Bare: The Naked Truth About Stripping (Live Girls)

Serious book about this topic. Not porn or erotica. The author is obviously a good journalist.

I thought this was a good story, especially when she writes about the other dancers and how dancing impacts their lives. The beginning, when she describes herself and her own motivations, interested me. She was a pretty tame and mild dancer. I felt like I understood the author's background and emotions, but they evolved over time and became more interesting. What was more unique was to follow the Zoe character as she deludes herself. I suspect Zoe's odd way of talking and communicating made her life somewhat of a challenge. I helped to manage / set-up about 20 - 30 bachelor parties for dancers when I was in college -- because I worked as security in a club. So the narrative was consistent with the dancers I knew and I remembered some times fondly. Working in a club is like a lot of life -- looking back we remember the good parts and forget the bad parts. The middle of the book was a bit slow, but the beginning and the end made it worth it. There are plenty of dancers and models who have done a lot worse things than this author. On the whole this story was uplifting.

I have to agree with another reader who described Eaves as a privileged woman appropriating a title to sell books. The stories about the other strippers she knew are interesting but Eaves' own story gets repetitive and lacking a certain credibility. I think the sociopolitical angle is just the author's excuse to talk about herself especially since she never comes to any real conclusion about the question she's been asking since page one, why am I so cold? why do i treat nice guys like crap? 327 pages of narcissism. But the stories about the other dancers are interesting.

Just as described thank you

Ms. Eaves' book is provocative. She knows the stripper/voyeur world from three perspectives: her own (as a performer); her understanding of other strippers' claims and laments; her perception of voyeur needs and behaviors. As such, her book is an important contribution to the sex worker literature. Ms. Eaves presents neither a condemnatory nor congratulatory examination of the stripper world. Hers is a more dispassionate analysis. Were I again teaching a course on Gender and Communication, I would be tempted to assign this book as an informative read, both from the perspective of one who's "been there, done that" and also as an example of interesting and meaningful ethnography.

This book is interesting but not for reasons I think most people will initially want. If you are looking for a hot juicy porn book this is not your book. This book gives the reader an inside look in the industry. It sort of starts out with a pro approach but ends quite differently. It really shows you the mental state of those who dance in the trade. Through that a reader can clearly see the connection between spirit, mind, and body. It shows how physical acts like working in a peep show exacts a toll on the mind of those who work in that business. Her descriptions of the people in the book are so real you feel like you know them. The motivations for working in the business are very varied. Then you can see through the author's stories how mentally they change as a result of the stresses incurred. The author doesn't really dive into the why to much. I also know there probably is more to the story she did not talk about for whatever the reason. The book flows really well. It is a real page turner. You will end this book definitely educated. Tom

Fantastic read.

This is probably one of the worst stipping books I've read simply because it doesn't include actual stripping (other than some limited and misleading chapters at the end). Peep show booths are one aspect of sex work but it is erronous to equate it with stripping (one you start naked, the other you perform a tease, the first you rarely have contact with costumers, the second you have intensive contact with customers, at the Lusty Lady you can earn an hourly wage, most strippers have to hustle and their income is always in flux, etc). I strip in Seattle at an actual strip club. I know a few who work at the Lusty Lady and not a one refers to herself as a "stripper." Aside from that issue, the author should never have been in sex work in the first place. One of the primary rules is that you must be able to diferentiate between your work and your personal life. If you cannot, then you should not do it. The author did not follow common sense and is left confused and feels a need to justify her one year experience. From a feminist aspect, I felt she failed to accurately represent the dynamic between a dancer and a customer (probably because her experience in that is very limited considering she sits there naked and the exchange starts for her after they have already paid). Also, I receive a fair amount of couples and female customers which are completely absent in her experiences and so in her reasoning. Her explanations of fellow peep show workers are those that also seem to have difficulty seperating work from personal life (perhaps they attracted each other in friendship because other workers would have been negative or dismissive of such concerns). I'm hesitant to call them dancers. Dancing is physically exausting (ever try to climb a pole of slick metal and hang upside down?). Also, dancing is meant as a tease, you push someone in an erotic manner but never permit them release. Masterbating alters the dynamic and is a clear difference between peep show booths and stripping (in this, I'm assuming US laws and "clean" dancers." Overall, it's fine if you want to read a warning for what happens when you aren't emotionally capable of doing sex work and care to see someone trying to come to terms with it years later.