Lusty Lady
Encyclopedia
Peep show
A peep show or peepshow is an exhibition of pictures, objects or people viewed through a small hole or magnifying glass. Though historically a peep show was a form of entertainment provided by wandering showmen, nowadays it more commonly refers a presentation of a sex show or pornographic film...
establishment in the North Beach
North Beach, San Francisco, California
North Beach is a neighborhood in the northeast of San Francisco adjacent to Chinatown, Fisherman's Wharf and Russian Hill. The neighborhood is San Francisco's Little Italy, and has historically been home to a large Italian American population. It still holds many Italian restaurants today, though...
district of San Francisco
San Francisco, California
San Francisco , officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.15 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland...
. It was also the name of another now-defunct location in downtown Seattle. It was made famous by the labor activism of its San Francisco workers.
History
The Seattle Lusty Lady, known originally as the Amusement Center, was opened in the 1970s by two business associates, who soon after opened the other location in San Francisco. Originally, both Lusty Ladys showed 16mm peep show films only, but in 1983 live nude dancers were added and became the main focus of the businesses. Until 2003 they were both owned by the same company; in that year the San Francisco franchise was bought by the stripperStripper
A stripper is a professional erotic dancer who performs a contemporary form of striptease at strip club establishments, public exhibitions, and private engagements. Unlike in burlesque, the performer in the modern Americanized form of stripping minimizes the interaction of customer and dancer,...
s working there and began to be managed as a worker cooperative
Worker cooperative
A worker cooperative is a cooperative owned and democratically managed by its worker-owners. This control may be exercised in a number of ways. A cooperative enterprise may mean a firm where every worker-owner participates in decision making in a democratic fashion, or it may refer to one in which...
. The San Francisco branch had already entered the news in 1997 when it became the first (and as of 2009 only) successfully unionized
Trade union
A trade union, trades union or labor union is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with...
sex business in the U.S. (The San Diego strip club Pacer's had seen a unionization effort in the early 1990s, but it was short-lived.)
The Seattle branch closed in June 2010.
Operation
The operation of the San Francisco and Seattle locations was similar.The Lusty Lady features exotic dancers (at the San Francisco location nicknamed, "Lusties") in a peep show
Peep show
A peep show or peepshow is an exhibition of pictures, objects or people viewed through a small hole or magnifying glass. Though historically a peep show was a form of entertainment provided by wandering showmen, nowadays it more commonly refers a presentation of a sex show or pornographic film...
setting on both a main stage and in a one-on-one booth.
The main stage features several nude women dancing or posing provocatively, separated by glass windows from the customers who each stand in their own booth, paying by the minute. No tipping is possible and the dancers are paid an hourly wage. (The top wage for dancers in Seattle in 2001 was $27 per hour, the top wage in San Francisco in 2003 was $26 per hour.)
Some of the booths in the Seattle operation had one-way mirror glass; these were removed in San Francisco after worker protests. The dancers are also available for one-on-one shows (known as "Private Pleasures") in glass-separated private booths where tipping is possible. The Private Pleasures booths also occasionally feature "Double Trouble" shows, with two dancers who may perform a lesbian
Lesbianism in erotica
Depiction of lesbianism has been a relatively common theme in erotic art and pornography throughout history. Studies indicate that heterosexual men were more aroused by depictions involving lesbian sex than they are by depictions of heterosexual activity, while heterosexual and lesbian women were...
sex show
Sex show
A sex show is a form of live performance that features one or more performers engaging in some form of sexual activity on stage for the entertainment or sexual gratification of spectators. Performers are paid either by the spectators or by the organisers of the show. A performance would involve an...
. In addition, coin-operated booths showing adult videos are available.
Lusty Lady occasionally features "art days", exhibiting erotic photographs and paintings in the hallways. In February 2002, both peep shows featured a video art exhibition called "Peepshow 28", with one channel in all video booths devoted to showing a sequence of 64 short videos exploring voyeurism, exhibitionism and sexuality.
Once a year, Lusty Lady organizes a "Play Day": the dancers walk around, explain the operation of the club to customers, and allow behind-the-scenes peeks.
