Why is it called Striptease?

1 Rachel Shteir, Striptease: The Untold History of the Girlie Show (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 90‑91. The Merriam‑Webster Dictionary puts the date at 1932.

2 In Japan, the history of striptease is clearly interlinked with that of music halls, Asakusa Opera and popular theatre. See Ōzasa Yoshio 大笹吉雄, “Sannin no dansā ni yoru odoriko tsūshi” 三人のダンサーによる踊り子通史 [General History of Dancers by Three Dancers], in Asakusa Furansu-za no jikan 浅草フランス座の時間 [The Asakusa Furansu-za Era], Inoue Hisashi 井上ひさし (Tokyo: Bunshun Nesuko 文春ネスコ, 2001), 99‑125. See also Jean‑Jacques Tschudin, “L’Opéra-Asakusa: le drame lyrique à la conquête du public populaire” [Asakusa Opera: Musical drama seeks to win over popular audiences] in La Modernité à l’horizon, ed. Jean‑Jacques Tschudin, Claude Hamon (Arles: Philippe Picquier, 2004), 169‑190.

3 Although sources have difficulty agreeing on a date, it seems likely that the first shows of this type appeared in France in the 1880s‑1890s, and a little later in the United States; François des Aulnoyes, Histoire et philosophie du striptease: essai sur l’érotisme au music-hall [History and Philosophy of Striptease: An essay on music-hall eroticism] (Paris: Pensée moderne, 1957), 28; Richard Wortley, A Pictorial History of Striptease (London: Octopus, 1976), 31 and 55‑56; Don B. Wilmeth, The Cambridge Guide to American Theater (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 487. There were no doubt others before, but a performance by a certain Mona (or Manon) at the “Bal des Quat’z‑Arts” on 9 February 1893 at the Moulin Rouge caused a sensation and is often presented as the birth of striptease; Martin Banham, The Cambridge Guide to Theater (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 802; see the article devoted to the subject in the French daily Le Matin on 21 March 1893, and the account of the dancer’s subsequent trial for “outrage to public decency (indecent exposure)” in the same newspaper on 24 June 1893 (see the bibliography).

4 See in particular Ozawa Shōichi 小沢昭一, Fukai Toshihiko 深井俊彦 and Nakatani Akira 中谷陽, “Kieru hi, Moeru honō – Sengo sutorippu shi” 消える灯 燃える炎―戦後ストリップ史 [Vanishing Light, Burning Flame: The history of postwar striptease], Shingeki – tokushū sutorippu 新劇―特集ストリップ [Shingeki: striptease special], no. 9 (1973): 94‑109. The Asahi shinbun first covered the subject of striptease on page 4 of its morning edition on 18 June 1950.

5 For example in Tokyo, the Asakusa Rokku‑za 浅草ロック座 (Asakusa Rock‑za), Shiatā Ueno シアター上野 (Ueno Theatre) and a few other venues are still active.

6 Satō Makoto 佐藤信, for example, claims to have watched a show featuring a 63-year-old female stripper, in “Gankyū shaburi – Odoriko-ron nōto” 眼球しゃぶり―踊り子論ノー ト [Eyeball Licking: Notes for a theory of dancers], Shingeki – tokushū sutorippu, 56. The photographer Hara Yoshiichi 原芳市 also revealed to us that a 69‑year-old female dancer still performs at Ōgon Gekijō 黄金劇場, a striptease theatre in Yokohama. However, this venue appears to have closed down in 2012.

7 See the Tsubouchi Memorial Theater Museum Digital Archives Collection.

8 We do not deny the existence of suggestive—or even explicit—graphic material before 1945. Photographs which could easily be classed as “pornographic” even by current standards date back, for the earliest among them, to the Meiji period; Shimokawa Kōshi 下川耿史, Nihon eroshashin‑shi 日本エロ写真史 [History of Japanese Erotic Photos] (Tokyo: Chikuma Bunko ちくま文庫, 2003). We suggest, however, that such material existed on a significantly different scale to the postwar period.

