Working in the fantasy factory - The attention hypothesis and the enactingof masculine power in strip clubs

Using ethnographic data, this article argues that interactions between ship pers and their customers are vehicles for the conveyance of attention and t he enactment of masculine power in addition to being locations of erotic en tertainment. Rejecting the anti-sex-work feminist argument that erotic ente rtainment serves men by objectifying women this article argues instead that interactions in strip clubs rely on dancers as interactive subjects rather than as sex objects. Using Goffman's nation of "impression management" and Hochschild's notion of "emotional labor," this article presents an analysi s of strip club encounters that fits into into a feminist-interactionist fr amework.