The Lusty Lady is a pair of defunct

peep show A peep show, peepshow, or, a peep booth is a presentation of a live sex show or pornographic film which is viewed through a viewing slot. Several historical media provided voyeuristic entertainment through hidden erotic imagery. Before the devel ...

establishments, one in downtown

Seattle Seattle ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Washington and in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. With a population of 780,995 in 2024, it is the 18th-most populous city in the United States. The city is the cou ...

and one in the North Beach district of San Francisco. The Lusty Lady was made famous by the labor activism of its San Francisco workers and the publication of several books about working there.

History

The Seattle Lusty Lady, known originally as the Amusement Center, was opened in the 1970s by two business associates, who soon after opened the other location in San Francisco. Originally, both Lusty Ladys showed 16mm peep show films only; in 1983 live nude dancers were added and became the main focus of the businesses., ''Lusty Lady San Francisco'' website. Until 2003 they were both owned by the same company; in that year the San Francisco franchise was bought by the

stripper A stripper or exotic dancer is a person whose occupation involves performing striptease in a public adult entertainment venue such as a strip club. At times, a stripper may be hired to perform at private events. Modern forms of stripping m ...

s working there and began to be managed as a

worker cooperative A worker cooperative is a cooperative owned and Workers' self-management, self-managed by its workers. This control may mean a Company, firm where every worker-owner participates in decision-making in a democratic fashion, or it may refer to one ...

. The San Francisco branch had already entered the news in 1997 when it became the first (and only) successfully

unionized A trade union (British English) or labor union (American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers whose purpose is to maintain or improve the conditions of their employment, such as attaining better wages ...

sex business in the U.S. (The

San Diego San Diego ( , ) is a city on the Pacific coast of Southern California, adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a population of over 1.4 million, it is the List of United States cities by population, eighth-most populous city in t ...

strip club ''Pacer's'' had seen a unionization effort in the early 1990s, but it was short-lived.) The Seattle branch closed in June 2010. The San Francisco branch closed at 3 a.m. on September 2, 2013, on Labor Day.

Operation

The Lusty Lady featured

exotic dancers A stripper or exotic dancer is a person whose occupation involves performing striptease in a public adult entertainment venue such as a strip club. At times, a stripper may be hired to perform at private events. Modern forms of stripping m ...

in a

setting on the main stage and in one-on-one booths. The main stage featured several nude women dancing, separated by glass windows from the customers who each stood in their own booth, paying by the minute. The dancers were also available for more explicit private shows in the VIP and Private Pleasures booths. These were also glass-separated private booths where customers could give direction to the show and tipping was possible. Rates for shows varied by the dancer. The Private Pleasures booth also occasionally featured "Double Trouble" shows, with two dancers who might have performed a

lesbian A lesbian is a homosexual woman or girl. The word is also used for women in relation to their sexual identity or sexual behavior, regardless of sexual orientation, or as an adjective to characterize or associate nouns with female homosexu ...

sex show A sex show is a form of live performance that features one or more performers engaging in some form of sexual activity, typically on stage, for the entertainment or sexual gratification of spectators. Performers are paid either by the spectators ...

. In addition, booths showing

adult videos In Japan, (AV) are sex or nudity themed videos distinguishable from Toei porno feature films, Nikkatsu Roman Porno feature films, indie studio pink films, and less sex-centred 'V-cinema' or other (OV). Adult videos feature sex or nudity, and ...

24/7 were available. Once a year, The Lusty Lady SF organized a "Play Day": the dancers came out from behind the glass, explained the operation of the club to customers, and allowed behind-the-scenes peeks. Lusty Lady occasionally featured "art days", exhibiting erotic photographs and paintings in the hallways. In February 2002, both peep shows featured a video art exhibition called "Peepshow 28", with one channel in all video booths devoted to showing a sequence of 64 short videos exploring voyeurism, exhibitionism and sexuality. Dancers were paid an hourly wage. (The top wage for dancers in Seattle in 2001 was $27 per hour, the top wage in San Francisco in 2003 was $26 per hour.)

Seattle

The Seattle Lusty Lady opened in the 1970s and moved to its final location at 1315 First Avenue in downtown Seattle near

Pike Place Market Pike Place Market is a Marketplaces#Types, public market in Seattle, Washington, United States. It opened on August 17, 1907, and is one of the oldest continuously operated public farmers' markets in the United States. Overlooking the Elliott B ...

in 1985. The club was well known for its frequently changing and often amusing marquee announcements. The Lusty Lady is immediately across the street from the

Seattle Art Museum The Seattle Art Museum (commonly known as SAM) is an art museum located in Seattle, Washington (state), Washington, United States. The museum operates three major facilities: its main museum in downtown Seattle; the Seattle Asian Art Museum in ...

and the marquee often commented on current exhibits or the

Hammering Man ''Hammering Man'' is a series of monumental kinetic sculptures by Jonathan Borofsky. The two-dimensional painted steel sculptures were designed at different scales (from approximately 12 feet to 49 feet high), were painted black, and depict a ...

statue. Mimi Gates, stepmother of

Bill Gates William Henry Gates III (born October 28, 1955) is an American businessman and philanthropist. A pioneer of the microcomputer revolution of the 1970s and 1980s, he co-founded the software company Microsoft in 1975 with his childhood friend ...

and director of the Seattle Art Museum, said "The Lusty Lady's marquee is a Seattle landmark."

Nirvana Nirvana, in the Indian religions (Jainism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Sikhism), is the concept of an individual's passions being extinguished as the ultimate state of salvation, release, or liberation from suffering ('' duḥkha'') and from the ...

’s logo was also inspired by the happy face logo there, which said, "Have An Erotic Day!" In 2006, the building's owner, a Seattle family, refused a multimillion-dollar tear-down offer from developers of a new

Four Seasons Hotel Four Seasons Hotels Limited, trading as Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts, is a Canadian luxury hotel and resort company headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Four Seasons currently operates more than 100 hotels and resorts worldwide.David Se ...

next door. The owners instead received $850,000 "for

air rights In real estate, air rights are the property interest in the "space" above the Earth's surface. Generally speaking, owning or renting land or a building includes the right to use and build in the space above the land without interference by oth ...

to the views over their property". Employees celebrated by posting on their reader board: "We're Open, Not Clothed!" In January 2010, police arrested a

peeping tom Lady Godiva (; died between 1066 and 1086), in Old English , was a late Anglo-Saxon noblewoman who is relatively well documented as the wife of Leofric, Earl of Mercia, and a patron of various churches and monasteries. She is mainly remembere ...

in the Lusty Lady who had climbed up from a viewing booth into the ceiling crawl space overhead, then partly crashed through the glass ceiling above the stage. On April 11, 2010, the Lusty Lady in Seattle announced that it would close its doors for business in June 2010. The economic climate and the rise of Internet pornography were cited as reasons for closing. On June 28, 2010, the Lusty Lady marquee was removed from the Seattle location. It was acquired by the

Museum of History & Industry The Museum of History & Industry (MOHAI) is a history museum in the South Lake Union neighborhood of Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the largest private heritage organization in Washington state, maintaining a collection of nearly four ...

and is now on display at their museum in the

South Lake Union South Lake Union (sometimes SLU) is a neighborhood in central Seattle, Washington, so named because it is at the southern tip of Lake Union. The official boundaries of the City of Seattle Urban Center are Denny Way on the south, beyond which ...

neighborhood. In the wake of the Lusty Lady announcing its shutdown, the

NPR National Public Radio (NPR) is an American public broadcasting organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It serves as a national Radio syndication, syndicator to a network of more ...

program

All Things Considered ''All Things Considered'' (''ATC'') is the flagship news program on the American network National Public Radio (NPR). It was the first news program on NPR, premiering on May 3, 1971. It is broadcast live on NPR affiliated stations in the United ...

did a story focusing on the peep show's history and relationship to the broader downtown Seattle community. In March 2023,

Andrew Conru Andrew Conru is an American internet businessman who has founded e-commerce, advertising, online dating, and personal ad sites including W3, AdKnowledge, WebPersonals, FriendFinder, and Adult FriendFinder. He is the CEO of FriendFinder Networks ...

, founder of

Friend Finder Networks Friend Finder Networks (formerly Various, Inc.) is an American internet company founded in 1996 by Andrew Conru and Lars Mapstead. Its corporate headquarters are located in Boca Raton, Florida, with additional offices in California, New York, a ...

, bought the Lusty Lady's building for $3 million, calling the purchase "a gift to the city". He intended to redevelop it into a hotel, a strip club, a restaurant, a museum, a retail store, or some other concern, soliciting ideas from the public. In June 2023, Conru's architect submitted plans to the city to raze the building. "Unfortunately for safety reasons it is a teardown. We looked at a seismic retrofit. It's just not going to happen," said Conru, who said that costs motivated his decision.

Books

The 1997 book ''The Lusty Lady'' by photographer

Erika Langley Erika Langley (born 1967) is an American photojournalist and writer. Early life and education Born in Arlington, Virginia in 1967, she has been based in Seattle, Washington since 1992. She worked from 1992 to 2004 as dancer at the Lusty Lady, a ...

documents the work in the Seattle branch of Lusty Lady. It includes photos by Langley (who had worked there as a dancer since 1992) as well as essays by a number of Lusty Lady dancers, who vary considerably in their attitudes toward their customers and toward their work. In 2000, some of the photos were exhibited in the

, across the street from the Lusty Lady.

Elisabeth Eaves Elisabeth Eaves is an author and journalist born and raised in Vancouver, British Columbia. Biography On graduating from the University of Washington in 1996, Eaves worked as an exotic dancer at the Lusty Lady peep show in Seattle for a year. He ...

, who had stripped at the Lusty Lady in 1997, completed graduate school and returned in 2000 to write a book about stripping in general and her experiences in particular, ''Bare: On Women, Dancing, Sex, and Power'', published in 2002.Bare
, ''

Kirkus Reviews ''Kirkus Reviews'' is an American book review magazine founded in 1933 by Virginia Kirkus. The magazine's publisher, Kirkus Media, is headquartered in New York City. ''Kirkus Reviews'' confers the annual Kirkus Prize to authors of fiction, no ...

'', 1 September 2002.

Popular culture references

The Seattle Lusty Lady was featured in the 1992 film '' American Heart''. The first murder in the 1996 pilot of the TV series ''

Millennium A millennium () is a period of one thousand years, one hundred decades, or ten centuries, sometimes called a kiloannum (ka), or kiloyear (ky). Normally, the word is used specifically for periods of a thousand years that begin at the starting ...

'' takes place in a Seattle peep show modeled on the Lusty Lady. Episode 18 (first aired 1997) of

HBO Home Box Office (HBO) is an American pay television service, which is the flagship property of namesake parent-subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is based a ...

's ''

Real Sex ''Real Sex'' was a documentary television series produced by HBO. ''Real Sex'' was a sexually explicit "magazine" which "explores sex '90s style." Created by Sheila Nevins and produced by Patti Kaplan, the series was originally meant to be a sin ...

'' series featured a visit to the Seattle Lusty Lady. The theater show ''My Time With the Lady'' is a first-person account about working at the Lusty Lady by a long-time janitor and

bouncer A bouncer (also known as a door supervisor) is a type of security guard, employed at licensed or sanctioned venues such as bars, nightclubs, cabaret clubs, strip clubs and casinos. A bouncer's duties are to provide security, to check legal ag ...

. It opened in Seattle in August 2010.

San Francisco

The San Francisco Lusty Lady was located at 1033

Kearny Street Kearny Street () in San Francisco, California runs north from Market Street to The Embarcadero. Toward its south end, it separates the Financial District from the Union Square and Chinatown districts. Further north, it passes over Telegra ...

