Neon Wasteland

On Love, Motherhood, and Sex Work in a Rust Belt Town

Susan Dewey author

Format:Paperback

Publisher:University of California Press

Published:25th Jan '11

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

Neon Wasteland cover

This path-breaking book examines the lives of five topless dancers in the economically devastated 'rust belt' of upstate New York. With insight and empathy, Susan Dewey shows how these women negotiate their lives as parents, employees, and family members while working in a profession widely regarded as incompatible with motherhood and fidelity. Neither disparaging nor romanticizing her subjects, Dewey investigates the complicated dynamic of performance, resilience, economic need, and emotional vulnerability that comprises the life of a stripper. An accessibly written text that uses academic theories and methods to make sense of feminized labor, "Neon Wasteland" shows that sex work is part of the learned process by which some women come to believe that their self-esteem, material worth, and possibilities for life improvement are invested in their bodies.

"Dewey contributes to a growing wave of qualitative research on the sex industry." Choice "Fresh... As keen as it is thorough... Neon Wasteland is a provocative, highly readable analysis." -- Kate W. Read & Yasmina Katsulis, Arizona State University Tempe Social & Cultural Geography

ISBN: 9780520266919

Dimensions: 229mm x 152mm x 20mm

Weight: 408g

288 pages