Spectacles of Agency and Desire: Dance Histories and the Burlesque Stage

Fetish and Costuming: Building A Persona

According to the American Psychiatric Association, a fetish is a sexual focus on a nonliving object or nongenital body part. This can take many forms. Examples can include things such as stockings, corsets, feet, high-heels, rubber/latex, leather, bondage, red lipstick, even simply lingerie. Many times, when people thing of fetishes, they also think of BDSM, which in their minds equals chains, whips and pain. None of this is synonymous but often misunderstood. Fetish can involve this aspect of sexual practice, but BDSM isn’t a fetish itself. More often than not, BDSM contains fetish aspects. The same can be said for burlesque. Burlesque star and fetishist Dita Von Teese sees fetish and burlesque as two peas in a pod. She explains by saying, “while the burlesquer emerges as the vixen by stripping away layers of clothing to reveal more flesh, the fetish goddess transforms into a similarly captivating seductress with the objects she keeps on (Von Teese ix)”.  Dita is able to use fetish items to her advantage when performing. She often wears he nails and lips painted red, corsets, heels, opera gloves, latex, and seamed stockings. Her wardrobe is meant to awaken the fetishist in men and to seduce them, besides being eye-catching to anyone. She will also use bondage elements in her pin-up style images, in which she will be tied up – usually in a corset – and displayed enticingly. This alludes to BDSM elements through fetish means. Even when dressing elegantly, as Dita makes herself to be more than simply a sex symbol – she is a seductress – she can be seen wearing her patent red nails and lips, and always a corset, even in ball-gowns and day dresses. Dita means to exude sex appeal and power, but always with a touch of glamour.

Another fetish star includes Bettie Page, a woman who is made famous by her pin-up and bondage films and photos during the 1950s. Page is also known as “The Queen of Bondage”.  In her time, Page used fetish items such as lingerie, heels, whips, and extreme bondage in her performances, often displaying BDSM scenes. Page made herself a sex symbol through her use of clothing and poses. She enticed her viewers by drawing attention to her form though her clothing and props, through fetish. According to Dita, all men are more or less fetishists, even if they experience only mild titillation (Von Teese xxi). This would suggest that aspects of fetishes affect most men, that they appreciate heels, bondage, stockings, etc., even if just a bit. This is to the advantage of women who utilize these means to attract, entice, and seduce men. This is especially advantageous to women in the burlesque, stripping, and pin-up industries who may use these fetish aspects in their performances, and may explain their success.

In the case of burlesque dancer Lili St. Cyr, her use of costuming tells a different story about her. In her career as a burlesque dancer, St. Cyr was able to draw her audience using her curvy body and her use of lingerie during her performances. Some could say that her use of the bathtub is a fetish performance. In her career, she used aspects of fetish to engage her audience, but she also used her wardrobe choices to show who she wanted to be, what she was. One of her usual performances involved her first bathing, and then getting dressed, presumably to go out on a date. Her clothing and performance tells the story of a beautiful and successful woman, dressing up glamorously to meet the man of her dreams. Her clothing was usually glamour, modern, but normal. Underneath were the sexy items of clothing, the stocking, the heels, and the fancy lingerie, all tucked into the beautifully homey package. You see, St. Cyr, while a successful burlesquer, dreamed of being the typical 1950s housewife. She wanted the man, the home, the normal career and life. She showed us that through her performance and use of costuming. Underneath everything, she wore the seductress’ ensemble, but covered it in the costume of the average unassuming 1950s woman.

The use of clothing and objects says a lot about who a person is, and has the power to tell its own story, and the power to exact certain reactions out of people. Costuming is powerful in the making of a career and the making of a person’s persona.
 
Works Cited:

Von Teese, Dita. Burlesque and the Art of the Teese ; Fetish and the Art of the Teese. New York: Regan, 2006. Print.

Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders: DSM-5. 5th ed. Washington, D.C.: American Psychiatric Association, 2013. 700. Print.

This page has paths:

This page has tags:

This page references: