Abstract

The article intends to describe social interactions between regular visitors, so called habitués, of sexy theatres and pornostars. On the basis of ethnographic research carried out in 1995-96 in a sexy theatre in Genoa, the author firstly analyses the actors participating in this peculiar type of social interaction, i.e., the theatre's regular customers on the one hand and pornostars on the other. Thus, the places of the representation are also investigated. These are the theatre stage and the entrance-hall. By resorting to Goffman and Simmel, the author makes sense of the actors' relations as an effort to set rules and build a sort of community, based on sharing the same sense of spare time as amusement and diversion.