Quantity:

More Buying Choices

54 used & new from $2.57

Have one to sell? Sell yours here

Express Checkout with PayPhrase

What's this? | Create PayPhrase

Share with Friends

Share your own customer images

Search inside this book

Tell the Publisher! I�d like to read this book on Kindle Don�t have a Kindle? Get your Kindle here.

Bare: The Naked Truth About Stripping (Live Girls) (Paperback)

~ (Author) "I had a deep distaste for clothing as a child..." (more)
Key Phrases: private pleasures booth, show directors, lap dancing, Lusty Lady, New York, San Francisco (more...)

3.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (37 customer reviews)

List Price:	$14.95
Price:	$10.17 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details
You Save:	$4.78 (32%)
	o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o

In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com. Gift-wrap available.

Only 1 left in stock--order soon (more on the way).

Want it delivered Tuesday, November 10? Choose One-Day Shipping at checkout. Details

23 new from $5.98 31 used from $2.57

Formats		Amazon Price	New from	Used from
Hardcover Available from these sellers. Published October 14, 2002	Hardcover	--	$4.77	$0.29
	See # more hardcovers
	Show fewer hardcovers
Paperback $10.17 In Stock. Published August 2, 2004	Paperback	$10.17	$5.98	$2.57
	See # more paperbacks
	Show fewer paperbacks

Frequently Bought Together

Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought

Stripped: Twenty Years of Secrets from Inside the Strip Club

by Brent Kenton Jordan

3.8 out of 5 stars (12) $12.98

Flesh for Fantasy: Producing and Consuming Exotic Dance

by Danielle Egan

4.5 out of 5 stars (2) $9.50

A Stripper's Tail: Confessions of a Las Vegas Stripper

by Diamond

3.5 out of 5 stars (35) $11.65

Stripped: Inside the Lives of Exotic Dancers

by Bernadette Barton

3.6 out of 5 stars (9) $11.84

Candy Girl: A Year in the Life of an Unlikely Stripper

by Diablo Cody

3.7 out of 5 stars (99) $5.60

› Explore similar items

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The term "feminist stripper" may be ironic, but it's "not an oxymoron," journalist Eaves explains, as she looks back on her own experiences working naked. In 1996, Eaves was in serious debt, dreaming of graduate school but unable to make house payments with her boyfriend, whom she no longer wanted to marry. She could keep working temp jobs or try stripping, which she knew paid more, although she didn't know what to think about it. Had these women "found a sort of freedom" she lacked? Peep show dancing was a revelation; it gave her control, as it was her body that had the power to give men the sexual release they desperately craved. While this sexual power was "exhilarating," it left Eaves somewhat "disappointed," confirming some of her low expectations of men. Given that most of the male (and a few female) lovers of the various strippers in this book found it impossible not to resent their partner's work, relationship strains emerge as one of the few real hazards of this apparently lucrative occupation. True, Eaves draws mostly on the experience of working at Seattle's Lusty Lady, a women-run business with better politics than the average sleazy strip joint, but her point remains: if stripping is a dangerous occupation for women, it's not the customers who're the threat, it's what it does to a woman's head. Eaves manages to avoid moralizing in favor of reportage, and despite the title's ominous promise, keeps the philosophizing to a minimum. BOMC, QPB, Venus and Inbook alternate selections.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist

*Starred Review* In her absorbing book, Eaves goes behind the scenes of the lucrative stripping business to examine the motivations, thoughts, and lives of the women who work in it and the men who patronize it. Much of Eaves' research is firsthand--she worked as a stripper at a Seattle strip joint called the Lusty Lady. While there, she examines both her own attitudes toward stripping and those of the women around her. Contrary to popular belief, not all strippers are "damaged" or man-haters; many are there out of curiosity or because they need the money. And it's good money--many strippers make more in one evening than some people do in an entire week at a more conventional job. The Lusty Lady is a peep show, but Eaves also interviews her coworkers, as well as women who work private parties and give lap dances. Eaves pushes herself, trying, at different times, both a private customer booth (with glass separating stripper and customer) and lap dancing, pushing her own limits. Eaves displays both a level of candid introspection rarely seen and a curiosity that she goes to great lengths to quench, leading to an utterly engrossing, accessible, and informative study. Kristine Huntley
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

Paperback: 312 pages
Publisher: Seal Press (August 3, 2004)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1580051219
ISBN-13: 978-1580051217
Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches
Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)

Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (37 customer reviews)

Amazon.com Sales Rank: #510,192 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

› Visit Amazon's Elisabeth Eaves Page

Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!

Inside This Book (learn more)

First Sentence:
I had a deep distaste for clothing as a child. Read the first page

Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
private pleasures booth, show directors, lap dancing, private shows, private dances

Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Lusty Lady, New York, San Francisco, First Avenue, Global Affairs Council, Central District, Hammering Man, Landmark Forum, Navy Guy, Victoria's Secret, Las Vegas, Marble Arch, Nice Guy Bri, Pike Place Market, Seal Press, Capitol Hill, Los Angeles, Lusty Ladies, University of Washington

New!
Books on Related Topics | Concordance | Text Stats

Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!

Citations (learn more)

This book cites 11 books:

The Lusty Lady by Erika Langley on page 53, and page 54
Mansfield Park (Signet Classics) by Jane Austen in Front Matter
Cunt: A Declaration of Independence Expanded and Updated Second Edition by Inga Muscio in Back Matter
Under Her Skin: How Girls Experience Race in America (Live Girls) by Pooja Makhijani in Back Matter
Body Outlaws: Rewriting the Rules of Beauty and Body Image (Live Girls) by Ophira Edut in Back Matter

See all 11 books this book cites

4 books cite this book:

Indecent: How I Make It and Fake It as a Girl for Hire by Sarah Katherine Lewis in Back Matter
The Hateful and the Obscene: Studies in the Limits of Free Expression (Toronto Studies in Philosophy) by L.W. Sumner in Back Matter
Stripped: Inside the Lives of Exotic Dancers by Bernadette Barton in Back Matter
Stripped: Inside the Lives of Exotic Dancers by Bernadette Barton in Back Matter

Books on Related Topics (learn more)

Flesh for Fantasy by Danielle Egan

Discusses:

What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?

	47% buy the item featured on this page: Bare: The Naked Truth About Stripping (Live Girls) 3.6 out of 5 stars (37) $10.17
	16% buy A Stripper's Tail: Confessions of a Las Vegas Stripper 3.5 out of 5 stars (35) $11.65
	12% buy Stripped: Twenty Years of Secrets from Inside the Strip Club 3.8 out of 5 stars (12) $12.98
	12% buy Stripped: Inside the Lives of Exotic Dancers 3.6 out of 5 stars (9) $11.84

Explore similar items

Tags Customers Associate with This Product

(What's this?)

Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.

girlfriends(1)

girls gone wild(1)

playboy(1)

sex(1)

topless(1)

Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store

If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store. Learn more

Customer Reviews

37 Reviews

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(4)

Average Customer Review

3.6 out of 5 stars (37 customer reviews)

Share your thoughts with other customers:

Create your own review

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

27 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars another [dancer], September 20, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Bare: On Women, Dancing, Sex, and Power (Hardcover)

At first, I enjoyed the engaging conversational style of the author and could identify with many of her thoughts on the world around her. But frankly, I had to force myself to finish the last two sections of the book. Why?

Basically, because this is a book by yet another middle-class white girl from a good family who has an education and danced at a nice peep-show for a single year and decided that it just totally screwed up her life. So much so that she had to go back and try it again.

In her struggles for finding her motivation, she overlooks the main reason of why 99% of us [take our clothes off]: money, pure and simple. Trying to find the deeper meaning in using stereotyped ... roles to her advantage in her job, she twists herself into whiny knots about it all. For Pete's sake, she danced at a rather nice peep-show, not a Tijuana trick bar, and she never had to really interact with her customers if she didn't want to. Another minus is that she can't seem to get out of bad relationships, (like most women, really), or figure out what she wants in life (common to most people, I imagine). She also reports in exhaustive detail about the .../dancers she hangs out with. She managed to pick girlfriends who were screwed up as well, which is probably why they had so much free time to socialize with each other.

