Article about strip clubs in the Guardian

I do wonder if TD's posts will stifle the debate in here, and maybe kill this discussion. It's one thing to put men down over an issue like this. It's a damn sight harder to argue with another woman. We shall see.....

NCG

thanks. Yes I see. I guess the thing with me is that if my dd was a LD I wouldn't default to thinking she'd made a terrible choice. I'd assume she had reasons for doing so.

And in the same vein the reason I don't find myself condeming them ( not being a user of them ) is that I'm sure there are plenty of women who are quite happy with the set up. Those that have posted on these threads are generally supportive of them for reasons of pay and flexible working. I don't see enough good argument to take that away from them.

I think they should perhaps only be run by women, possibly be forced to 'tax' punters to pay for services for women. But I don't see they should be shut down or that the answer is as simple as removing demand.

GetAll, the 'what about your daughter' thing is really more of a 'would you be happy to have her lapdancing for a living' thing, I think. The bumping into her aspect depends on whether you know what she does. If you knew she danced in a club, you wouldn't go in there! Which then makes me wonder if some people think that TD should be ashamed of what she does, or remorseful, or even if she has given any wider thought to her profession's impact on women in wider society (not my opinion, just to be clear).

The problem with that line of thought is that only grimble on here has said that she would openly question an LD who participates of her own free will.The rest are a mixture of shifting blame squarely on the punters and ignoring the wilful participation of women - mostly in the name of sisterly solidarity.

grimble the problem with the 'what would you feel if your daughter was your lapdancer' line that seems fairly stock is, leaving aside your assumptions about how ( in this case me ) see sex workers is that it doesn't really make sense.

I say I'd be embarressed because I'd be in a sexualy charged situation, with god forbid my daughter. The same kind of embarressment as if she walked in on me having sex, or if we met on a blind date.

Obviously if it wasn't my daughter I wouldn't feel the same feeling as those feeling are based on it being my daughter in a sexually charged situation.

I don't really see the rational .

Are there male dancers in LDC's?

I think we should lay the myth that all men go to LDCs to rest - sure, maybe many different types of men go to them, but please don't make out all men go - they don't.

I've witnessed many men in various workplaces politely decline work nights out at lapdance clubs. I've also known 3 men (one of whom was my dh) on a stag weekend put up with the jeers of their fellow stags for not going to a strip club in Amsterdam. The 3 of them stayed in one of the bars drinking beer whilst the rest of them went off. They were treated as party poopers and there were many snide remarks on their return - in fact there was very nearly a mass falling out of a group of friends about it. But I was proud of my dh for doing that :) He loves women, but genuinely has no wish to see strippers.

Thank you, TD. Interesting stuff. Assuming that you are genuine - and I mention it because I am sure some people will be questioning your motives and truthfulness here - that is quite an insight into the LDC industry.

My concern with your profession was always tainted by the exploitation angle for the women involved. I don't think it's anybody else's business what goes on in private between two consenting adults.

Some people may have an issue with your idea that men are genetically pre-disposed to visual sexual stimulation to a greater extent than women. I don't know if this is true or not, but I imagine feminism might say that it is more likely to be due to men being allowed to get away with it, due to their privileged position within society. Then again, I look at marketing now. The male model images from stores like Hollister and A&F leave very little to the imagination, and they are aimed at young teen girls. So, in summary, I don't know , but I'd be interested to know what scientific research has shown.

One more question, if I may. Have you ever bumped into a client away from work and been recognised? How did they react? Do you find that men who know what you do treat you differently? Do you feel that it lowers their respect for you?

somerset well, yes, you do sound patronising lol. I was making comparisons rather than giving examples from my life. Men in my life are absolutely, fine, thank you. To quote you...nice, kind, decent people.
And talking about nice, kind, decent people...what makes you think they don't go to strip clubs?
In my experience men don't tend to tell their significant others that they have been to a strip club. Precisely because they're scared of reactions.
So they keep it quiet.
In reality, most (not all, but most) men have at some point in their life been to a strip club...it's not all city bankers and builders, you know. I've danced for young and old, intellectual and not so intellectual, left wing and right wing, hipsters and geeks, university professors and manual workers, Muslim, Christian and atheist, liberals and not so liberals, etc...
ALL kinds of men go to strip club. Just because they don't talk about it (or even actively deny it) doesn't mean they don't go.
If you think that it's just "less enlightened" men that go, you're very wrong. Or maybe all men are "less enlgihtened".
Sure, things have moved on, but to me that means there's more choice than before. So whether you want to be fully covered in burqa or participate in naked dancing on stage, you have a choice to do so (plus infinite number of other options that fall somewhere in between). Isn't that a great thing?
You made a comparison with racist, homophobic, etc...attitudes of past, but you missed one component which means that the comparison is essentially flawed. It's not in anyone's genetic make up to be racist, homophobic, etc...Rather those attitudes were reflection of society's norms at the time.
When it comes to sex industry, it is in men's genetic make up to look at women, to be visually stimulated, etc...
It is because of that that sex industry always existed and always will.
There won't be a shift in attitude when it comes to that as it would mean totally changing men's genetic make up and that ain't gonna happen. What might happen is that the format sex industry takes changes and shifts to certain extent, but it will never be completely eradicated.