, in the

Broadway Broadway may refer to: Theatre * Broadway Theatre (disambiguation) * Broadway theatre, theatrical productions in professional theatres near Broadway, Manhattan, New York City, U.S. ** Broadway (Manhattan), the street ** Broadway Theatre (53rd Stre ...

strip club district of North Beach. It was open 24 hours a day, though the live stage was closed between 3 and 11 am.

Unionization

Several grievances led to the unionizing effort in 1997. African American feminist sociologist Siobhan Brooks while working at the club had noticed that African American dancers were discriminated against and filed a complaint. The precipitating event was the installation of one-way mirrors in a number of booths (which also exist in the Seattle branch), resulting in some customers taking photos and videos of the show. Lusty Lady Float in Pride Parade

Among the leaders of the organizing drive was the stripper Julia Query who documented the efforts on video, resulting in the documentary ''Live Nude Girls Unite!'', written and directed by Vicky Funari and Julia Query. After a vote of the employees, the business was organized by the Exotic Dancers Union, an affiliate of

Service Employees International Union Service Employees International Union (SEIU) is a labor union representing 2 million workers in over 100 occupations in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. SEIU is focused on organizing workers in three sectors: healthcare (over half of m ...

, then a member of

AFL–CIO The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) is a national trade union center that is the largest federation of unions in the United States. It is made up of 61 national and international unions, together r ...

, Local 790. The Bay Area Sex Worker Advocacy Network (BAYSWAN) provided website support for the workers' unionization effort, which helped to garner public support for the workers as well as inquiries from other exotic dancers and sex workers throughout the country. Former Lusty Lady employee Siobhan Brooks commented in a 1997 article that "In some cases the media misquoted us as being the first strip club to unionize. But the first strip club to unionize was Pacer's in San Diego. However, Pacer's union, Hotel Management, Employee Management, Local 30, negotiated an open clause in its contract. Open shop means there's no requirement that employees join the union, so the club recruited workers and discouraged them from joining the union and were able to decertify the union."

Worker cooperative

After management cut hourly compensation at the San Francisco Lusty Lady in 2003, the workers struck and won, but the closure of the peep show was announced soon after. The subsequent efforts to turn the club into a

were led by Donna Delinqua (stage name), a stripper and graduate student in English. Other cooperatives provided input, among them the worker-owned San Francisco sex-toy business

Good Vibrations "Good Vibrations" is a song by the American rock music, rock band the Beach Boys, produced and composed by Brian Wilson with lyrics by Mike Love. Released as a single on October 10, 1966, it achieved immediate critical and commercial success, ...

. The workers bought the club for $400,000, with money borrowed from the old owners. In 1996, the club had had a revenue of almost $3 million; by 2003 this had fallen by 40%. The monthly rent was $13,442 in 2003 and had doubled over the preceding three years. The club had a revenue of about $27,000 per week in the first half of 2006. After the change in ownership, the union was retained, but some changes in management were instituted. While dancers had been regularly evaluated by managers before, now a

peer review Peer review is the evaluation of work by one or more people with similar competencies as the producers of the work (:wiktionary:peer#Etymology 2, peers). It functions as a form of self-regulation by qualified members of a profession within the ...

process was established wherein dancers evaluate each other. The team leaders are elected from among the dancers for six-month terms. A dispute began in the summer of 2006 when a male employee wrote a confidential email to the co-op board, reporting customer complaints about a show featuring heavy women. Another member of the board, a dancer, posted a printout of the message in the club dressing room, causing considerable consternation among dancers. Both board members were suspended. Two of the male employees have argued that the union should be abandoned as not useful in a worker-owned cooperative. On its website, the Lusty Lady describes a worker-owned business as "a rare and ideal situation" but "not without its challenges" and discusses how the workers address these challenges. On Tuesday, August 20, 2013, the Lusty Lady in San Francisco announced that it would close its doors for business in just two weeks, on Monday at 3:00 am. September 2, 2013. The landlord, Roger Forbes (part of Deja Vu Consulting Inc. which by that time owned almost every strip club in San Francisco with the exception of Crazy Horse, Mitchell Brothers O’Farrell Theatre, and Nob Hill) refused to renew the lease after attempts to re-negotiate the rent failed.

