<p>This research interrogates the relationship between sex work and masculinity. More specifically, the project was guided by the following question: how do female strippers and male customers construct and negotiate masculinities in strip clubs across three U.S. Midwestern metropolitan areas? Drawing on 180 hours of ethnographic observation in 14 strip clubs and 56 in-depth interviews with female strippers, male customers, and staff members, I argue that strippers consciously and strategically employ an array of masculinizing practices, including reassuring customers they’re not hustlers, shielding customers from having to hear “No,” and performing the appropriate amount of authenticity. Through these practices, strippers facilitate patrons’ idealized masculine performances. Thus, I theorize stripping as simultaneously a product and producer of masculinity; it is a response to the anxious masculinities of the male consumers who sustain the industry as much as it is a vehicle for the negotiation of those masculinities. These findings strengthen the argument that productions of gender are integral to strip clubs specifically or sex work more generally and undermine sex work theories which locate power exclusively in the hands of male customers.</p>