sausage
When it comes to dynamic between a dancer and customer, it's a bit of both. For sure, dancer is exploiting the gullible guy's wallet and the guy also gets the satisfaction of a pretty girl dancing naked for him. As for who is in control, in my experience, it's always the dancer. Guy's a bit helpless in all of that, to be honest. He just sits there and does what he's told.
As for the male dancers, I don't know if they have it easier, I don't know any so I can't really comment on that. I would imagine they would make less money than girl dancers as women would rather spend their money on a good pair of shoes than naked guys. The ones that do make good money are the ones that dance in gay clubs. It's mostly men that spend on sexual entertainment.
Candy Bar, again, I cannot comment as I haven't worked there.
And, yes, you are right, the whole thing moving underground would be the worst case scenario. The safety net that exists now would simply be removed. I mentioned "private parties" already where touching is the norm. If industry moves underground anything would go. There would be much worse working conditions, but people would still dance. Banning is not the answer at all, more and more uniform regulations are the way forward, not banning.

namechange
The argument that we all hear over and over again is that some women are trafficked. Well, here it is once and for all, that's a load of made up bull wheeled out at all occasions to make up the arguments for pushing the agenda of anti-dancing brigade forward. I have danced for years and in all kinds of places...I have NEVER in my entire dancing career met ANY girls that have been trafficked or coerced in any kind of way into doing what they're doing. You ask if the split is even. The fact is there's no split. ALL the girls are doing it willingly.
Just because someone is foreign doesn't automatically mean they have been trafficked and that they are somehow less capable of making perfectly valid choices with their life. In fact, it's terribly patronising to assume so.
The fact is that a lot of girls are perfectly comfortable with their bodies and they are happy to use them in order to make a decent living. But I guess that is a very hard pill to swallow for some so they have to make up trafficking stories.
Trafficking exists, but not in lap dancing clubs and pubs.

Sorry but I have 3 questions for TD

1. Do male dancers have it easier?

1. My neighbour has said the worst club of the lot for being grabbed is the candy bar in soho. The customers in there think they are very entitled, If you have worked there what is your opinion?

1. What do you think is likely to happen to dancers if clubs were banned and it went underground? I am worried that in "trying to help" we create more victims.

Grimble, I would agree it is better to improve the lot of the dancers rather than ban them. I know unionisation is still in its early stages but if dancers stand against the owners then better working conditions should follow.

So if the dancers are less exploited that surely will make the venues more acceptable.

I think it is important that rather than us guessing at trafficked people we let someone who knows the industry comment.

Thank you tittydancer for your insight.

I've already said I'm not a person who wants things banned because I personally don't like them and it is always interesting to hear the views of someone involved. I queried upthread why, if LCDs are OK they do not offer apprenticeships and a proper wages structure. That at least would provide some protection against the worst exploitation - at least until, I would hope, attitudes towards them change.

People say men are visual and attitudes will never change but society's attitudes change all the while. Take car seat belts - in the early 80s many people thought the regulation was intrusive and nannying. Now everyone wears them without a second thought. Take the banning of smoking in public places - quite a lot of resistance. Now no one thinks twice about the legislation. Take sexism, racism, gender inequality - all rampant when I grew up. Now, not eliminated, but widely accepted as being wrong and anti-social.

I would like to see that shift happen in relation to LDCs - not banned because a lot of us don't approve of them, but die out because they are simply not an acceptable form of 'entertainment' any more.

A question to TD, in case she returns. What is you experience of the proportion of dancers who willingly do the job, versus the number of women trafficked or coerced into it? Is there an even split?

It's interesting to see the reactions to her post, compared to the reactions to posts of men who frequent the clubs. The sisterhood is alive and well

Let's not kid ourselves. Men have always liked to see naked women. Forget about their personalities. Men just want to see naked women and will pay for it.

So a market exists. Some women are fully prepared to dance naked or to use their bodies to make money from men who are prepared to pay. Some may be trafficked but for many it's a perfectly free choice in a capitalist society. The market exists and it's easy money - if you're got an attractive body and are prepared to perform.

Unfortunately, the effect of this is to lead to women being seen as objects by many men rather than as real people.

gah - last post was to Tittydancer.