Books

Lily Burana Lily Burana is an American writer whose books include ''Grace for Amateurs: Field Notes on a Journey Back to Faith'' (Thomas Nelson, 2017), ''I Love a Man in Uniform: A Memoir of Love, War, and Other Battles'' (Weinstein Books, 2009), the novel '' ...

, who stripped for a time at the San Francisco Lusty Lady, wrote about her experiences there and in other strip clubs in her 2001 book ''Strip City: A Stripper's Farewell Journey Across America''.Strip City
, ''Kirkus Reviews'', 15 July 2001.

Carol Queen Carol Queen (born 1957) is an American feminist author, editor, and sexologist active in the sex-positive feminism movement. Queen is a two time Grand Marshal of San Francisco LGBTQ Pride. Queen has written on human sexuality in books such as ''Re ...

also wrote about her time dancing at the Lusty Lady, in her 2003 book ''Real Live Nude Girl: Chronicles of a Sex-Positive Culture''.

Bernadette Barton Bernadette Barton is an American sociologist and author. She is professor of Sociology and Director of Gender Studies at Morehead State University Morehead State University (MSU) is a public university in Morehead, Kentucky, United States. Th ...

interviewed dancers at the Lusty Lady in her 2006 book ''Stripped: Inside the Lives of Exotic Dancers.'' Jennifer Worley worked at the Lusty Lady as a graduate student and participated in the unionization of the venue and its later transformation into a worker co-op later wrote about her experiences in her 2020 memoir ''Neon Girls: A Stripper's Education in Protest and Power''."Neon Girls"
HarperCollins.com (publisher's page).Neon Girls
, ''Kirkus Reviews'', 1 May 2020.How working in a strip club taught "Neon Girls" author lessons about unions and solidarity
interview with Jennifer Worley by

Mary Elizabeth Williams Mary Elizabeth Williams is an American writer and commentator. She is a staff writer for the online magazine ''Salon''. She has also written for ''The New York Times'', ''The Nation'', and other publications. As a commentator, she has made appeara ...

, ''Salon.com'', 18 June 2020.

Sources

External links

"Bad Girls Like Good Contracts"
- The Fight for Unionization at the Lusty Lady Theater in San Francisco, 1992-1998
"Control Tower: Dancing at the Peep"
by Mistress Matisse, '' The Stranger'', March 14, 2002.
"The contortionist dance of a peep show worker"
by

Tracy Quan Tracy Quan (born August 15, 1977) is an American writer and former sex worker. She is best known for her Nancy Chan novels. In addition, Quan has written a regular column for ''The Guardian'' website on pop culture, sex and politics and is involve ...

, ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' is an American Newspaper#Daily, daily newspaper that began publishing in Los Angeles, California, in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles city of El Segundo, California, El Segundo since 2018, it is the List of new ...

Book Review'', January 5, 2003. Critical review of Elizabeth Eaves' book.
Bare: The Book
Official website for Elizabeth Eaves book (archived)
Flickr photoset
– Documenting the often amusing marquee announcements of the Seattle Lusty Lady.
Interview with Elizabeth Eaves

''Live Nude Girls Unite''
– Official website. *
Lusty Lady San Francisco
– Official website.
Miss Fyre
by Michael Lane (September 15, 1998). Interview with a worker at the Seattle Lusty Lady.

''ErikaLangley.com''.
The Seattle Lusty Lady Widget
- A collection of Mac OS X, Facebook, and HTML widgets that provide the latest marquee pun. {{North Beach, San Francisco, state=collapsed Culture of San Francisco Culture of Seattle North Beach, San Francisco Sex-positive feminism Sex industry in San Francisco Strip clubs in the United States Worker cooperatives of the United States 1970s establishments in Washington (state) 1970s establishments in California 2010 disestablishments in Washington (state) 2013 disestablishments in California

History

Operation

Seattle

Books

Popular culture references

San Francisco

Unionization

Worker cooperative

Books

See also

Sources

Further reading

Books

Articles

External links