Paper short abstract:

On this paper, I want to discuss the changes on gender expression among male straight strippers that dance for gay men. Those changes may express certain kind of queerness on their masculine expression derived from their involvement with gay business culture and gay culture.

Paper long abstract:

Straight male masculinities are considered to be related to patriarchy and heterosexuality. However, as gender is malleable, in some cases, straight men perform certain queerness in their gender expression, in order to be able to be part of a group or as requirement of their economic activities, as is the case of male strippers that strip for a gay male audience.

In this paper, I describe these phenomena observed during a postdoctoral research that involved straight male strippers that work in gay bars. I wanted to identify changes in male dancers’ masculinity expression and how that was a result of the business and the clients’ expectation. Business culture and gay culture impulse them to make changes in the gender expression in order answer clients and business requirements.

The hypothesis that will guide this work is the following: As men’s gender is fluid it can be molded, in order to maintain their privilege status while at the same time they can disrupt some of the marks associated to heteronormativity without receiving any kind of social punishment.