Today’s topic is burlesque. Specifically, this question a friend tossed at me while I was whining that I didn’t know what to write about.

blog on whether burlesque is a celebration of female sexuality or an objectification of women, and is it really objectification or just good advertising if it’s consensual and it’s the woman herself who is objectifying herself?

On the first part, the short answer is “it depends”. Burlesque is simply too broad a category, taken as a whole, to be classified like this. You’ll find shows that are either, neither, both, or even “reply hazy, try again later”. Worse, celebration & objectification are both subjective concepts with fuzzy edges. Thanks to confirmation bias, watching the same show with different expectations could give radically different opinions. Read the rest of this entry →