The present study intends to provide an elaborate literature review and discussion about preliminary data on adult entertainment. As a highly diversified realm of public exposure of the body, there has been historical interest in the political regulation of such activities that psychology has not adequately conceptualized beyond an assumption of marginalization or medicalization.

In particular, my focus is on strip clubs and the public production of pleasure.

The presence of exotic dancers and a variety of spaces where there is a specific expectation about how to be spectators and how to be performers, has had a profound impact over major urban environments across history in terms of the incidence of different kinds of crimes in the areas surrounding these clubs. What is left under explored is the persistent growth of such places in cities like Atlanta, Georgia, where they made a huge contribution to the city’s economic expansion.

My ongoing research project aims to investigate the fist-person account of what is pleasure in life and what is pleasure in the workplace for strip-club dancers. More specifically, I am interested in the perception of what is considered productive and unproductive in strip performances in order to see how performers inhabit the border between leisure time and work time.

In this sense, my main goal is not to detect possible past traumatic experiences with later choices of becoming an exotic dancer, even if I will discus basic demographic information in relation to gender, social class, age, sexuality, ethnicity.

This presentation will be focused on some of these aspects together with a parallel analysis of what constitutes pleasure, leisure time, productive time, and attitudes toward sexuality, on the part of attendees to strip clubs.