9 Named after kasutori shōchū カストリ焼酎, an alcoholic beverage of varying quality—at best mediocre—that was common in the immediate aftermath of the war. With its high alcohol content and occasionally dangerous ingredients, kasutori shōchū was said to render the drinker unconscious after three glasses (san gō 三合). And since many of these publications went under by their third issue (san gō 三号), the identical pronunciation led to the name kasutori zasshi. It is thought that more than 700 erotic magazines were created in the two years following the emergence of the genre in 1946. For a discussion of the subject, see Shōwa nimannichi no zenkiroku, Dai 7 kan – Haikyo kara no shuppatsu, Shōwa 20 nen-21 nen 昭和 二万日の全記録・第7巻―廃墟からの出発・昭和20年~21年 [Record of the 20,000 Days of the Shōwa Period, volume 7: The departure from ruins, 1945‑1946] (Tokyo: Kōdansha 講談社, 1989), 192 and 275, (henceforth SNNZ, 19 vols); John W. DOWER, Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II (New York: W. W. Norton & Co. – The New Press, 1999), 148‑154; Mark McLelland, “‘Kissing is a Symbol of Democracy!’ Dating, Democracy, and Romance in Occupied Japan, 1945‑1952,” Journal of the History of Sexuality, vol. 19, no. 3 (2010): 523; Kawamoto Kōji 川本耕次, Poruno zasshi no shōwa-shi ポルノ雑誌の昭和史 [History of the Shōwa Period through Porn Magazines] (Tokyo: Chikuma Shobō 筑摩書房, “Chikuma Shinsho” 筑摩新書, 2011), 12‑16.

10 The analogy between this type of photo series and striptease is interesting: many others followed, particularly in Life, introducing many of the elements found in striptease such as scenes of bathing and undressing, but also alluring outfits and suggestive poses. Note that the magazine Playboy appeared in 1953; Dolores Flamiano, “The (Nearly) Naked Truth: Gender, Race, and Nudity in Life, 1937,” Journalism History, vol. 28, no. 3 (2002): 121‑136.

11 Dower, Embracing Defeat, 149.

12 The film in question was Sasaki Yasushi’s Hatachi no seishun は た ち の 青 春 [Twenty-year-old Youth], which caused a sensation at the time. See in particular SNNZ, 7:257; McLelland, “Kissing is a Symbol of Democracy,” 530; Tsurumi Shunsuke 鶴見俊輔, Satō Tadao 佐藤忠男 and Kita Morio 北杜夫 (eds.), Manga sengoshi 漫画戦後史 [History of Postwar Manga], no. 2 (Tokyo: Chikuma Shobō 筑摩書房, “Gendai manga” 現代漫画, 1970), 46. It is interesting to note that the appearance of kissing in film was concurrent with the birth of modern striptease, both in Japan and the United States: in 1896, the year after the Lumière Brothers presented their invention, the American William Heise released the appropriately named The Kiss.

13 The young woman was literally “framed,” just as a painting would be. She posed in the space usually occupied by the painter’s canvas and was presented as if behind a window.

14 The gakubuchi nūdo shō can be compared to the tableaux vivants used in particular in 18th‑century Paris as a means of intensifying the presentation of sexual acts in risqué plays (these were not striptease shows); Laurence Senelick, “The Word Made Flesh: Staging Pornography in Eighteenth‑Century Paris,” Theatre Research International, vol. 33, no. 2 (2008): 191‑203.

15 Herbert Eisenschenk (director), Le Nu absolu [documentary film] (Austria–France: Arte–Vermeer Film/ORF, 2010), 29‑30 mins.

16 SNNZ, 8: 38‑39.

17 Several hundred people are said to have crowded around the ticket office daily in order to watch the show; SNNZ, 8: 38.

18 Quoted in Ōzasa Yoshio 大笹吉雄, Nihon gendai engeki-shi – Shōwa sengo-hen 日本現代演劇史―昭和戦後篇 [History of Japanese Contemporary Theatre: The postwar Shōwa period], vol. 1 (Tokyo: Hakusuisha 白水社, 1998), 337-338.

19 François des Aulnoyes, Histoire et philosophie du striptease, 30‑31; A. Owen Aldridge, “American Burlesque at Home and Abroad: Together with the Etymology of Go‑Go Girl,” The Journal of Popular Culture, vol. 5, no. 3 (1971): 572.

