Article about strip clubs in the Guardian

What do you all think about women who go to see male strippers, or girls who hire a male stripper for their b'day party? Are they "objectifying" men?

Objectification is a strange idea. I think it depends on whether a few women get objectified or a lot of women. If a few, it is just a subset and irrelevant to society. If a lot, then clearly people's views are affected.

Personally, I think the pervasiveness of internet porn is infinitely more worrying than lapdancing clubs. You have to be an adult to go to the latter, and probably a reasonably mature adult (in terms of age, I mean, maybe mid 20s +) given the costs involved. I very much doubt your average lapdance club goer who does not in the rest of his life objectify women suddenly does so because a few women lapdance. After all, he has to return from his night out to work where many of his colleagues, and maybe even his boss, is a woman. That will be a far more pervasive influence on his life.

Does the idea that men go into the army to become dehumanised robots trained to act on orders and not to think (surely the ultimate objectification of a human being) objectify or dehumanise all men in womens' eyes?

Sausage - people do a lot of things for money that are not positive activities.

MoreBeta if there was nothing positive for anyone then why do highly intelligent women choose to do the work? They see a positive. I know some women have said if the DP went to one it would be a game breaker, I could comfortable deal with DH watching so long as he isn't going elsewhere for sex. As in the case he can look at the menu so long as he doesn't order take away.

Being serious how many women on this thread who have screamed objecification would be comfortable with Cheryl posters because she earns gazillons? Personally objectification to me was a way of certain researchers to get lots of research grants for a theory they could have scribbled down in 10 minutes and is really at present impossible to prove one way or the other.

< applauds MB >

what is the point of these circular arguments that nobody wins ?

I will add to MB's list a number (3) the people that prop up the whole of the sex industry by using them are wankers

it really is as simple as 1, 2, 3 [hsmile]

And what happens when gay people do it to each other? That must be confusing.

Sabrina - that's an awful lot of goalpost shifting though. A lot of points have been raised on this thread to the effect that lapdancers earn a lot more than a pittance, and that there are strict procedures, adhered to in the vast majority of cases, to ensure that they are not abused, prostituted etc.

I don't know how true that is, as I don't know anyone in the industry. But the point is that even if it IS true, the position of most people here has been that it doesn't matter, that paying lapdancers even a very very good wage doesn't mitigate against the fundamental wrongness of the objectification involved. As for having to lie to their families, that's a question of public perception of the job, not whether the existence of the job is OK or not. I fully support destigmatising everything to do with female sexuality, including this.

Also, the hypocrisy of the Brad Pitt example can easily be seen by reversing it. If a rich and famous female actress made a movie with lurid scenes of nakedness and simulated sex, and it became the talk of the moment because so many men enjoyed going along to "objectify" her, would that then be OK? I'd wager that most people here would say no.

Having said that, while I don't really understand this objectification malarky I do think it's getting at something that men in general do more than women. I can also see that it can seem OK for women to do it to men, because it's not part of a wider social system of oppression. If we admit that though, might we then also admit that there are some circumstances or some ways of men doing it to women that are equally innocent? I don't know.

The arguements on this thread are far too complicated. You only need to know two things.

1. There is absolutely nothing positive about lapdancing/strip clubs for anyone involved.

1. Men don't actually need to go in them.

Well from the research in Leeds they don't earn a pittance, are not abused, have good homes if they have invested their money. No contact takes place so I would question prostitution. The dancers, from reading the Leeds research, are not locked in but are exercising an economic choice to earn in a night what shelf fillers would earn in a week. Not making them appear millionaires but I am saying objectification is about deny agency if you believe the argument. Using sophistry to justify your position here me thinks.

Just saying Objectification is Objectification you can't use an argument if you are not prepared to accept the whole definition of that argument. Suggest you go and read the Stanford definition and then think if I applied it to pieces on mumsnet would those threads show identifiable traits of Objectification. The Objectification of the dancers by some feminists here is already very clear and particularly Langston's Silencing aspect. But its okay to Objectify people if we are feminists?

Sorry but people using an argument can't pick and chose the bits they want and throw away other parts because it doesn't suit them.

The last thread on this subject brought the comparison to ogling Brad Pitt's bare bum rather than Wogan or Cumberbatch, but I believe Mme Lindor's point still stands:

MmeLindor Wed 24-Oct-12 12:44:18
Hmm. Let me examine that comparison.

Brad Pitt, earns gazillions, calls the shots on which film he stars in (or produces), jets around the world with his superstar wife and a legion of nannies. Admired by millions for his charitable work.

Stripper in dingy club, earns pittance, is abused by customers and staff, lives in a tiny flat. Has to lie to family about her job.

It's not the ogling (ie. silly women being jealous of their husbands looking at other women).

It's the plight of the women who work in the sex industry, many of whom are abused and prostituted while others pocket the profits.

To compare them to a millionaire superstar is laughable.