Overall, this book tells a lot about the Lusty Lady in Seattle, ... Other than her Lusty Lady stories, she just went into a lot of detail about her and her friends' lives (more than you'll ever wish to know) and pondered the meaning of it all.

She brought up some good points about men, women, [pysical activity] and the balance of power between the sexes, but mostly ignored money issues ...For some reason, she is continually confounded by the whole idea of stage names. She spent a lot of time focused on her own good looks, but never seemed to try and put herself in the shoes of a women who wasn't so good-looking and how her perception of the world might be changed. For a former Reuters reporter, her refusal to pull her head out ... and try to take an objective step back is quite amazing.

I give this book 3 stars because I made it � of the way through before I was just sick of her. I'm still waiting for a realistic [dancer] book, preferably from a girl who looks at this as a job, not a life-altering event, and then moves on with her life. Once you hang up those platforms, babe, they should stay hung up.

Comment Comment (1) | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)

19 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A horrible read on stripping but fair assesment of peep show, March 3, 2005

By	Scarlet Imp (Seattle, WA) - See all my reviews

This is probably one of the worst stipping books I've read simply because it doesn't include actual stripping (other than some limited and misleading chapters at the end). Peep show booths are one aspect of sex work but it is erronous to equate it with stripping (one you start naked, the other you perform a tease, the first you rarely have contact with costumers, the second you have intensive contact with customers, at the Lusty Lady you can earn an hourly wage, most strippers have to hustle and their income is always in flux, etc).

I strip in Seattle at an actual strip club. I know a few who work at the Lusty Lady and not a one refers to herself as a "stripper." Aside from that issue, the author should never have been in sex work in the first place. One of the primary rules is that you must be able to diferentiate between your work and your personal life. If you cannot, then you should not do it. The author did not follow common sense and is left confused and feels a need to justify her one year experience.

From a feminist aspect, I felt she failed to accurately represent the dynamic between a dancer and a customer (probably because her experience in that is very limited considering she sits there naked and the exchange starts for her after they have already paid). Also, I receive a fair amount of couples and female customers which are completely absent in her experiences and so in her reasoning.

Her explanations of fellow peep show workers are those that also seem to have difficulty seperating work from personal life (perhaps they attracted each other in friendship because other workers would have been negative or dismissive of such concerns).

I'm hesitant to call them dancers. Dancing is physically exausting (ever try to climb a pole of slick metal and hang upside down?). Also, dancing is meant as a tease, you push someone in an erotic manner but never permit them release. Masterbating alters the dynamic and is a clear difference between peep show booths and stripping (in this, I'm assuming US laws and "clean" dancers."

Overall, it's fine if you want to read a warning for what happens when you aren't emotionally capable of doing sex work and care to see someone trying to come to terms with it years later.

Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)

23 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Worthwhile to those that are interested...., December 17, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Bare: On Women, Dancing, Sex, and Power (Hardcover)

This is a good book, well worth your time and money. The author's primary motivation for writing the book (imho) is to create an educational, inside look at the strip club world, especially attempting to teach readers that the subculture of stripping/dancing is populated by many independent, intelligent, and multi-talented women. I'm not sure that this will be enough of a revelation to keep the average reader fully engrossed in the theme of the book, but if it helps to eliminate a blanket generalization of the dancer as a defective or ignoramus, the book will have succeeded in a literary, if not monetary sense. It's hard to imagine this book becoming a big seller, because the widespread preconceptions about women who dance in the sex industry for money is a immediate turn-off for many. If you take the plunge, though, you'll find a well written book that attempts to examine the motivation of women who choose this line of work, however temporarily. The author is insightful, and explores both the positive and negative aspects of dancing in a fair, objective light.

The main message as a man that I would take from this book is this: Except in the rarest of circumstances, you are being sold an illusion at a rather high price. Dabble in the world of flesh if you must, but examine your own reasons as to why you do so in an entirely non-judgmental, non-moralistic manner. At the end of the day, virtually nothing you will have seen is at all real, and the quest to find otherwise may leave you no wiser and considerably poorer. Dancers can be wonderful therapists and very special people.....but you will never be any closer to them than your wallet allows.....and that is the wistful yet disappointing truth. (And, in the end, on their side of the glass, it is generally no better for them to take your money for a variety of entrapping or mercenary reasons....and ultimately, no more fulfilling.)

Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)

Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review

› See all 37 customer reviews...

Most Recent Customer Reviews

1.0 out of 5 stars Book was a little dull
Book was a little dull. Book seems as if it's two different stories. Book was very slow and I didn't enjoy the author and her ideas on strippers and stripping.

Published 11 months ago by A. Fawcett

3.0 out of 5 stars Shallow and over long
I have to agree with another reader who described Eaves as a privileged woman appropriating a title to sell books. Read more

Published 13 months ago by K. Anderson

3.0 out of 5 stars A look inside
This book is interesting but not for reasons I think most people will initially want. If you are looking for a hot juicy porn book this is not your book. Read more

Published 16 months ago by Thomas M. Magee

2.0 out of 5 stars actual strippers please
Elizabeth Eaves never worked as a real stripper. In her book "Bare: the Naked Truth About Stripping" she refused to dance at a real club where lapdances are the primary way the... Read more

Published 16 months ago by Jessica A. Trimbath

5.0 out of 5 stars A ground breaking book
This is one of the best memoirs of this year. The author takes difficult material--sex workers--and very eloquently and clearly paints a picture of personal, inter-personal,... Read more

Published 24 months ago by Ruthe Willis

3.0 out of 5 stars Hrm.
I have lately begun reading more books that have been cliassified as "women's studies" books. Gender studies books have always intrigued me and this one, not any less than the... Read more

Published on May 6, 2006 by lawliss

2.0 out of 5 stars unsatisfying on multiple levels
Most of the people looking at this book most likely already have an interest in women's studies, feminism, and the like. If that's you, you're going to be disappointed. Read more

Published on March 30, 2006 by A.J.

4.0 out of 5 stars Compelling read but not what I expected
This book is and is not what the cover says it is: the "naked truth about stripping". On one hand, Eaves does a great job giving readers insight into her world and the ups and... Read more

Published on December 22, 2005 by Reviewer

5.0 out of 5 stars Really insider- and not what I expected.
I think if anyone is looking for hardcore lust at the root of why strippers go into sripping they are going to be let down-- that is the male fantasy around stripping, Eaves... Read more

Published on October 28, 2005 by SmallWorldAfterAll

4.0 out of 5 stars Truly a great read, but pornography it is not
I love the review before mine by ComicCostumes, the one line dis-- I've read his other review of a japan anime video where he commends the "well placed panty shots. Read more

Published on October 27, 2005 by BikerChic

› See all 37 customer reviews...

.jsOffDisplayBlock { display: block; } .jsOffDisplayInline { display: inline; } .jsOffVisibility { visibility: visible; } .jsOnDisplayBlock { display: none; } .jsOnDisplayNoneBlock { display: block; } .jsOnDisplayNoneInline { display: inline; } .jsOnDisplayInline { display: none; } .jsOnVisibility { visibility: hidden; } .jqOnDisplayBlock { display: none; } .jqOnDisplayInline { display: none; } .jqOnVisibility { visibility: hidden; } .jqOnDisplayNoneBlock { display: block; } .jqOnDisplayNoneInline { display: inline; }

Customer Discussions

This product's forum

Discussion	Replies	Latest Post
No discussions yet

Ask questions, Share opinions, Gain insight

Start a new discussion

Topic:

First post:

Receive e-mail when new posts are made

Prompts for sign-in

Guidelines

Active discussions in related forums

Discussion	Replies	Latest Post
health Male circumcision.	4460	2 hours ago
health Why oppose health care reform?	1097	3 hours ago
biography So has anyone preordered Sarahs book?	41	5 hours ago
biography Judicial biographies anyone?	20	1 day ago
textbook Textbooks for Kindle DX?	61	1 day ago
memoir Have You Written a Memoir - Come Tell Us About It.	1224	1 day ago
memoir Most satisfying memoirs?	27	2 days ago