Erotic Resistance: The Struggle for the Soul of San Francisco

Erotic Resistance celebrates the erotic performance cultures that have shaped San Francisco. It preserves the memory of the city’s bohemian past and its essential role in the development of American adult entertainment by highlighting the contributions of women of color, queer women, and trans women who were instrumental in the city’s labor history, as well as its LGBT and sex workers’ rights movements. In the 1960s, topless entertainment became legal in the city for the first time in the US, though cross-dressing continued to be criminalized. In the 1990s, stripper-artist-activists led the first successful class action lawsuits and efforts to unionize. Gigi Otálvaro-Hormillosa uses visual and performance analysis, historiography, and ethnographic research, including participant observation as both performer and spectator and interviews with legendary burlesquers and strippers, to share this remarkable story.

Gigi Otálvaro-Hormillosa, PhD, is an educator and artist-scholar who teaches and writes about art and activism, queer of color critique, erotic performance, and the intersection of mindfulness and creative practice. She leads the LifeWorks Program for Integrative Learning at Stanford University.