Bare: The Naked Truth About Stripping (Live Girls)

Serious book about this topic. Not porn or erotica. The author is obviously a good journalist.

I thought this was a good story, especially when she writes about the other dancers and how dancing impacts their lives. The beginning, when she describes herself and her own motivations, interested me. She was a pretty tame and mild dancer. I felt like I understood the author's background and emotions, but they evolved over time and became more interesting. What was more unique was to follow the Zoe character as she deludes herself. I suspect Zoe's odd way of talking and communicating made her life somewhat of a challenge. I helped to manage / set-up about 20 - 30 bachelor parties for dancers when I was in college -- because I worked as security in a club. So the narrative was consistent with the dancers I knew and I remembered some times fondly. Working in a club is like a lot of life -- looking back we remember the good parts and forget the bad parts. The middle of the book was a bit slow, but the beginning and the end made it worth it. There are plenty of dancers and models who have done a lot worse things than this author. On the whole this story was uplifting.

I have to agree with another reader who described Eaves as a privileged woman appropriating a title to sell books. The stories about the other strippers she knew are interesting but Eaves' own story gets repetitive and lacking a certain credibility. I think the sociopolitical angle is just the author's excuse to talk about herself especially since she never comes to any real conclusion about the question she's been asking since page one, why am I so cold? why do i treat nice guys like crap? 327 pages of narcissism. But the stories about the other dancers are interesting.

Just as described thank you

Ms. Eaves' book is provocative. She knows the stripper/voyeur world from three perspectives: her own (as a performer); her understanding of other strippers' claims and laments; her perception of voyeur needs and behaviors. As such, her book is an important contribution to the sex worker literature. Ms. Eaves presents neither a condemnatory nor congratulatory examination of the stripper world. Hers is a more dispassionate analysis. Were I again teaching a course on Gender and Communication, I would be tempted to assign this book as an informative read, both from the perspective of one who's "been there, done that" and also as an example of interesting and meaningful ethnography.

Fantastic read.

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. This book gives the reader an inside look in the industry. It sort of starts out with a pro approach but ends quite differently. It really shows you the mental state of those who dance in the trade. Through that a reader can clearly see the connection between spirit, mind, and body. It shows how physical acts like working in a peep show exacts a toll on the mind of those who work in that business. Her descriptions of the people in the book are so real you feel like you know them. The motivations for working in the business are very varied. Then you can see through the author's stories how mentally they change as a result of the stresses incurred. The author doesn't really dive into the why to much. I also know there probably is more to the story she did not talk about for whatever the reason. The book flows really well. It is a real page turner. You will end this book definitely educated. Tom

Eaves writing is casual and readers need not be very tall to be able to ride this ride. The explicit commentary is actually quite tame. Youngsters get hit with more sex torpedoes on evening TV than anything 'Bare' details. As for the narrative... it is bland and fails to ever reach the conclusion it so desperately longs for. Eaves discusses her pubescent rise into young womanhood and she becomes a bit infatuated with her ability to attract men with her blossomed body. She boasts that she is skilled in school, and thus exploits said skill to maintain an independent life away from home, while simultaneously making an income at a relatively pacified voyeur-only strip club. All the while Eaves tries to add together what her 'gifts' mean in the grand scheme of her life that she quite literally attempts to storybook. In short, Eaves dabbles in the debate of whether an intelligent erotic dancer who does her work by choice rather than by some sort of sentenced, unfortunate fate is an exercise in feminine empowerment; but ultimately never does anything substantial with it. Is she just a stripper or an adventurer? A whore or a feminist male manipulator?... blah blah blah. It is routine, cliche, and Eaves never allows the reader to make up their own mind. Most of the time she assures the reader (or maybe it is her reassuring herself) that indeed she is above all of this, and her sexual prowess is merely a result of her being a biologically gifted female. Ultimately if you can manage to stomach her self-promoting, narcissistic, almost psychopathic (in the clinical, self-absorbed definition of the word) self indulgence, you quickly realize she will never offer the reader an interesting view on the 'big picture' because her eyes never leave her vanity mirror. That being said, the book gets two stars instead of one because Eaves' writing does evoke a unique insight, but not because she meant to put it there. A second run through on the novel (and a quick peek a Eaves rather plain Jane real-life appearance) unearths Eaves as not only intellectually unenlightened and short-sighted but also likely the antithesis of confident. Eaves' 'Bare' psyche is one of an unsure, deflated little girl with no real grip on worldly matters... despite an entire book written to convince us all (and herself) otherwise.