20 It is interesting to note that the occupation authorities had no intention of intervening on this matter. With regards the press, the 1945 Press Code for Japan specified that only three types of publication were prohibited: any criticism of the Allied authorities, any kind of propaganda, and any reference to everyday problems (such as food shortages). Obscenity (salacious or immoral content), whether in the press or elsewhere, was not covered by the code and responsibility for interpreting such material—and for censuring it—was left to the Japanese police. Nevertheless, the occupation authorities would tolerate no reference to “fraternisation” between American servicemen and Japanese women, or any comments implying loose morals on behalf of American women. In 1949, for example, the Americans banned the publication of a magazine showing two naked Caucasian women on the grounds that it constituted “criticism of Allied Powers”; McLelland, “Kissing is a Symbol of Democracy,” 521‑522.

21 A similar situation existed in England in the 1930s. The Lord Chamberlain authorised tableaux, which he considered capable of being as beautiful as classical paintings, on the condition that they remained perfectly still, just like “real” paintings; Aldridge, “American Burlesque at Home and Abroad,” 571‑572.

22 Hara Yoshiichi 原芳市, Sutorippu no aru machi – ekizotikku shō no sekai wo tanoshimu ストリップのある街―エキゾティック・ショーの世界を楽しむ [Striptease Neighbourhoods: Enjoying the world of exotic shows] (Tokyo: Jiyū Kokuminsha 自由国民社, 1999), 84.

23 Tanaka Komimasa 田中小実昌, “Sutorippu yōgo shishi” ストリップ用語私史 [My History of Striptease Vocabulary], in Shingeki – tokushū sutorippu, 90‑93.

24 See Ōzasa, Nihon gendai engeki‑shi, 343.

25 Watanabe Akio 渡辺昭夫, “Teito‑za gokai gekijō no ichinen kyūkagetsu” 帝都座五階劇場の一年九ヵ月 [One Year and Nine Months on the 5th‑Floor Theatre of the Teito‑za], in Inoue, Asakusa Furansu-za no jikan, 144.

26 Denys Chevalier, Métaphysique du striptease (Paris: J.‑J. Pauvert, 1960), 57‑60.

27 In both cases there was a high number of fragmented families, populations in which women outnumbered men and more generally, difficult living conditions characterised by insecurity and instability; Dower, Embracing Defeat, 45, 51 and 54.

28 “Taidan – Nosaka Akiyuki/Wakamatsu Kōji, Sutorippā, yasashisa, Kaihōku” 対談―野 坂昭如・若松孝二ストリッパー・やさしさ解放区 [Interview: Nosaka Akiyuki/Wakamatsu Kōji, strippers, kindness, liberated zones], in Shingeki – tokushū sutorippu, 62‑71. The name “liberal shows” is derived from that of a pulp magazine called Riberaru りべらる (Liberal); Hara, Sutorippu no aru machi, 83.

29 Chevalier, Métaphysique du striptease, 57.

30 Ozawa Shōichi 小沢昭一, “Misōde misenai no ga ōgi – Ōnen no mei-sutorippā, Hirose Motomi san” 見そうで見せないのが奥義―往年の名ストリッパー・広瀬モトミさん [The Art of Showing without Showing: Hirose Motomi, One of the first great strippers], in Ozawa Shōichi zadan 1 – Jinruigaku nyūmon – Oasobi to gei to 小沢昭一座談 1―人類学入門 ― お遊びと芸と [A Conversation with Ozawa Shōichi, 1: Introduction to anthropology: entertainment and art] (Tokyo: Shōbunsha 晶文社, 2007), 52‑53.

31 With the exception of certain ero guro (erotic grotesque) magazines from the 1920s‑1930s that were still available on the secondhand market; McLelland, “Kissing is a Symbol of Democracy,” 520.

32 Mark McLelland states that after the war the government strongly encouraged the three “s”—sport, screen, sex—to the extent that at the time it was much easier to discuss sex‑related issues in the Japanese media than in the United States; McLelland, “Kissing is a Symbol of Democracy,” 520‑523.

33 The term “strip show” (sutorippu shō ストリップ・ショウ) was used for the first time in 1948 by Masakuni Otsuhiko; Hara, Sutorippu no aru machi, 127.

