Katherine Frank interviewed 30 of her regular clients for her PHD dissertation and her book ‘G-Strings and Sympathy: Strip Club Regulars and Male Desire’, a book about the relationship between strippers and their clients.
Frank also disputed the wide-spread belief that strip clubs give men unrealistic expectations of a woman’s body, revealing that the customers she experienced had a broad range of tastes.
Speaking about the association with strip clubs breaking up marriages, the Washington-based author admitted that whilst most of her clients were married, they did in fact wanted to stay married- the dancers satisfied an unfulfilled area in their lives.
‘In the chapter “The Crowded Bedroom,” I really wanted to question the whole idea of true intimacy. What does that even mean?'
'For the men who said that they were in love with their wives and wanted to stay married, what happened in the clubs was transgressive and real enough to be exciting, but was still a fantasy,’ she explained.
Frank also admitted that she would mind her husband visiting strip clubs- mainly because of the cost and lack of male strip clubs for women.
‘Honestly, I wouldn’t like it! For me, a lot of it is about the money - I don’t have the disposable income to spend on that kind of entertainment, and if he did have that kind of extra money, I’d want it to be fair.
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'Maybe if I could spend dollar for dollar somewhere else, but unfortunately, there aren't yet places where women can go pay hot young men to stroke their egos. That may come in the future.'
The feminist author revealed the confusion amongst her customers, over contradictory expectations laid on them by women. She explained that her male clients often felt confused by women expecting them to live up to traditional male roles sexually, whilst expecting them to be more emotional, but not objectifying them.
'These guys were struggling with how to deal with what they saw as women’s conflicting demands for both traditional masculine traits and more emotional presence'
'They felt repellent, that their wives and girlfriends could never accept their desires and that they could never ask advice about sex because they were supposed to somehow know everything.
'They were also confused by women’s desire to be called beautiful but not be objectified.'
Speaking about her experience as a dancer, Frank revealed that it increased her self-confidence and improved her attitude towards her body.
'I had really positive experiences dancing. I learned that men have a much more varied perception of what sort of bodies are beautiful or sexy than a lot of women think they do,’ she concluded.