Popular Culture Review Vol. 11, No. 2, Summer 2000 | Page 69

S/he’s Got It All: Myths, Mechanics, and Mystery In Cross-Dressing Striptease and Burlesque Performers High Dancers and Cross Dressers The process of doing research into the social history and cultural significance of striptease and burlesque in the United States (since 1850) routinely uncovered the idea of faux, fake, or ersatz dancers— male perfomiers dancing as female without the collusion of the spectator. There is, of course, also a reality of cross-dressing performers filling the role of female on the boards. ‘'S/he’s Got It All” briefly outlines the enduring belief, among consumers of apparently heterosexual striptease events, that many of the performers are men. It also deals at some length with the mechanics, explained by cross-dressing entertainers, involved with the creation of this second layer of fiction (the first layer being the quality of intimacy brought about by transcending the “nonrial” protocols of decorum) (Donlon, 1997). The article is closed by discussing, and suggesting explanations for, the apparently enjoyable aroma of mystery the belief in ersatz exotic dancers bestows on individual audience members. Do Strippers Offer a Real Good Show, or a Good, Real Show? In a typical striptease performance today. Coco, or Pepper, or Cinnamon, or Tabasco, or Tiflany, or Vanilla, or Cameron slinks out onto the runway, propelled by the insistent beat of loud, bassy recorded music. S/he shimmies and s/he shakes, s/he quivers and s/he quakes, s/he slithers across the stage’s worn linoleum “on her belly like a reptile,” as one me put it. Beginning in fanciful raiment or complex motley, ending in the buff or, more likely, in some sort of G-string or sequinned brief, strippers get very well paid for strutting their stuff all over the United States. It is generally intuited that the disproportionally high income potential awaiting a successful dancer provides the main incentive. One performer, who worked her way through prestigious Brown University as a stripper, recently commented that, ironically, no job for which her costly degree prepared her paid nearly what she earned on stage (Mattson, 1995). And “TondaMarie,” appealing the IRS decision to refuse accepting her breast implants as a business expense, pointed out that her earnings zoomed from a decent $500 to $700 a week to $704,000 in the twenty- week period following the