Seattle
47°36′24.8"N 122°20′18.5"WThe Seattle Lusty Lady opened in the 1970s and moved to its final location at 1315 First Avenue in downtown Seattle near Pike Place Market
Pike Place Market
Pike Place Market is a public market overlooking the Elliott Bay waterfront in Seattle, Washington, United States. The Market opened August 17, 1907, and is one of the oldest continually operated public farmers' markets in the United States. It is a place of business for many small farmers,...
in 1985. The club was well known for its frequently changing and often amusing marquee announcements. The Lusty Lady is immediately across the street from the Seattle Art Museum
Seattle Art Museum
The Seattle Art Museum is an art museum located in Seattle, Washington, USA. It maintains three major facilities: its main museum in downtown Seattle; the Seattle Asian Art Museum in Volunteer Park on Capitol Hill, and the Olympic Sculpture Park on the central Seattle waterfront, which opened on...
and the marquee often commented on current exhibits or the Hammering Man
Hammering Man
Hammering Man is a series of monumental kinetic sculptures designed by Jonathan Borofsky which have been installed in various cities around the world.-Frankfurt:...
statue. Mimi Gates, stepmother of Bill Gates
Bill Gates
William Henry "Bill" Gates III is an American business magnate, investor, philanthropist, and author. Gates is the former CEO and current chairman of Microsoft, the software company he founded with Paul Allen...
and director of the Seattle Art Museum, said "The Lusty Lady's marquee is a Seattle landmark."
In 2006, the Seattle Lusty Lady survived a threatened wrecking ball when the building's owner, a Seattle family, refused a multi-million-dollar tear-down offer from developers of a new Four Seasons Hotel
Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts
Four Seasons Hotels, Inc. is a Canadian-based international ultra-luxury, five-star hotel management company. Travel + Leisure magazine and Zagat Survey rank the hotel chain's 84 properties among the top luxury hotels worldwide...
next door. The owners instead received $850,000 "for air rights to the views over their property". Employees celebrated by posting on their reader board: "We're Open, Not Clothed!"
In January 2010, police arrested a peeping tom
Voyeurism
In clinical psychology, voyeurism is the sexual interest in or practice of spying on people engaged in intimate behaviors, such as undressing, sexual activity, or other activity usually considered to be of a private nature....
in the Lusty Lady who had climbed up from a viewing booth into the ceiling crawl space overhead, then partly crashed through the glass ceiling above the stage.
On Sunday April 11, 2010, the Lusty Lady in Seattle announced that it would be closing its doors for business in June. The economic climate and the rise of Internet pornography were cited as reasons for closing.
On June 28, 2010, the iconic Lusty Lady marquee was removed from the Seattle location.
Books
The 1997 book The Lusty Lady by photographer Erika Langley documents the work in the Seattle branch of Lusty Lady. It includes photos by Langley (who had worked there as a dancer since 1992) as well as essays by a number of Lusty Lady dancers, who vary considerably in their attitudes toward their customers and toward their work. In 2000, some of the photos were exhibited in the Seattle Art MuseumSeattle Art Museum
The Seattle Art Museum is an art museum located in Seattle, Washington, USA. It maintains three major facilities: its main museum in downtown Seattle; the Seattle Asian Art Museum in Volunteer Park on Capitol Hill, and the Olympic Sculpture Park on the central Seattle waterfront, which opened on...
, across the street from the Lusty Lady.
Elisabeth Eaves
Elisabeth Eaves
Elisabeth Eaves is a Canadian author and journalist, born in Vancouver, British Columbia. She has been the opinions page editor at the tablet newspaper The Daily since its launch in 2011. From 2006 to 2010 she worked as a writer and editor at magazine, where in 2008 and 2009 she also wrote a...
, who had stripped at the Lusty Lady in 1997, completed graduate school and returned in 2000 to write a book about stripping in general and her experiences in particular, Bare: On Women, Dancing, Sex, and Power, published in 2002.
Victoria Yee Howe, who danced at the Lusty Lady from 2002-2005, published a fanzine in 2011 about the customers she met and her experiences as a live nude girl, particularly in the private 'Private Pleasures' booth, called 'Done Did Cum Came'.
Popular culture references
The Seattle Lusty Lady was featured in the 1992 film American HeartAmerican Heart
American Heart is a 1993 film by Martin Bell, starring Edward Furlong and Jeff Bridges. It was nominated for the Independent Spirit Award in a number of categories, and won in the Best Male Lead category.-Synopsis:...
