striptease as we know it to an act in 1890s Paris in which a woman slowly removed her clothes in a vain search for a flea crawling on her body. Striptease enjoyed a revival with the advent of burlesque theatre, with famous strippers such as Gypsy Rose Lee.
In 1940, humorist H. L. Mencken coined the term ecdysiast as a euphemism for strippers; it derives from the Greek ekdusis meaning “to molt.”
In the latter 1990s a number of performers and stripper groups have emerged to create New Burlesque, a revival of the classic burlesque of the early half of the twentieth century. Troupes. New Burlesque focuses on dancing, costumes and entertainment (which may include comedy and singing) and generally eschews full nudity or toplessness. Some burlesquers of the past have become instructors and mentors to New Burlesque strippers such as Velvet Hammer and the Pontani Sisters. The pop group Pussycat Dolls began as a New Burlesque troupe.
Relationship to the erotic movie industry
Many erotic actresses (strippers) and actors in the US make their main living from their earnings from personal appearances as featured strip dancers, in much the same way that many musicians make their main living from live performance, with their recordings serving as advertising. Many in the striptease industry appear in pornographic movies or magazines to be paid more for appearing at strip clubs as “strip dancers” because they are “stripprs”, which clubs advertise to bring in a bigger paying audience. The more famous the “strippers”, the more the strip dancer will be paid by the strip club to perform at their strip club.
Stripping at home
In addition to night strip club entertainment, stripping can be a form of striptease at home between partners. This can be done as an impromptu event or–perhaps for a special occasion–with elaborate planning involving fantasywear, music, special lighting, practiced dance moves, and the like.