34 Striptease was so popular that it was used in a variety of occasions, some of them quite unexpected. In an article entitled “Japan: Occupational Hazards,” published on 12 June 1950, Time reported that during the 1950 elections a candidate succeeded in persuading one of her young female supporters to do a striptease in order to secure more votes. Stripteases also seem to have been performed at temple and shrine festivals, even within the grounds of these religious buildings, nestled among the other entertainment stands; A. W. Sadler, “The Form and Meaning of the Festival,” Asian Folklore Studies, vol. 28, no. 1 (1969): 10.

35 Nagai Kafū 永 井 荷 風, Danchōtei nichijō 断 腸 亭 日 乗 [Danchōtei Diary] (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten 岩波書店, Iwanami Bunko imprint 岩波文庫, 1987), 322.

36 OS is an abbreviation of Ōsaka sutorippu 大阪ストリップ (Osaka strip).

37 Ozawa, Fukai and Nakatani, “Kieru hi, Moeru honō,” 99.

38 John Huston’s 1958 film The Barbarian and the Geisha, in which Fujiwara starred under her real name, Andō Eiko 安藤永子.

39 Hashimoto Yoshio 橋本与志夫, “Natsukashi no sutā tachi” 懐かしのスターたち [The Stars of Yesteryear], Shingeki – tokushū sutorippu, 28‑35.

40 Kami no yō na nikutai da 神のような肉体だ; SNNZ, 8:38.

41 Tanaka Komimasa 田 中 小 実 昌, Vīnasu no ekubo – Tanaka Komimasa sakuhinshū ヴィーナスのえくぼ―田中小実昌作品集 [Venus’ Dimples: The collected works of Tanaka Komimasa], vol. 1 (Tokyo: Shakai Shisōsha 社会思想社, 1990), 280.

42 Alongside Osaka and Tokyo, Fukuoka is one of the three “historical cities” for striptease in Japan; Ozawa, Fukai and Nakatani, “Kieru hi, Moeru honō,” 104.

43 Amari ni mo shigekiteki dearu あまりにも刺激的である; SNNZ, 8:39.

44 Aramata Hiroshi 荒俣宏 notes several cases of suicide or premature death through overdose, alcohol abuse or illness before the 1960s, in Banpaku to sutorippu 万博とストリップ [Striptease and the World Fairs] (Tokyo: Shūeisha Shinsho 集英社新書, 2000), 218‑220.

45 He provides the notable example of a girl who did not leave her workplace for a single day in three years. He also mentions the total absence of any type of newspaper, meaning that dancers could be completely ignorant of the outside world; Tanaka Komimasa 田中小実昌, “Gohan no obake” ゴハンのオバケ [The Meal Ghost], Shingeki – tokushū sutorippu, 24‑27. Ōkubo Katsuhiko 大久保克彦 adds that what little time off dancers were able to take was not paid, which hardly encouraged them to rest; see “Tokudashi to shimin seikatsu” 特出しと市民生活 [Tokudashi and Civic Life], Shingeki – tokushū sutorippu, 49.

46 Note that most of these establishments were very modest in size. The Japanese illustrator and essayist Senō Kappa 妹尾河童 provides an interesting overview in “Kappa ga nozoita sutorippu gekijō” 河童が覗いたストリップ劇場 [Striptease Theatres as Glimpsed by Kappa], Geinō tōzai – Sutorippu dai tokushū 藝能東西―スト リップ大特集 [Geinō tōzai: Bumper Issue on Striptease] (1977): 58‑63.

47 Inoue Hisashi 井上ひさし, “Asakusa Furansu‑za wa kigeki no gakkō data” 浅草フランス座は喜劇の学校だった [Asakusa Furansu‑za Was a School for Comedy], Asakusa Furansu-za no jikan, 12.

48 Generally speaking, the majority of girls coming to striptease already had a solid background in dance. Many of them came from ballet; others from acrobatic dance. For some of them the decision to take up stripping was less a choice than a way out, because more prestigious forms of theatre were not—or no longer—accessible; Hashimoto, “Natsukashi no sutā tachi,” Shingeki – tokushū sutorippu, 28‑35.

49 Inoue, Asakusa Furansu-za no jikan, 13.

50 The term himo is evocative since in the world of prostitution it can also refer to a pimp.

51 See the Tsubouchi Memorial Theater Museum Digital Archives Collection. We are grateful to Jonathan Bollen, a performing arts professor at Flinders University (Australia), for this information.

