RituaIs of Muted Labours
The Sexual Objectification of Women in Strip Clubs
Tiers of Transgression in Strip Clubs. Selepe, D. Unit 19. 2021.
Dimpho Selepe
MArch 2021Supervisors:
Unit Leader: Tuliza Sindi
Unit Tutor: Muhammad Dawjee
Unit Assistant: Lynette Breed
UNIT 19︎︎︎
The Act of Service: The Myth of Violence
The myth of violence of the research investigates the positioning of women’s bodies in society as mere sexual objects, with their sexuality existing only to serve Man (this refers to collective society as outlined in the Bible).
The ongoing practice of women being expected to subordinate their own will for the sexual gratification of men is overtly expressed in strip clubs (Dworkin: 1997), where even in the context of sexuality as currency, women’s professional limits are transgressed. The project investigates the ritual practice of stripping as one that upholds patriarchy in its most essential form; because women’s bodies are sexually exploited and commodified in these spaces (Rosewarne 2005:71).
The work approaches architecture as an enabler of the sexual objectification of women, as it reflects women as bodily appendages in space (Mulvey: 1985) (Rosewarne 2005:71).
The project is investigated at the scale of the body, and the scale of site, or 1:100. The project proposes an installation, installed in Maverick’s Gentlemen’s Club, as a reflection of a woman’s body in a strip club. An audience is prompted to create a disfigured and dismembered female body, which makes explicit the embodied concepts of women’s sexual objectification. The installations aim to re-humanise and remember the dismembered bodies of women and to reclaim the strip club space, for the sexual expression of women.
The ongoing practice of women being expected to subordinate their own will for the sexual gratification of men is overtly expressed in strip clubs (Dworkin: 1997), where even in the context of sexuality as currency, women’s professional limits are transgressed. The project investigates the ritual practice of stripping as one that upholds patriarchy in its most essential form; because women’s bodies are sexually exploited and commodified in these spaces (Rosewarne 2005:71).
The work approaches architecture as an enabler of the sexual objectification of women, as it reflects women as bodily appendages in space (Mulvey: 1985) (Rosewarne 2005:71).
The project is investigated at the scale of the body, and the scale of site, or 1:100. The project proposes an installation, installed in Maverick’s Gentlemen’s Club, as a reflection of a woman’s body in a strip club. An audience is prompted to create a disfigured and dismembered female body, which makes explicit the embodied concepts of women’s sexual objectification. The installations aim to re-humanise and remember the dismembered bodies of women and to reclaim the strip club space, for the sexual expression of women.
Keywords:
Sexual, Objectification, Women
Sexual, Objectification, Women
Copyright © 2022 Graduate School of Architecture, University of Johannesburg, South Africa. All Rights Reserved.