Recently, a performer made a controversial statement online that threw the burlesque community into a tizzy. Check it out:
Prostitutes do not belong on burlesque stages! It is extremely harmful to women! If your [sic] in your feelings about me speaking the truth.[sic] Block me. IDGAF!
Most burlesquers know that this statement is, in fact, not true for many reasons that can be unpacked very quickly:
1) It's fine if you yourself aren't a prostitute; this doesn't change the fact that prostitutes are on burlesque stages everywhere, all the time, and whether you like it or not, honey!
2) The word "prostitute" itself is harmful to women; only the unhinged continue to use this word instead of "sex worker". It's not even really a noun, y'all, it's a whole f verb. Not even grammatically correct, smh.
3) Everybody "belongs" on a burlesque stage, as there is no arbiter or certification required to apply or produce a burlesque show; and
4) sex workers on burlesque stages are not harmful to women; it is more likely that people who directly hurt women are solely responsible for any harm caused to said women. It is extremely dangerous and vile to blame sex workers for violence against women when sex workers are the people who face the most violence.
I've written before about sex work; check it out if you have time. The bottom line is that I do not consider myself a sex worker. Performer Mary Cyn wrote a wonderful article about why she doesn't consider burlesque performers to be sex workers, and I agree with her. I call myself a "sexy worker," which I consider to be a tamer cousin of sex workers. I would never pretend to face the same obstacles or pressures or gaze that sex workers face; my "other job" is a full-time librarian. This DOES NOT, however, mean that there are no sex workers who perform burlesque! Many sex workers do burlesque beautifully, but I find that they also consider their sex work different from their burlesque work.
So with that said, let's get into it! What is the history of sex work and burlesque?
Historically, going all the way back to ancient Greece, burlesque used the power of satire and humor to parody anything from pop culture to politics; this could be done by anyone and did not have to include any sexual titillation or nudity.
By the 1920s and 1930s, burlesque had shifted to include beautiful women and "striptease", which directly led to the proliferation of the modern strip club. Since club strippers are considered sex workers, this invalidates that performer's harmful statement to its core -- sex workers are intrinsically tied to burlesque stages, because at one point burlesque performers were the only version of public strippers that ever existed! All modern burlesque stems from those original strippers; therefore, all modern burlesque stems from sex work. Burlesque lounges in the 1960s are basically the same format as modern strip clubs today. Gypsy Rose Lee famously referred to herself as an "ecdysiast" (coined by essayist H.L. Mencken) and a "high-class stripper," which I guess is an early precursor to burlesque performers trying desperately to separate themselves from the "lowly" stripper masses.
In other comments, the performer who made the harmful statement also separated herself from sex workers because when she is dancing, she is not onstage "selling ass". While I would beg to differ (people in the audience bought tickets to see that ass), I'll play along just so I can refute tf out of this idea as well.
Once upon a time, for centuries even, most dancers (and actresses and singers too) were considered sex workers not because they had sex for money, but because of the public performative display of their talents. That's all it took to be labeled a sex worker -- just a woman onstage talking and/or parading yourself around. Texas A&M Professor Kirsten Pullen wrote that there is an "enduring tie between prostitutes and performance"; femme performers were considered sex workers because they were perceived to be raucous, publicly available women, even though not all of them had sex for money.
Many dancers actively and consensually participated in full-service sex work to support themselves, but the label of "sex worker" (or "prostitute," as the unhinged say) was already attached to the performer before they ever laid down with a client. Not all sex work was trauma-based; for many, it was (and is) just a job that helps pay the bills and support their real passion (dancing).
Those points aside, I think it's sad that an active performer is so disconnected from burlesque history that they don't know our origins within sex work.
It is completely okay to not consider yourself a sex worker; many dancers in the 18th century didn't either, even though they were often lumped together with sex workers.
However, it is inaccurate and idiotic to pretend like burlesque did not come from sex work. It is disrespectful and obtuse to talk down on sex workers when strippers (a type of sex worker) would not even exist without burlesque. Burlesque may not have created the full-service sex worker (that's the oldest profession in the world, y'all) but it most definitely created the modern stripper.
I would also definitively argue that statements like hers directly lead to an increased stigma against sex workers, which in turn leads to more violence, more abuse, more homicides against all women. I think what she said is dangerous enough that I had to write a post, which I hope reaches more people than her statement.
Until next time!
xoxo,
Bebe Bardeaux
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