It’s very hard to admit this, but despite the burlesque scene’s talk of empowerment and female liberation, I have only felt the complete opposite. Burlesque perpetuates the idea that women are allowed to be objectified and we can only hold value if we are seen as being sexually desirable. Now I understand the need for women to affirm their body shape/size as something to love whatever shape/size you are, and I wholeheartedly support any positive forms of this expression, but how is proving to the patriarchy that you too can be seen as a sex object going to accomplish anything? I think most women should be fighting against being seen as sex objects, am I'm supposed to be content because you're calling it burlesque and art instead of stripping?
An ex-burlesque performer named Penny has written about her experiences in an article titled "Burlesque Laid Bare," where she confesses that the burlesque world made her feel anything but in touch with herself.
"The burlesque striptease makes explicit what push-up-bras and sticky lip gloss only promise: a passive, faux-naive, peek-a-boo sexuality that has little to do with real female pleasure and everything to do with mimicking whatever we are told is “sexy”. Sexual explicitness does no harm to young women if it is combined with honesty, but burlesque has little to do with sexual honesty. It is part and parcel of the packaging of female desire, a process by which young women trade in their sexuality and their self-hood for whatever fleeting power they can grasp."
Penny also insists most burlesque is now naught but “misogyny in a tasteful package of feathers”.
Link: Burlesque Laid Bare