52 Recall that in the West too, particularly in literature and striptease, eroticism often went hand in hand with exoticism, hence the popularity of portraying odalisques for example. In Japan at the time, this “exoticism” consisted of what could be described as “Westernism”.

53 The various sources disagree on the date but it would seem that these shows appeared in Japan between the late 1940s and the early 1950s.

54 Hirooka Keiichi 広岡敬一, Sutorippu bojō – Asakusa, Yoshiwara romanesuku ストリップ慕情―浅草・吉原ロマネスク [Nostalgia for Striptease: Asakusa, Yoshiwara Romanesque] (Tokyo: Kōdansha 講談社, “Kōdansha Bunko” 講談社文庫, 1993), 24‑25.

55 Ibid.

56 Kitano Takeshi 北野武, Asakusa Kid (Paris: Le Serpent à Plumes, “Motifs” collection, 2001).

57 In the fight against prostitution the closure of Yoshiwara turned out to be incomplete: it was only a matter of months before the first toruko トルコ opened in the neighbourhood in July. Turkish baths (toruko buro トルコ風呂), which appeared in Japan in the mid‑1950s, functioned as brothels and subsequently became known as sōpu rando ソープランド (soap land); Koyano Atsushi 小谷野敦, Nihon no baishunshi – yūkō jofu kara sōpu rando made日本の売春史―遊行女婦からソープランドまで [History of Prostitution in Japan: From wandering prostitutes to soap land] (Tokyo: Shinchōsha 新潮社, 2007), 181‑187.

58 Chevalier, Métaphysique du striptease, 107‑108.

59 Quoted in “Une enquête sur le striptease,” [An Investigation into Striptease] in Le Surréalisme, même, ed. André Breton, 5 vols (Paris: J.‑J. Pauvert, 1958), 4:63.

60 Jasper Sharp, Behind the Pink Curtain: The Complete History of Japanese Sex Cinema (Godalming: FAB Press, 2008), 51‑122.

61 Takechi Tetsuji 武智鉄二, “Sutorippu no kachi tankan” ストリップの価値転換 [Changes in the Value of Striptease], Shingeki – tokushū sutorippu, 72‑77.

62 Jean Baudrillard, Seduction, trans. Brian Singer (Montreal: New World Perspectives, 2001), 75.

63 N.D.T. Pâtes-la-Lune was a brand of pasta whose mascot was a moon‑like character with a flat and round yellow face.

64 Jean‑Clarence Lambert, “Images choisies d’un Japon sordide et magnifique” [Selected Images from a Sordid and Magnificent Japan], ARTS : lettres, spectacles, musique, no. 972 (1964): 39.

65 Shiota Masaru 塩 田 勝 (ed.), Ryūkōgo ingo jiten 流行語 ・ 隠語辞典 [Dictionary of Popular Speech and Slang] (Tokyo: San’ichi shobō 三一書房, 1981), 215.

66 A mystery surrounds Ichijō Sayuri’s birth. Depending on the sources, she is said to have been born in 1929 or 1937, either in Niigata or Saitama; Ishikawa Hiroyoshi 石川弘義 (ed.), Taishū bunka jiten 大衆文化辞典 [Encyclopaedia of Popular Culture] (Tokyo: Kōbundō 弘文堂, 1991), 51.

67 Sugiura Seiken 杉浦正健, “Ichijō Sayuri igo no Ichijō Sayuri – Saiban kiroku wo moto ni kangaeru” 一条さゆり以後の一条さゆり―裁判記録をもとに考える [Ichijō Sayuri after Ichijō Sayuri: Reflexions Based on the Records of Court Proceedings], in Geinō tōzai – Sutorippu dai tokushū, 208‑233.

68 Ogura Takayasu 小倉孝保, Shodai Ichijō Sayuri densetsu – Kamagasaki ni chitta bara 初代一条さゆり伝説―釡ヶ崎に散ったバラ [The Legend of Ichijō Sayuri the First: The rose that withered in Kamagasaki] (Osaka: Yōbunkan Shuppan 葉文館出版, 1999), 133.

69 Jean Baudrillard, Seduction, 76.

70 Tengu are a type of legendary creature with long, erect noses that had phallic connotations long before striptease.

71 The illustrator Onozawa San’ichi おのざわさんいち provides an interesting overview in “E de miru sutorippu-shi” 絵で見るストリップ史 [The History of Striptease as Seen through Pictures], Geinō tōzai – Sutorippu dai tokushū, 4‑15.