Meant to add, thanks for sharing your story, it was interesting reading.

'If you can't beat them, join them' is a view I find very difficult to swallow tbh - but it is the view I have always assumed some of the women who work in LDCs, porn, page 3 etc take.

I'm with Somerset here - I don't want me or my daughter to have to pander to the misogyny of the sex industry.

Daddancer - that's good to hear. I have gone topless on mediterranean beaches myself and I agree it's normalised there. So - it's not a bit like seedy lap dancing bars then.

Somerset that was a really sad remark to make to TD, she uses an example which may have no relevance to her her life but is just an example and you take the opportunity to bash her. She has obviously come on here to try and show exactly what it is like and you just want to bash her? An intelligent articulate woman who works in the industry and thus knows more than any of us. Or perhaps that would be a reason to try and drive her off.

Titty, can you explain the power dynamics between customers and dancers, the statement is always that either the dancer is exploiting the customer wallet or the customer is exploiting the dancer. I see it as a bit of both although do like the nickname I have heard for customers as walking ATMs. But that is objectifying the customer (or just their wallets?).

Thank for joining the thread, TD.

DadDancer, do you think that women are sexually objectified in our culture (porn, grid girls, adverts with a disembodied pair of breasts or legs etc) but that none of this affects women in general? Or is it only lap dancing that you feel isn't part of a general effect ?

You really think it's a choice between a visit to a strip club ... or ... extreme violent porn...? Wow. I feel a bit sad for you. I realise that sounds ludicrously patronising, but really. What kind of men do you have in your life to think like that? :(

Difficult as it may be to believe, I don't want to ban anything. I'd just prefer to live in a society that actively chooses not to partake and buy into lap dancing clubs, extreme porn, etc, etc. I guess I'm lucky that my immediate social circle does eschew that. Don't worry - I'm not living in some idealised, utopian, deluded bubble - but the men in my life, family and friends, are all nice, kind, decent people.

Again, it comes down to the bigger picture - as long as we live in a patriarchal society, some less enlightened men will need LDCs, SEVs, porn and the like. The more we move away from that, well, it'd be nice to think that the demand will eventually start to naturally dwindle.

I mean - even larry acknowledges that attitudes have changed and things have moved on. This is all part and parcel of the feminist movement and progressive, more tolerant, enlightened thought in general. Not just in regards to gender, but to race, to people with disabilities, sexuality, etc, etc. The way society thinks about all sorts of things has improved immeasurably. Things that were once unquestioningly accepted are now inconceivable as society self-regulates.

There's still a long way to go, but we've come a long way, too. Again - I don't want to ban anything - I just live in hope that we continue to progress to such a point that there's no need to ban; but that people actively eschew these things of their own free will. :)

Somerset I agree with the picture being somewhat bleak when it comes to objectification, but I honestly think strip clubs are the least to blame here. They are part of the problem, but a small one. With the all imaginable kinds of porn freely and widely available, all kinds of kinks catered to, etc...strip clubs are paragon of innocence and virtue in comparison.
Men are very visual creatures and their sexuality is tightly woven with the visual stimulation. Always has been, always will be. Banning of this and that won't solve anything. In fact, I don't think there's a solution.
Men are not suddenly going to stop looking at women, stop looking at porn, etc...
You ban it, they'll take it underground.
Personally, I take the view, if you can't beat them...join them. Or at least use them to your advantage.
I fully exploit my feminine charms to my advantage and I'm cool with that.
And on a personal level, I'd rather my husband pays a visit to a strip club than indulges in watching...say...extremely violent porn.

"I also don't agree with the theory that it effects all women. i can't see any proven link to back this up either."

I'm sorry, but this pisses me off so much. It's such an unbelievably arrogant thing to say. How would you even know, DadDancer? You're a man. You're clearly not on the receiving end of the behaviour!

Did you bother to read that thread I linked to earlier? I'm guessing not. Here it is again. Woman after woman after woman giving examples of how she's been at the receiving end of unwanted, uninvited and unwelcome attention - leered at, felt up, groped, insulted, assaulted, abused and even worse. There is barely a woman on that 600+ post thread that has not had a bad experience in some way.

This is the culture that objectification feeds into.

Tittydancer - thanks for your post, it makes interesting reading. I've said it several times now (and so have others) that I have absolutely no beef with dancers themselves and your choices are yours to make. My issue is - and always has been - with the bigger-picture, wider ramifications for women as a whole.

Your paragraph for the thinks-it's-all-kosher-brigade makes for thoroughly depressing reading.

As with every thread like this that I dip my toe into, my feminist beliefs just become even more firmly entrenched. There is so much on the thread that I disagree with, but short of dropping out of my own life and putting everything on hold, there simply isn't time to respond to even half the assertions put forward by some on here.