. The first murder in the 1996 pilot
Television pilot
A "television pilot" is a standalone episode of a television series that is used to sell the show to a television network. At the time of its inception, the pilot is meant to be the "testing ground" to see if a series will be possibly desired and successful and therefore a test episode of an...
of the TV series Millennium
Millennium (TV series)
Millennium is an American television series created by Chris Carter, creator of The X-Files. Millennium aired on the Fox Network from 1996 to 1999. The series was filmed in Vancouver, British Columbia, though most episodes were ostensibly set in or around Seattle, Washington...
takes place in a Seattle peep show modeled on the Lusty Lady. Episode 18 (first aired 1997) of HBO's Real Sex
Real Sex
Real Sex is a television series broadcast on and a production of HBO. As its name implies, Real Sex is a sexually explicit "magazine" which "explores sex '90s style."...
series featured a visit to the Seattle Lusty Lady.
The theater show My Time With the Lady is a first-person account about working at the Lusty Lady by a long-time janitor and bouncer. It opened in Seattle in August 2010.
San Francisco
37°47′51"N 122°24′20"WThe San Francisco Lusty Lady is located at 1033 Kearny Street
Kearny Street
Kearny Street in San Francisco, California runs north from Market Street to The Embarcadero, with a gap on Telegraph Hill. Toward its south end, it separates the Financial District from the Union Square and Chinatown districts. Further north, it passes over Telegraph Hill.-History:Kearny Street...
, in the Broadway
Broadway Street (San Francisco)
Broadway is an east-west street in San Francisco that runs from The Embarcadero to the Cow Hollow district. The neon-lined stretch of Broadway through North Beach is the city's red-light district, home to strip clubs and other adult businesses, as well as many nightclubs and bars, and has been...
strip club district of North Beach
North Beach, San Francisco, California
North Beach is a neighborhood in the northeast of San Francisco adjacent to Chinatown, Fisherman's Wharf and Russian Hill. The neighborhood is San Francisco's Little Italy, and has historically been home to a large Italian American population. It still holds many Italian restaurants today, though...
.
It is open 24 hours a day.
Unionization
Several grievances led to the unionizing effort in 1997. African AmericanAfrican American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
feminist sociologist Siobhan Brooks
Siobhan Brooks
Siobhan Brooks is an African American lesbian feminist sociologist known for her work with African American women in the sex worker industry and feminist issues affecting these women. She holds a B.A. in women's studies from San Francisco State University, and a Ph.D...
while working at the club had noticed that African American dancers were discriminated against and filed a complaint. The precipitating event was the installation of one-way mirrors in a number of booths (which also exist in the Seattle branch), resulting in some customers taking photos and videos of the show.
Among the leaders of the organizing drive was the stripper Julia Query who documented the efforts on video, resulting in the documentary
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
Live Nude Girls Unite!, written and directed by Vicky Funari and Julia Query.
After a vote of the employees, the business was organized by the Exotic Dancers Union, an affiliate of Service Employees International Union
Service Employees International Union
Service Employees International Union is a labor union representing about 1.8 million workers in over 100 occupations in the United States , and Canada...
, then a member of AFL-CIO
AFL-CIO
The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, commonly AFL–CIO, is a national trade union center, the largest federation of unions in the United States, made up of 56 national and international unions, together representing more than 11 million workers...
, Local 790. The Bay Area Sex Worker Advocacy Network (BAYSWAN)
BAYSWAN
Bay Area Sex Worker Advocacy Network , is a non-profit organization in the San Francisco Bay Area which works to improve working conditions, increase benefits, and eliminate discrimination on behalf of individuals working within both legal and criminalized adult entertainment industries...
provided website support for the workers' unionization effort, which helped to garner public support for the workers as well as inquiries from other exotic dancers and sex workers throughout the country.
Former Lusty Lady employee Siobhan Brooks
Siobhan Brooks
Siobhan Brooks is an African American lesbian feminist sociologist known for her work with African American women in the sex worker industry and feminist issues affecting these women. She holds a B.A. in women's studies from San Francisco State University, and a Ph.D...
commented in a 1997 article that "In some cases the media misquoted us as being the first strip club to unionize. But the first strip club to unionize was Pacer's in San Diego. However, Pacer's union, Hotel Management, Employee Management, Local 30, negotiated an open clause in its contract. Open shop means there's no requirement that employees join the union, so the club recruited workers and discouraged them from joining the union and were able to decertify the union."
