'Stripping' helps men feed their self-esteem

Washington: The reason that male exotic dancers continue to strip is because it gives their self-esteem a boost, claims a new study.

The study by Maren Scull, an instructor of Sociology in the CU Denver College of Liberal Arts and Sciences focused on how exotic dancing influences the way male strippers view themselves.

Scull said that because stripping was a stigmatising occupation, it had the capacity to negatively affect exotic dancers' self-definitions. She found that stripping led to feelings of mattering, mastery and enhanced self-esteem.

Scull spent almost two years interviewing and observing male strippers, and found that unlike many female strippers who reported that it was the money that motivated them to remain involved in exotic dance, male strippers continued dancing because they experienced higher self-esteem and self-confidence.

Scull suggested these gendered differences were due to the fact that men and women ascribed different meanings to the objectification they experience while stripping.

Males enjoyed being objectified by audience members, Scull found. They did not define objectification with disempowerment and instead noted that they felt positive about being desirable.