Hales, S., Riach, K. and Tyler, M. (2019) Putting sexualized labour in the picture: Encoding ‘reasonable entitlement’ in the lap dancing industry. Organization, 26(6), pp. 783-801. (doi: 10.1177/1350508418812560)
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Abstract
This article is based on a semiotic analysis of corporate websites in the lap dancing industry. Forming part of a larger ethnographic study of the UK lap dancing industry, it focuses on how the exchange relationship between dancers and customers is shaped by the industry’s online presence. Methodologically, it draws on Hancock’s semiotic approach to the analysis of organizational artefacts and Brewis’s writing on the importance of understanding how sex work is constructed and perceived. The article shows the importance of corporate websites as virtual spaces that landscape customer expectations of the exchange relationship emphasizing how these expectations perpetuate, on the one hand, a very prescriptive range of body images shaping the performance and consumption of lap dancing work, and on the other, an ambiguous suggestion of open-ended possibility. The article argues that, in combination, this landscaping of prescription and possibility constitutes a powerful organization of anticipation underpinning perceptions of reasonable entitlement within the lap dancing exchange relationship considering how this impacts upon the dancers’ experiences of this relationship. The analysis highlights both the importance of virtual corporate spaces in landscaping interactive service exchanges, as well as the intensification that results from the ambiguity encoded within these spaces, requiring service providers to reconcile anticipation and experience, prescription and possibility, within the exchange relationship.
| Item Type: | Articles |
|---|---|
| Status: | Published |
| Refereed: | Yes |
| Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: | Riach, Professor Kathleen |
| Authors: | Hales, S., Riach, K., and Tyler, M. |
| College/School: | College of Social Sciences > Adam Smith Business School > Management |
| Journal Name: | Organization |
| Publisher: | SAGE Publications |
| ISSN: | 1350-5084 |
| ISSN (Online): | 1461-7323 |
| Published Online: | 23 November 2018 |
| Copyright Holders: | Copyright © 2019 The Authors |
| First Published: | First published in Organization 26(6): 783-801 |
| Publisher Policy: | Reproduced in accordance with the copyright policy of the publisher |
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