Hoochy Coochy Dancing and Fantasy Love
“Why are you, with your impeccable credentials, studying nude dancing?” The question was asked by newspaper reporters to anthropologist, educator, writer and dance critic Judith Lynne Hanna when she did her field work on striptease clubs (also called exotic dance cabarets or gentlemen’s clubs). “I am an anthropologist,” Hanna bluntly explained. “Anthropologists study human behavior.” Hanna has been an expert court witness in cases related to freedom of speech and exotic dance in the United States, and in 
“Ethnography Challenges False Mythology” she analyzes how localities try to regulate striptease clubs out of business. We are proud to say that Hanna is co-editing the “Hoochy Coochy Dancing and Fantasy Love”-section of American Ethnography, in which we have gathered a handful of, dare we say, “sin-sational” stuff.
ILLUSTRATION COURTESY OF COOP
* hoochy coochy is slang for a sexually suggestive dance. • "She let her hair down and she did the hoochie-coochie real slow" (Elvis in Roustabout, 1964). • "[W]e … headed straight for North Clark Street … to see the hootchy-kootchy joints and hear the bop" (On The Road by Jack Kerouac, 1957).
Lap dancer:
Photographer Juliana Beasley worked eight years as a professional nude dancer, using her camera to document the clubs she worked in, her co-workers, and the customers. Here are some of her photos.
Dancing for Dollars:
Sociologist Danielle Egan also worked as a striptease dancer and wrote about it. Here is an excerpt from her book Dancing for Dollars and Paying for Love.
Lust-creating waltz:
In 1892 Thomas Faulkner writes in his From the Ball-Room to Hell about “the degrading lust-creating influence of the waltz.” It's hilarious reading, so we bring you chapter one, “First and Last Step,” from the book.
G-Strings and Sympathy:
Anthropologist Katherine Frank has written a beautiful book, G-Strings and Sympathy, analyzing the “regulars” (patrons who regularly visit a club to see a particular dancer) in the clubs she worked in as a stripper. We have a chapter from the book for you, “Searching for Escape.”
The nuisance dance:
Patsy Holden writes about the history of the Waltz and Swing, both once considered “a nuisance and the downfall of American society.”
Flaming Beauty:
In 2008 we interviewed burlesque legend Satan’s Angel, whose signature act is to light her tassels aflame, “then extinguishing the flames by means of strenuous mammary rotation.” (Thank you to England’s Daily Telegraph for that vivid technical description of Miss Angel’s act.)
Here is our conversation with the flaming beauty.
We’ve also put together a Satan’s Angel gallery.
The Art of Tease:
Feast your eyes on “the finest, raunchiest, most teasing poster art from the world of burlesque … ”
- American Ethnography Quasimonthly is published by the Intercontinental Institute for Awesome Anthropology and Ethnographic Excellence
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