Dancing for women:subverting heteronormativity in a lesbian erotic dance space?

This article utilises participant observation, interview and collaborative visual data, collected with women erotic dancers, management and customers, to ascertain how far heteronormativity is subverted in a UK lesbian leisure space, Lippy (the name is a pseudonym), which provides erotic dance for women customers. The potential for a female 'gaze', the 'normativity' of gendered and sexualised bodies, and the notion of a 'women's space' are taken as areas for analysis. Women's engagement with erotic dance is complex, and this article examines the connections between sexual agency and gendered power relations, questioning how far women can exercise autonomous sexual expression in commercial sexual encounters. © The Author(s) 2012.

Performing in a night-time leisure venue: a visual analysis of erotic dance

This article analyses a range of different meanings attached to images of erotic dance, with a particular focus on the 'impression management' (Goffman 1959) enacted by dancers. It presents a visual analysis of the work of a female erotic performer in a lesbian erotic dance venue in the UK. Still photographs, along with observational data and interviews, convey the complexity and skill of an erotic dancer's diverse gendered and sexualised performances. The visual data highlights the extensive 'aesthetic labour' (Nickson et al. 2001) and 'emotional labour' (Hochschild 1983) the dancer must put in to constructing her work 'self'. However, a more ambitious use of the visual is identified: the dancer's own use of images of her work. This use of the visual by dancers themselves highlights a more complex 'impression management' strategy undertaken by a dancer and brings into question the separation of 'real' and 'work' 'selves' in erotic dance. © Sociological Research Online, 1996-2012.

„Fern im dänischen Norden ein Bruder”:Thomas Mann und Herman Bang. Eine literarische Spurensuche

This study for the first time demonstrates and analyses the full extent of Danish impressionist writer Herman Bang’s influence on one of Germany’s major authors, Thomas Mann. Mann was an avid reader of Bang’s works and he regarded the Scandinavian writer as a kindred spirit, a “brother up north”, who “taught [him] much”. It has previously been accepted that Bang was an inspiration for Mann in his formative years. However, as this study conclusively shows, references to Bang’s works occur throughout Mann’s writings, from the early novellas to the late novels. The book argues that Mann was not only impressed by Bang’s highly individual style of impressionist writing but that his fascination for Bang’s works was to a large extent based on this author’s recurrent depiction of decadence, his handling of artistic motifs and his treatment of erotic themes. Bang’s topical focus on the problematically isolated lives of artists and aristocrats as well as his insights on the destructive nature of love and sexuality – particularly of homoerotic desire – were surprisingly similar to Mann’s own views on these topics and yet provoked him to produce heavily referenced counter versions of Bang’s works. This phenomenon is explored in the context of Mann’s struggle with his own homosexuality and the attraction that death and decadence exerted over him. Most of Mann’s writings are in that way indebted to Bang. In addition, Mann’s frequent use of homoerotic subtexts and his depiction of female characters were noticeably influenced by Bang’s literary techniques. All these different, yet closely interlinked, aspects of Mann’s creative appropriation of Bang’s works are analysed and discussed in this study. To conclude, Mann’s references to Bang’s works are schematised and an attempt is made to characterise Mann’s intertextual practice in general in the context of his famous use of irony.

Queer sex work

Sex work is a subject of significant contestation across academic disciplines, as well as within legal, medical, moral, feminist, political and socio-cultural discourses. A large body of research exists, but much of this focuses on the sale of sex by women to men and ignores other performances, practices, meanings and embodiments in the contemporary sex industry. A queer agenda is important in order to challenge hetero-centric gender norms and to develop new insights into how gender, sex, power, crime, work, migration, space/place, health and intimacy are understood in the context of commercial sexual encounters. Queer Sex Work explores what it might mean to 'be', 'do' and 'think' queer(ly) in the study and practice of commercial sex. It brings together a multiplicity of empirical case studies - including erotic dance venues, online sex working, pornography, grey sexual economies, and BSDM - and offers a variety of perspectives from academic scholars, policy practitioners, activists and sex workers themselves. In so doing, the book advances a queer politics of sex work that aims to disrupt heteronormative logics whilst also making space for different voices in academic and political debates about commercial sex. This unique and multidisciplinary volume will be indispensable for scholars and students of the global sex trade and of gender, sexuality, feminism and queer theory more broadly, as well as policymakers, activists and practitioners interested in the politics and practice of sex work in local, national and international contexts.