https://doi.org/10.1177/1360780418780059 Sociological Research Online 1–16 © The Author(s) 2018 Reprints and permissions: sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/1360780418780059 journals.sagepub.com/home/sro Gender, Sexuality, and Risk in the Practice of Affective Labour for Young Women in Bar Work Julia Coffey The University of Newcastle, Australia David Farrugia The University of Newcastle, Australia Lisa Adkins The University of Newcastle, Australia Steven Threadgold The University of Newcastle, Australia Abstract This article explores the ways that gender, sexuality, pleasure, and risk are entangled in affective labour and the production of value in ‘front of house’ bar work. Through their work as bar staff at ‘hip’ inner-city Melbourne venues, the young women we discuss produce affects in the form of a ‘vibe’ of relaxation, fun, pleasure, and release. We address McRobbie’s call for the ‘actual working practices’ which comprise affective labour to be explored and highlight the ways gender relations including the heterosexual matrix of desire are mobilised in the production of value in young women’s bar work. We discuss the tensions at play in this context where women are required to generate both a positive and a pleasurable feeling in their interactions with others while negotiating the complex politics of heterosexual desire while at work, including managing and negotiating harassment from male customers. This management requires complex sensate and embodied practices that are both conscious and unconscious (described, for example, as an ‘instinct’), involving constantly ‘scanning’ and ‘reading the crowd’ and monitoring their own embodied and affective responses to particular men while they carry on other conversations Corresponding author: Julia Coffey, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, The University of Newcastle, Ourimbah 2258, NSW, Australia. Email: Julia.coffey@newcastle.edu.au 780059SRO 0 0 10.1177/1360780418780059Sociological Research OnlineCoffey et al. research-article 2018 Article