Hi all, my first post on the forums as I have personal interest in this subject.
A little bit about myself...I am a dancer, I chose to do it, I certainly wasn't trafficked, forced etc to do this job. I come from a middle class family, I have a degree and I'm married. In addition to my dancing I also just started business (related to my degree) which I am hoping to build up and do solely within a year or two.

I think both sides of the arguments presented here are quite flawed. The truth, as always, is somewhere in the middle. Strip clubs are neither horrible places where young women get abused and objectified nor are they Disneyland like utopias where everyone is always perky and happy and making amazing money.

There are also all kinds of clubs and strip pubs and not all places should be tarred with the same brush. As I've been in business for a few years I have danced in high level clubs and in complete dives. I have worked for myself and for the agencies. For both men and women owners.

I do not favour banning the strip clubs as that will most certainly be a trigger for it to go illegal. It will not eradicate the stripping at all, in that you can be sure. There already are a number of "private parties" being held across the capital where touching is the norm. They are difficult to trace unless you are in the industry and I doubt that they would ever be closed down. If councils ban the clubs and pubs in which striptease and private dancing is performed legally, the whole thing will simply move underground. The WHOLE industry, rather than a few parties as the situation is now. It certainly is something to think about for the anti brigade who claim to have girls' best interest at heart. You don't as you don't respect the choice of others or their right to work in safe environment.
I do believe that your opinions were formed out of desire to help, but really it's not helping.

What we need is not a ban, but different regulations for the industry across the country...not one council or two, but all of them.
I would like to see dancers get some sort of employee status rather than be classed as self employed. The fees clubs charge are extortionate and it can make for the stressful atmosphere when you start your night at -£80 or whatever. Also, being self employed, most dancers simply choose not to pay income tax. Out of all the dancers I know, only a handful pay their taxes. When you start work, clubs certainly don't explain that you are responsible for your taxes and as a lot of the girls are foreign they never bother with it. Rather than pay extortionate fees to the club, put it towards taxes. Having employee status might help with that as well as being helpful in the case of wrongful dismissals etc... (they do happen...one day you work, the next day the boss decides he/she doesn't like you, you're jobless and there's nothing you can do about that).
Not all places are like that, of course. Some treat you very fair, some are just awful as they know they can get away with murder.
Whether the place is run by a man or a woman is completely irrelevant...there are wonderful men bosses and horrible lady bosses (and vice versa, of course).

Now for the brigade that thinks everything is kosher. Not strictly true.
Someone mentioned the money....it is true that we can end up with negative balance at the end of the night. It happens more often than you think in some places. Funnily enough, it's usually glamorous, high end places that this kind of situation is more likely to happen. Places like Stringfellows and Spearmint Rhino pack the clubs with girls...(all beautiful, of course), rack up the house fee and you're left with a cut throat atmosphere and a lot of stress. 100 girls fighting for customers. Sure, you'll have an extremely profitable say...two nights, but the other two nights you'll make a loss. And that goes for even the prettiest, sexiest girl in the place. Even though it balances out at the end of the week/month, it's extremely deflating and demoralizing when you just spent 6-8 hours gyrating naked and you end up paying for the privilege.
As for no touching, in some licensed places it does go on. It shouldn't, and while it's not encouraged by management, they certainly turn a blind eye to it. I, and most girls, don't have problem with a lap dance, and I certainly feel very comfrotable naked, but I don't want no man taking it upon themselves to touch me. Now, while it's easy to blame customers or management for this one, it's actually dancers who are the guilty ones here. They're the ones that normally encourage it first in hope of making more money. And if you offer it to a guy, well, he's gonna take it. And then he will try the same tactic with the next dancer that comes along.
Not cool. Doesn't go on in all the clubs, in fact, majority of clubs don't allow any touching, but it can be a bit of trial and error to find a good place to work which doesn't allow touching, is relaxed and treats girls with respect.

Overall, I do enjoy dancing...it keeps me fit and athletic, I LOVE doing pole dancing on stage, I don't mind doing private dancing as long as there's no touching, and I am not sorry I chose that path.
It enabled me to finish my university with no debt, to travel the world, live in a nice apartment, finance the start up of my business with no loans from the bank etc...
It is certainly a flexible job which does enable you to have a lot of choice in life.
It also gave me a bit of an insight into men and in a funny way, it made me more relaxed and understanding in my own marriage.
And even though, it can at times be demoralizing, I'd say overall it's more of a confidence builder as it does take guts and presence to get out on stage and perform naked.
So to sum it up, no ban, but better regulations.

I would be happy to answer any questions as well.

No Sabrina i don't leer at topless girls on the beach. As so many people in the med go topless , it becomes normalized and no big deal.