Flexible Workers

Teela Sanders is Reader in sociology at the University of Leeds with qualifications in both sociology and social work. Working at the intersections of sociology, criminology and social policy, she has published extensively in areas germane to sexuality/gender and regulation. Monographs to date include: Sex Work. A Risky Business (Cullompton: Willan 2005), Paying for Pleasure: Men who Buy Sex, (Cullompton: Willan, 2008). Co-authored texts include Prostitution: Sex Work, Policy and Practice (Sage, 2009). She has co-edited, New Sociologies of Sex Work (Ashgate, 2010), Body/Sex/Work – intimate, embodied and sexualised labour (Palgrave, 2013) and Social Policies and Social Control: New Perspectives on the Not-so-Big Society (Policy Press, 2014).Kate Hardy is a Lecturer in Work and Employment Relations at the Leeds University Business School. Her research explores a feminist political economy of labour, with a particular focus on non-standard forms of work and the intersections between paid and non-paid forms of labour, work, employment and the body. Her research and scholarship is informed by a commitment to social change and a desire to bridge academia and activism through involvement in the feminist movement and other spaces of political activity. She has co-edited Body/Sex/Work – intimate, embodied and sexualised labour (Palgrave, 2013) and New Sociologies of Sex Work (Ashgate, 2010) and has articles in a number of journals, including the British Journal of Sociology, Work, Employment and Society and Emotion, Space and Society.

‘If you want to be illuminated about what happens in the confines of the erotic dancing club, this is certainly the book to read. It is outstanding at challenging the myths circulated in popular culture. Its uniqueness is based on bringing a global perspective on a relational labour economy to a local form of consumption by interweaving the voices of the dancers, managers and owners through a nuanced analysis of why, what and how.’ - Beverley Skeggs, Professor of Sociology, Goldsmiths, University of London, UK‘Flexible Workers lives up to its promise to consider the voices of exotic dancers in dialogue with wider political, economic, and legal shifts in the UK. Moving beyond micro-sociological analyses of the strip club, Sanders and Hardy present a holistic exploration of the landscape of exotic dance, focusing on the social and economic conditions that produce and enable its consumption. The impact of widespread social changes, exploitative labor markets, and ill-founded regulation is deftly illustrated through interviews with dancers, whose bodies are too often disciplined and controlled in the name of "protection".’ - Katherine Frank, Scholar-in-Residence, American University, USA 'Flexible Workers is successful in setting out what it aims to do, offering the reader significant insight into the UK stripping industry, informing policy, challenging the ‘mythologies’ associated with it and situating this form of labour within the wider politicaleconomy, rather than simply discussing it within the context of other sex-industries. This book is highly recommended to anyone researching, studying or working in the stripping industry, as it clearly is, and will continue to be, a key text in this field of study.'— Rachela Colosi, University of Lincoln, UK. Sociology (Sage)

• Introduction: Beyond the Stripping Wars Chapter 1. Locating the Strip-Based Entertainment Industry Chapter 2. From Pathology to Labour: The Discursive Landscape of Strip Clubs, Workers and Regulation Chapter 3. Empty shell licensing: law, reform and Sexual Entertainment Venues Chapter 4. The race to the bottom: working conditions and value production in the strip club Chapter 5. Professionals, pragmatists and strategists: Understanding labour supply in the UK strip industry Chapter 6. "No dancer ever earns money out of the pole": Attentive economies of stripping work Chapter 7. Falling through the regulatory gap: managing and licensing stripping Chapter 8. Speaking back: the feminist and class politics of stripping Conclusions. Proliferation, stagnation or decline? The UK strip industry now and beyond Dancers Interviewed.