Striptease, Respectability, and Shame: The Politics of Sexual Performance in Cold War Chile - Carson Morris

On November 20, 2014, Carson presented her research at the Latin American & Iberian Institute.

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This research was supported by funding from the LAII and the Feminist Research Institute.

Carson's research focuses on striptease and other sexual performance in Cold War Chile. She contends that they are critical to both challenging and reinforcing gender and sexuality in state and society. Focusing on 1950-1990, Carson traces the continuities and ruptures in Chile's long history of sexual performance under democracy and dictatorship, exposing sexual performance's emancipatory power as well as its heteronormative functions.

In this video, Carson examines cabaret show books, photographs, business advertisements, nude magazines, press coverage, state and city level laws regulating such businesses, and personal testimonies to show that sexual performance in Chile transcends both state level politics and changes in political regimes, and that striptease was imbued with different degrees of respectability and shame at different historical moments.