Terry Wogan and Benedict comparable to lap dance workers? Pfft.

OMG. Dark I suggest you speak to DWP and check as no one can be forced to work on sex chat lines. There was an issue in Germany in 2005 where a woman working in catering was asked to work in a brothel because it was a catering job and not sex work. That has since been changed and I am certain it doesn't apply to the UK.

As to Objectification if you truly believe that it is an issue then remember denial of autonomy: the treatment of a person as lacking in autonomy and self-determination is objectification which people here are doing to the dancers. That is one of the seven from Martha Nussbaum and also Rae Langton silencing: the treatment of a person as if they are silent, lacking the capacity to speak which is what happpens when claims that society have pre-programmed intelligent women to do the bidding of their masters. Sexual objectification works both ways and women objectify men but hey that's okay because we are women (Terrry Wogans Package and quite a lot of threads that have linked to Benedict as very quick and simple MN examples). Equality either neither side Objectifies or both do and you tell some people on here linking to willy pics is Objectification and see how long before YABU comes out.

I find it strange that the antis rush in with figures but the moment they realise people reading them are not going to believe them they trot out an unprovable statement. And if you truly want to believe that statement you can't just say it only applies to men on women, it applies on men on men, women on women and even women on men because we all have sexual fantasies and in those we would objectify an individual be it a partner or stranger.

My post starts with the words "im afraid" the rest of it is a copy and paste from the thread i lifted my post from.

Oh and Dad Dancer. This happened back in 2001.

Here it is.

DarkesteyesWed 24-Oct-12 22:50:38

mrsfuzzyWed 24-Oct-12 09:57:50

lovetoshop will stay with her husband, but she has learnt a valuable lesson and perhaps other women have too about these 'clubs', i would be interested to know from the female angle, why do women do this sort of 'work'? is it just for the money? are they exhibitionists? which ever way you look at it's a very sad situation, what sort of men would think it was okay for their wives/girlfriends to strip for a living? doesn't say much for them. before i went into auxlliary nursing years ago i was a chambermaid to support myself and two young kids, cleaning toilets isn't the last word but i would have never degraded myself no matter how much it paid.

Im afraid the reality is that a lot of sex work is now advertised in Job Centres like chatline and webcam work.
You were a chambermaid for a while but another reality is that a lot of those type of jobs are now being filled by workfare.
Therefore its quite feasible that a young woman signing on can be left with a very stark choice.
I know because it happened to me. I had completed 3 months on workfare and then they wanted me to do 3 months workfare at a soup factory.
I applied for a chatline job that i saw in the paper got it and signed off.
As of this week the Gov brought in even stricter benefit sanctions. Couple that with the fact that Jobcentres can now advertise sex work due to a ruling in 2003 and you will have a lot of desperate young women (who will also suffer the abolishment of HB if they are under 25) feeling that sex work will be the only way they can afford to live.
Its a bloody big time bomb waiting to go off.

Soon sex work can be advertised at your local job centre and if you don't work you may lose your benefits,
that's no true either.

Err it is. In fact i had a choice between working for a sex chatline or workfare.
In fact i posted about it on the Relationships board recently.

Yeah, I see exactly what you mean, HappyHalloween.

Sorry thought these were open forums, didn't realise it was a club for only 'designer feminists' to hang out.

yup, Sabrina, and that's why many of the original members have fucked off or certainly post here much less frequently than they used to

leave the sex industry promoters to it, it's a losing battle, certainly on MN

well fine KRITIQ i can't be bothered to engage with people who continue to use outdated exploitation and objectification arguments based on assumptions and one dimensional views. So you have saved me the trouble.

FastLoris, very true. Sometimes in life we have to accept things that we don't like and respect the views of others. I don't like religion and i could easily argue that it has a negative widespread impact on society, but i am not going to be calling for a 'nil cap' on places of worship. Some people just don't understand the concept of living in a tolerant society.

GothAnneGeddes - regarding Iceland, sounds like it's lost the plot since the financial crisis. Interesting to hear if there is now an underground scene? Also what's with all this being 'viewed as less than human' about? It's not something that happens in lap dancing clubs i can tell you that. You would be booted out the club if you didn't respect the dancers.

LineRunner so much for democracy then!

The feminist section is barely distinguishable from punterprats forum these days. Tis very sad.

I saw a reference to Portsmouth in the thread earlier and its council website apparently shows that despite the consultation response the Licensing Committee chose to adopt a starting position of 'No' to any more SEVs.

Well it clearly is, but the question is whether it's justified censorship. I'm not actually opposed to all censorship automatically; I just think a historical look at different social systems says there's more to be said for letting people work out their own ways of doing things than trying to impose a single ideology from above - however well-meaning the latter may be. OTOH I hadn't really thought about Iceland and that's a different story because it's the first time stripping has been banned for feminist rather than religious/puritanical reasons. It will be interesting to see how that plays out.