Friday, April 24, 2015

Lesbian Go-Go Dancing

Hmm, maybe they should bring this to the Whiskey in L.A., the original home of go-go dancing.

At the Guardian UK, "Lesbian go-go dancing: subverting the gaze one sexy step at a time":
“I’m going to get naked as we chat,” Caitlyn informs me as she starts pulling off her shirt, rummaging around in a duffel bag for her go-go gear. “Sorry this room is so small. I have to share it with another dancer and a drag queen, and the drag queen leaves her stuff everywhere,” she says. She pulls a pair of fishnet tights out of her bag. “So what do you want to know?”

That’s a good question. It’s around 11pm on a Friday, and I’m perched on a chair in a changing room on the second floor of the Stonewall Inn in New York. I’m here to learn about the world of lesbian go-go dancing.

Caitlyn Seitz, who is maneuvering into fishnets in front of me, has been dancing here for the last three years, hyping up a largely gay-girl crowd at the popular Friday night Lesbo-a-Go-Go parties.

I’ve gone to a bunch of these parties and it has always struck me that the spectacle of a woman dancing half-naked for tips would, in a different context, be considered objectification. And yet, when a woman dances provocatively for other women – when you have lesbians exercising a female gaze – it intuitively feels far more equitable than a woman dancing for men. But is that really the case?
It's not "objectification" if women strip for other women.

The feminist hypocrisy. You gotta love it!

But keep reading.

(And hey, they do have lesbian go-go in Los Angeles, at the Abbey in WeHo, where else?)

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