photojournalism

Great book, the photo's are an insightful look into a world most of us never see.

Beasely captures natural and spontaneous moments that at times were shocking and sensitive towards the subject matter. As a veteran stripper, she looks wisely at her own experience working as a lapdancer. The book is also interspersed with sincere interviews with customers and dancers. throughout the book.

Unlike other readers in the review section, I was particuliarly moved by the humanization of the subjects instead of what one normally sees--sensationalized male fantasies. No Barbie dolls here! Most impressive are the customers' honest dire need for closeness and the dancers sincere ambivalence about their relationships and simultaneous cunning to make a good salary.

I found this book a contradictory pleasure and at the same time a bolt disturbing reality of a world in which the lonely buy affection and attention.

I'm thankful there are some artists out there who are not afraid of showing the truth without imbedding their own feminist agendas into the framework of a documetary book which is complete with photos and text.

A must read!

This is a superb work of documentary photography. Beasley is a true anthropologist, who through years of painstaking work has enabled non-strip-club denizens to get a look at what it's like inside. Her subjects include both dancers and customers, and she catches them in moments of boredom, stress, surprise and lust. Beaseley takes us into a world that is invisible to many even though it's just down the freeway from me or you.

I was shocked and disappointed to see the copy of Lapdancer placed high up above everyone's heads in the Barns and Noble in Philadelphia.
Are they afraid someone might get lost in their fantasies and daydreams of Lapdancing in the pages? The photos are not porn,
they are real, honest and though
sometime awkward to look at, they represent a world which is rarely revealed or shared.
The beauty of the book are the photographs and the moments spent paging through and look at the
vivid and intimate images of the dancers are what makes this so incredibly powerful.

Regardless of where the book was placed, I bought a copy and have been sharing it with friends ever since.