Female adolescent subjectivities in Las Vegas: poststructural thoughts on the intersections of gender, sexuality, consumer logic and curriculum

Abstract

In this article, data collected from an ethnographic study of adolescent girls growing up in the city of Las Vegas in the US is used to further our understanding of the role of mediated sex and consumer culture and in relationship to emerging adolescent female identities. Girls in this study articulated a clear sense of their abilities to make choices; however the ubiquitous visual of women as the body subject and object of the male gaze in this landscape, the accepted discourse of liberal feminism and certain acquiescence to the pervasive consumer logic complicate resistance among girls. Resistance, although apparent through forms of post‐punk representation, depicts the futility of challenge. The fluidity of postmodern theories helps explain and respond to the specificity of this context in ways that facilitate greater understanding of gender oppression in many western societies. The author argues for a curriculum that deconstructs cultural practices and illuminates multiple discourses to problematize issues of power and identity in the lives of young people that might provide avenues for emancipatory possibilities.

Notes

University of Wisconsin Milwaukee, PO Box 413, Enderis Hall 629, Milwaukee, WI 53201‐0413, USA. Email: [email protected]

The sex industry of Las Vegas is well established and has been a significant aspect of its allure since the days of the gold rush in the mid‐1800s. Likewise, gambling (or, gaming as the locals term it) has long been a staple of Las Vegas' life. Today, tourism in the city has expanded to include a large array of resort‐like casino‐hotels that combine fantasy and Disney‐like amusements in addition to the sex trade and gambling. Today, tourism in Las Vegas is one of intensity of experience through noise, color, pattern, fac¸ade, inversion of classic aesthetics (i.e., hotels that replicate Cesar's Palace, the Parisian countryside and the Riviera) along with ideological forms that are amplified in ways that distort typical American values. All of these aspects bring to life a certain postmodern carnivalesque. The city is reminiscent of a postmodern moment as described by Kellner (1995) in which particular heightened intensities, forms of sensationalism and the immediacy of the moment become all there is and the ‘stuff of which consciousness is forged’ (Harvey, 1990, p. 54)

These included topics of interest to the girls including: labels for girls such as ‘slut’ and ‘ho’, sexual and sexual acts and attractions between girls, differences between male and female sex drives and femininity. Data was also collected through my participant observation of a variety of activities and events that I attended as a guest of the girls. Other data included archival retrieval of information relative to the history and current events within the city of Las Vegas. Much of this information was taken from daily newspapers, other citywide publications and a wide array of documented materials from a special collection housed at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas library. Each initial interview with the girls was an in‐depth face‐to‐face private meeting conducted in the homes of the girls or some pre‐arranged site after school hours. A set of pre‐determined questions was used as a guide but all of the interview questions were modified to fit the particularities of the interview. Many questions often evolved around some observations I made of items in their bedrooms, for example. The girls included me in some of their after‐school activities and weekend events. I was invited to a concert held in the desert, a movie, several coffee house chats, a boyfriend's house party, a youth group revival and a restaurant meal. I also invited the girls to a university class on gender and film as guests, some public forums on the sex industry sponsored by the university and a dinner at my house. I also took several excursions down the Strip with smaller groups of girls. A photo album of their impressions ensued and remains part of my own memorabilia.

In other related work, I discuss the experience of diasporization among the Latina girls as they experienced life in Las Vegas. In this essay, not all of the voices of the girls are represented for a variety of reasons. Kate described herself as a Christian and chose not to participate in focus discussions related to the sex industry except to say that she felt is was wrong for women to ‘do those sorts of things’. In other work, I describe and analyze her responses to my questions and her interpretation of sex work and women's sexualities as a fundamental Christian. Interestingly, the Latina girls were not wholly concerned or vocal in discussions and questions about the sex industry. This I attribute to the visual absence of Latinas as representation in the sex industry and to particular cultural norms that prohibits Latina involvement by their families in these American practices.