Lapdancer

by Juliana Beasley (Photographer)

Determined to supplement her meager income as a novice photographer, Juliana Beasley embarked on an eight-year odyssey as a professional nude dancer, specializing in “lap dances,” during which a woman dances above a seated customer, erotically brushing against his body. From New York to Reno, Beasley worked in over two dozen strip clubs, dancing for twenty dollars a song, experiencing the rewards and pitfalls of the variable income, flexible schedules, emotional and physical exhaustion, sex industry camaraderie—and an arrest for prostitution.

Though she was a professional dancer, Beasley never forgot the purpose of her studies in documentary work. Along with negligees and stilettos, she regularly brought a camera to the clubs, and began recording testimonies from the managers, dancers, and patrons. The result is Lapdancer , an inside look at the world of professional nude dancing. Culled from thousands of photographs and hours of interviews, Beasley documents an oft-derided but rarely understood culture—one tightly codified by rules and behavior, and peopled with characters from a David Lynch film.

Through these pictures and interviews Beasley—a sex industry Virgil—guides us through the erotic dancer circuit, detailing its ruthless economic underpinnings and the intimate, anonymous currency between dancer and customer. Here, at what was once society’s fringe, Beasley depicts mainstream culture’s new evolving definitions of sexuality, gender politics, capitalism, therapy—even love.

Genres: Photography

160 pages, Hardcover

First published April 1, 2003

Reviews

[Washingtonp0st]

Wow omg. Her writing is amazing, the interviews are sooooooo good. I cried so much. I couldn’t even look at the photos properly I was so disgusted but they really are beautiful and thoughtful. Probably my favourite photobook ever.

[Jessi]

This was an okay book. I just wish I had found it a little closer to when I first read about it in 2010. I was hoping for more of an autobiography. It turns out this is more photographs and writings about other people's experiences.

[S]

Real, like I like 'em.

[LaLa]

When a photographer lives in the world that they record for years and years, there is a difference in the photographs. These are surprisingly emotional and multilayered.