72 These shows bring to mind the short story by Alphonse Allais in which a bored raja asks a young girl to dance and undress for him. Once she is completely naked he exclaims, “Again!” and his servants strip off her skin; Alphonse Allais, “Un rajah qui s’embête: conte d’Extrême‑Orient” [A Bored Raja: A tale from the Far East], Rose et Vert-Pomme (œuvres anthumes) (Paris: Paul Ollendorff, 1894), 269‑274.

73 This practice had already been used during certain nyūyoku shō. Audience members who had soaped the girl’s back might be given a bamboo tube allowing them to look into the bath water and have the opportunity of seeing—or at least attempting to see, and this uncertainty was key—her body through the bubbles; Hirooka, Sutorippu bojō, 25.

74 The word comes from inverting the syllables of mana ita まな板, meaning chopping board. The inversion nama ita could be a play on words since nama 生 (meaning “raw” or “fresh”) could also mean “live” on stage.

75 Ozawa, Fukai, Nakatani, “Kieru hi, Moeru honō – Sengo sutorippu-shi,” 102. In France, just before the beginning of the 1960s, Nelly Kaplan predicted that: “‘When the infinite serfdom of women is brought to an end,’ striptease as a public spectacle will surely disappear of its own accord,” citation taken from “Le Striptease: fin de l’enquête” [Striptease: End of the Investigation] in Breton, Le Surréalisme, même, 5: 58.

76 The number of establishments offering nude shows peaked in 1985 at 675 (roughly half of which were striptease theatres) and declined steadily thereafter; Kadokura Takashi 門倉貴史, Bakuhatsu suru chika bijinesu 爆発する地下ビジネス [The Explosion of the Underground Industry] (Tokyo: PHP Kenkyūjo, PHP研究所, 2007), 123. During our interview with Hara Yoshiichi 原 芳 市, he stated that at the time of speaking there were approximately 40 strip clubs in Japan, around half a dozen of them in Tokyo.

77 According to Hirooka Keiichi 広岡敬一, the first nozokibeya 覗き部屋 (peep‑show) opened its doors in Osaka in February 1981; Hirooka Keiichi 広岡敬一, Sengo seifūzoku taikei 戦後性風俗大系 [Survey of Postwar Sexual Mores] (Tokyo: Shōgakukan 小学館, “Shōgakukan bunko” 小学館文庫, 2007), 314.

78 Videos, more than cinema, were instrumental in distributing Japanese porn films; FUJIKI TDC 藤木TDC, Adaruto bideo kakumei-shi アダルトビデオ革命史 [History of the Adult Video Revolution] (Tokyo: GS Gentōsha Shinsho GS幻冬舎新書, 2009), 39‑66.

79 Nūdo sutajio ヌ ー ド ス タ ジ オ (nude studios) were booths where customers were given cameras (sometimes with no film inside) to “photograph” scantily clad young women. They were known for being tiny.

80 The photo collections by Hara Yoshiichi 原芳市, Za sutorippā, provide a fairly accurate idea of modern Japanese striptease.

81 The Rokku‑za, for example, hosted two well‑known porn stars in autumn 2011: Ayumu あゆむ and Ozawa Maria 小澤マリア.

82 There are various categories in the definition and management of the sex industry in Japan. Striptease theatres, nūdo sutajio, peep‑shows and video booths all belong to the category of sex‑related businesses of the third category (seifūzoku kanren tokushu eigyō sangō eigyō 性風俗関連特殊営業・3号営業), and are thus clearly distinguished under Japanese law from other businesses such as soap lands and sex shops (respectively first and fifth categories); Manaka Toshimitsu 間中利光, Kijima Yasuo 木島康雄, Hosuto kurabu kyabakura kaiten kaigyō tetsuzuki kanzen gaido – zukai to shinsei shorui kisairei tsuki ホストクラブ・キャバクラ開店・開業手続き完全ガイド — 図解と申請書類記載例付き [Complete Guide to Opening a Host Club or Cabaret: Illustrations and Examples of Business Permit Application Forms Included] (Tokyo: Sanshūsha 三修社, 2008), 10‑13.

