Dancing Naked in the Material World [Hardcover]

Marilyn Futterman (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 137 pages
• Publisher: Prometheus Books (September 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 087975737X
• ISBN-13: 978-0879757373
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 8.6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #478,839 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I'm in the book, October 4, 2006

By 

Jo Weldon "Striptease Expertise" (New York, New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dancing Naked in the Material World (Hardcover)

This book came out about ten years after I posed for the photos in it, so it's very intense to look at them now. I was in my early twenties then, I'm in my midforties now. Although stripping wasn't an ideal job, I got just about exactly what I wanted out of it. Now I have a miraculous career as a cabaret and burlesque performer and teacher, and I always want to pay homage to my roots in the adult entertainment industry.

Being involved with this book was an amazing experience. As an activist and out stripper I've been interviewed and photographed and handled by the media a bit, and Marilyn was scrupulously honest and respectful with all of us. I was thrilled with the results when I saw the book, and it means a lot to me that the women I worked with in that era are represented so simply and clearly and realistically. The pictures tell stories words just can't.

I'm writing this review very late in the game, considering how long ago the book was published, but I just wanted to take a minute to give Marilyn props for being an ethical documentarian. A lot of them aren't.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Excellent Look at Nude Dancers, June 14, 2001

By 

F. Orion Pozo "Orion Pozo" (Raleigh, NC USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Dancing Naked in the Material World (Hardcover)

Marilyn Futterman is a photographer and this is largely a book of her photographs. Almost every other page contains a photograph or photographs and most of them are of women dancers in revealing costumes. Yet seldom are the pictures eroticized. They are documentary in nature. All are black-and-white and many use available light. Other were taken with on-camera flash, and still others were taken in a studio setting.

The text accompanying the pictures are the dancers own words. They talk about why they do this work and how they feel about dancing and the customers they dance for. Some are more articulate and insightful than others, but all are thoughtful and personal.

The book ends with an article, "Stripping for a Living," by Dr. Jacqueline Boles, a Sociology professor. It describes the history and current setting of nude dancing in American society. All in all, this is a well-conceived and executed documentary on an occupation halfway between entertainer and sex worker. It is a great book for anyone who has wondered about the women who dance in these clubs.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Barely interesting, April 4, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Dancing Naked in the Material World (Hardcover)

The stories told in this book are somewhat interesting and well written, but they are all basically the same. The book seems to go in no particular direction. It contains interviews with various stripppers, but it leaves alot of questions unanswered.