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Imagined and Embodied Spaces in the Global Sex Industry
Author(s) -
Penttinen Elina
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
gender, work and organization
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.159
H-Index - 73
eISSN - 1468-0432
pISSN - 0968-6673
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-0432.2007.00379.x
Subject(s) - subjectivity , embodied cognition , gender studies , narrative , agency (philosophy) , temporality , sociology , globalization , aesthetics , subject (documents) , clothing , history , epistemology , art , political science , social science , philosophy , literature , computer science , archaeology , library science , law
This article investigates the space of a sex bar in Finland as a global conjuncture in which new forms of gendered and ethnicized subjectivity and agency emerge. The commercial sex culture in Finland is seen as an effect of the globalization of the world economy and culture. The subjectivities formed in a sex bar are analysed according to Irigaray's formulation of a heterosexual matrix in which women embody a specular function that enables the formation of the masculine subject. This is developed by analysing the position of erotic dancers as listening bodies who perform a position of someone who cares. The narrative method is used to show the constraints and possibilities of these embodied positions and their organization in a sex bar. This is emphasized by the opening narrative that presents the client and the erotic dancer ‘the morning after’, emphasizing the situatedness and temporality of subjectivities created in a sex bar.