Exotic dancers have been in the news of late, and that reminds me of a something I’ve long wondered about. Everybody understands the phrase exotic dancer to mean an erotic dancer, and, usually, specifically one who stips, but not quite all the way. The word exotic doesn’t quite make sense in this context, so how did it come to be used this way?
I’m thinking it was from some sort of specific usage, like in Victorian-era rural fairs where there would be women dancers pretending to be from distant countries and showing bare calves and midriffs–much more than was otherwise acceptable back then–and you’d have the menfolk sneaking off to have a look while the wife and kids were trying to knock down the coconuts along the midway.