Worker cooperative
After management cut hourly compensation at the San Francisco Lusty Lady in 2003, the workers struck and won, but the closure of the peep show was announced soon after. The subsequent efforts to turn the club into a worker cooperativeWorker cooperative
A worker cooperative is a cooperative owned and democratically managed by its worker-owners. This control may be exercised in a number of ways. A cooperative enterprise may mean a firm where every worker-owner participates in decision making in a democratic fashion, or it may refer to one in which...
were led by Donna Delinqua (stage name), a stripper and graduate student in English. Other cooperatives provided input, among them the worker-owned San Francisco sex-toy business Good Vibrations.
The workers bought the club for $400,000, with money borrowed from the old owners. In 1996, the club had had a revenue of almost $3 million; by 2003 this had fallen by 40%. The monthly rent was $13,442 in 2003 and had doubled over the preceding three years. The club had a revenue of about $27,000 per week in the first half of 2006.
After the change in ownership, the union was retained, but some changes in management were instituted. While dancers had been regularly evaluated by managers before, now a peer review
Peer review
Peer review is a process of self-regulation by a profession or a process of evaluation involving qualified individuals within the relevant field. Peer review methods are employed to maintain standards, improve performance and provide credibility...
process was established wherein dancers evaluate each other. The team leaders are elected from among the dancers for six month terms.
A dispute began in the summer of 2006 when a male employee wrote a confidential email to the co-op board, complaining that hiring of too many heavy women drove customers away, thus lowering every employee's income. One member of the board posted the message on a message board, causing considerable consternation among dancers. The board member was dismissed. Two of the male employees have argued that the union should be abandoned as not useful in a worker-owned cooperative. On its website, the Lusty Lady describes a worker-owned business as "a rare and ideal situation" but "not without its challenges" and discusses how the workers address these challenges.
Books
Lily BuranaLily Burana
Lily Burana is an American writer whose publications include the memoir I Love a Man in Uniform , the novel Try Lily Burana is an American writer whose publications include the memoir I Love a Man in Uniform (Weinstein Books, 2009), the novel Try Lily Burana is an American writer whose publications...
, who stripped for a time at the San Francisco Lusty Lady, wrote about her experiences there and in other strip clubs in her 2001 book Strip City: A Stripper's Farewell Journey Across America. Carol Queen
Carol Queen
Carol Queen is an American author, editor, sociologist and sexologist active in the sex-positive feminism movement. Queen has written on human sexuality in books such as Real Live Nude Girl: Chronicles of Sex-Positive Culture...
also wrote about her time dancing at the Lusty Lady, in her 2003 book Real Live Nude Girl: Chronicles of a Sex-Positive Culture.
Books
- Burana, Lily. 2001. Strip City: A Stripper's Farewell Journey Across America. ISBN 0-7868-6790-6
- Eaves, Elisabeth. 2002. Bare: The Naked Truth About Stripping ISBN 0-375-41233-6
- Langley, Erika. 1997. The Lusty Lady ISBN 3-931141-59-4
- Queen, Carol. 2003. Real Live Nude Girl: Chronicles of a Sex-Positive Culture. ISBN 157344166X
External links
- Lusty Lady San Francisco – Official website.
- Live Nude Girls Unite – Official website.
- Flickr photoset – Documenting the often amusing marquee announcements of the Seattle Lusty Lady.
- Miss Fyre by Michael Lane (September 15, 1998). Interview with a worker at the Seattle Lusty Lady.
- The Lusty Lady, ErikaLangley.com.
- Bare: The Book Official website for Elizabeth Eaves book.
- Interview with Elizabeth Eaves
- "The contortionist dance of a peep show worker" by Tracy QuanTracy QuanTracy Quan is an American writer and former prostitute. She is best known for her Nancy Chan novels. In addition, Quan writes a regular column for The Guardian website on pop culture, sex and politics and is involved in the prostitutes' rights movement....
, Los Angeles TimesLos Angeles TimesThe Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
Book Review, January 5, 2003. Critical review of Elizabeth Eaves' book. - "Control Tower: Dancing at the Peep" by Mistress MatisseMistress MatisseMistress Matisse is a professional dominatrix, blogger, and columnist for Seattle-based alternative newspaper, The Stranger...
, The StrangerThe Stranger (newspaper)The Stranger is an alternative weekly newspaper in Seattle, Washington, USA. It runs a blog known as Slog.-History:The Stranger was founded by Tim Keck, who had previously co-founded the satirical newspaper The Onion, and cartoonist James Sturm. Its first issue came out on September 23, 1991...
, 14 March 2002. - The Seattle Lusty Lady Widget - A collection of Mac OS X, Facebook, and HTML widgets that provide the latest marquee pun.