83 Clinton P. Hansen, “To Strip or Not to Strip: The Demise of Nude Dancing and Erotic Expression through Cumulative Regulations,” Valparaiso University Law Review, vol. 35, no. 3, (2001): 562.

84 These studies are extremely diverse, not always complimentary, and at times surprising to say the least. For example, a report written by Fulton County Police Department (Georgia, United States), which studied the links between alcohol consumption, strip clubs and delinquency over a two year period, came to a damning conclusion: establishments offering alcoholic beverages to customers (bars, etc.) but no striptease saw higher levels of crime and public order disturbances than those combining stripping and alcohol (note, however, that the study was based on the number of telephone complaints received by the police and not on the actual number of offences). The study was cited in 2001 during a court case between Fulton County and several businesses offering such services. See Judith Lynne Hanna, “Dance under the Censorship Watch,” Journal of Arts Management, Law, and Society, vol. 31, no. 4 (2002): 308 and 316.

85 Umberto Eco, “Platon au Crazy Horse,” [Plato at the Crazy Horse] in Pastiches et postiches (Paris: 10/18, 1996), 55‑59.

86 Roland Barthes, “Striptease,” in Mythologies (Paris: Seuil, “Points – Essais,” 2007), 137‑140.

87 “Une enquête sur le striptease,” in Breton, Le Surréalisme, même, 4: 56‑63; “Le Striptease: fin de l’enquête,” in Breton, Le Surréalisme, même, 5:56‑60; Gérard Legrand, “La philosophie dans le saloon”, ibid., 5: 60‑62. Other, more nuanced opinions exist, however, most of them written by women.

88 On the other hand, the daily press seems to have completely lost interest in the subject. Take the example of the Asahi shinbun, which has published few articles on this industry since 1945 and often focusing on aspects like urban planning and public safety (a striptease theatre being established near a school, for example, or a fire in a club).

89 Examples include the magazines Nūdo interijensu ヌード・インテリジェンス (Nude Intelligence), Play Ana, Pussy プッシー, Striptease de Japon, etc. However, these publications are hard to locate and we have been unable to consult them. Although the above publications have disappeared, the magazine Shūkan taishū 週刊大衆 printed a weekly column on stripping until a few years ago; “Maihime densetsu” 舞姫伝説 [Dancing Girl Legends], written by Hara Yoshiichi 原芳市.

90 In 1955, for example, the television channel now known as TBS broadcast a programme on music halls which focused heavily on striptease; Aramata, Banpaku to sutorippu, 217‑218.

91 Indeed, whatever degree of nudity the stripper reaches, she is never strictly “naked”: she always retains an accessory or an item of clothing such as her shoes, a piece of jewellery, a wig, or even her makeup. This is characteristic of the affirmation of sex, and even of seduction, as Baudrillard reminds us: “Seduction, however, never belongs to the order of nature, but that of artifice—never to the order of energy, but that of signs and rituals” (Baudrillard, Seduction, 2). He further adds that: “In order for sex to exist, signs must reduplicate biological being,” and this observation is even more applicable in the case of striptease (ibid., 12). On a lighter note, in the late 19th century the French humour magazine Le Rire carried a front page illustration of an artist visiting an editor to propose his work. Upon seeing the picture, the editor exclaims: “Come now sir, in what universe have you seen naked women without stockings?!”; illustration by J.‑L. Forain, Le Rire – Journal humoristique paraissant le samedi, no. 157 (6 November 1897): 1 (we thank Yves Riquet for having brought this illustration to our attention).

92 Ueno Chizuko 上野千鶴子, Sukāto no shita no gekijō スカートの下の劇場 [Theatre beneath the Skirt] (Tokyo: Kawade Shobō Shinsha 河出書房新社, “Kawade bunko” 河出文庫, 1992), 17.

93 バタフライが意味しているものは、機能性ではなく、シンボル性です; ibid., 42.

94 Béla Grunberger, “De l’image phallique” [On the Phallic Image], Revue française de psychanalyse, volume XXVIII, no. 1 (1964): 224.

95 Oka Yōichi 丘陽一, “’77 Kantō sutorippu hakusho” ’77関東ストリップ白書 [1977 White Paper on Kantō Striptease], Geinō tōzai – Sutorippu dai tokushū, 52‑57.

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