Corporeal Indeterminacy: The Value of Embodied, Interpretive Sociology

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapterpeer-review

Abstract

This chapter shows how academic researchers frame strippers and stripping according to the competing logic of victimization and deviantization. The discourse of ‘commodification of the body’ is a vocabulary that, within the cultural contexts surrounding sex, suggests that either something shameful or exploitative occurs when sex becomes a commodity. When sex, or the idea of sex, is exchanged for currency in the marketplace, sex and the body become commodified and a discourse is generated which structures much of how we as a culture ‘look’ or ‘gaze’ at exotic dancers. Dancers use ‘the sensual exhibition of one’s body for financial remuneration’. Deviance/pathology exemplars were found within the context of criminology, law, and medicine. Pro-sex feminists and others drew on the exploitation/liberation frame by claiming that the women who danced for a living were in fact exercising power and freedom when they worked in the sex industry.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationBody/Embodiment
Subtitle of host publicationSymbolic Interaction and the Sociology of the Body
PublisherTaylor and Francis
Pages125-140
Number of pages16
ISBN (Electronic)9781317173441
ISBN (Print)9780754647263
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Jan 2016

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Corporeal Indeterminacy: The Value of Embodied, Interpretive Sociology'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this