Article about strip clubs in the Guardian

Fast Loris - I do not believe that sex is a commodity to be bought or sold. I do not feel that any freedom can result from objectification.

How can being viewed as less than human make you freer?

I understand you're arguing from an anti-censorship viewpoint, but saying men shouldn't be allowed or encouraged to treat/view women as fuck-toys, is not censorship, IMHO.

KRITIQ - thanks

Just nipping in to give a double thumbs up to GothAnne's last post.

Male owned sexuality that objectifies and dominates women is not a liberated sexuality for women

Needs to be on a poster, on tee shirts, on the front cover of every PSHE / PSE text book.

But it may be that allowing the free expression of all forms of sexuality, including the ones you don't like (subject only to the usual legal principle of disallowing acts that are directly harmful to others), is the most likely way to achieve freedom for the ones you do like.

Fast Loris - oh yes, Iceland is such a repressive country.

And I'm sure that the freedom to have lapdancing clubs is top of the list of things they're fighting for in Syria right now.

FFS, this canard that freedom = the heterosexual male gaze being endlessly catered to and privileged needs to die in a fire.

Male owned sexuality that objectfies and dominates women is not a liberated sexuality for women.

Nope Dad Dancer, it's nowt to do with intellect.

Companies spend millions marketing messages to people to get them to consume their product or service. They don't just target people of "low intellect" who are unable to "think for themselves." The messages DO get through or companies wouldn't invest so much in marketing and advertising. The pounds invested translate into people buying this aftershave or that brand of trainer, going to this insurance company or that bank. Are you suggesting then that men are uniquely immune to those other cultural and media messages that sexualise and objectify women? That they can purchase the sexual services of some women but this will have absolutely no impact on the way they regard all other women in society. Really?

Maybe it sounds like an excuse to you, but even if it is, that would be an excellent example of group think in action - that they would do something exploitative, abusive and demeaning of women when in a group, when they have to behave in a certain way to be accepted, but later try and weasel out of responsibility for what they have been involved in.

However, one of the examples I was thinking of was the husband of a colleague. His brother and friends knew he did not agree with strip clubs and he thinks they deliberately decided to go to one on a night out to put one over on him. They taunted him that he must be gay. Then tried the, "you're under her thumb," alongside the, "it's just a bit of fun, relax, you'll like it." When he still refused, one of the men became aggressive and accused him of wanting to tell tales to their wives. He walked off, walked home and hasn't had anything to do with any of them since - yes, including his brother. He felt especially betrayed by him, but also let down by guys he thought were real mates.

Just wanted to finish this bit, but have no intention of engaging with you further Dad Dancer. You continue to assert your male privilege, have no interest in any views that do not confirm your entitlement to sexual services from women, so I'd prefer to be using my time doing something more productive.

Toodle pip.

Do you think a society where visiting a lap dancing club is a weekly occurence, where it's perfectly acceptable to have business meetings there, where seeing a prostitute is like ordering a takeaway and the whole idea that paying a women to sexually service you is fine and normal,

do you think a society like this is a place where women will be respected, where women will be able to achieve equality?

Leaving aside the hyperbole and assumptions about what is "normal" (lapdancing clubs only exist as one activity among many in society, and the vast majority of men certainly don't view seeing a prostitute as "like ordering a takeaway") - one question immediately springs to mind:

Why is it then that women have so much more equality in the countries where lapdancing clubs and the like are relatively open (ie western liberal democracies), than they do in the countries where they're banned?

However, if a person is conditioned and on the receiving end of continual messages in popular culture, from peers and in society in general, that says they are entitled to use other people to fulfil their "wants and needs" (including sexual ones,) then they are less likely to feel qualms about coercing or even forcing another person to "give" them what they believe is rightly theirs to have.

but that's just assumes that people are of low intellect and can't think for themselves. Just because some people want to get their kit off for example, doesn't mean it becomes expected from everyone. I would hope that most people are able to distinguish between fantasy and reality.

I've spoken to men who have said that they felt bullied and were even threatened with violence during such outings if they refused to go along with what the group was doing. This could happen, for example, when they said they didn't want to go into a strip club or if they didn't want to pay for private dances or for sex. It could also happen if they objected to the way other men in the group were treating women in the street or in nightclubs afterwards, including sexual assaults.

that sounds like an excuse to me, like the kind of thing someone would say to their OH to try and play down the fact that they went to a lap dancing club. 'It weren't my idea darling, it were those nasty mates that forced me to go there'

I know this all too well as some of my mates play down our nights out to their OH's, when in fact it was them who were the ones to suggest going in the first place!

oh and you most certainly can't have sex in a lap dancing club, there's no touching for starters. Nightclub are a different matter, as people do it in the toilets. Binge drinking isn't permitted in lap dancing clubs either and if you get too drunk you'll be kindly asked to leave.

I was wondering if there is income data on lap dancers in general, as a profession, from HMRC or ONS.

It's just that when journalists investigate they never seem to find evidence that anyone really nets fabulous sums of money.

Sausage - the argument you are making about "there being more important things" is a tiresome cliche. We can be concerned about several things at once.

The fact is this: Stories about lap dancers making money so it's a-ok are one tactic to boost the acceptability of the sex industry.

The sex industry is powerful and seeking ever more profit.

Of course they want you to think that lap dancing clubs, "safe massage parlours" and the ilk are a wonderful thing, it makes more money for them.

Lessening the stigma of seeing, a stripper, watching porn, using a prostitute means that more men will do these activities and the means...

More money for the sex industry.

Now to the big question.

Do you think a society where visiting a lap dancing club is a weekly occurence, where it's perfectly acceptable to have business meetings there, where seeing a prostitute is like ordering a takeaway and the whole idea that paying a women to sexually service you is fine and normal,

• do you think a society like this is a place where women will be respected, where women will be able to achieve equality?

I don't.

Rosa okay saying people agree with me doesn't make it a valid argument I was just trying to point out that many people may feel you are misguided. Many people may be disinterested. A discussion board on MN in reality will have little impact on the world anyway. I only really got involved as people were making claims about violence at the outset and everything I read seemed to point against it. I got annoyed with Posie as she refused initially to accept her quotes were based on inaccurate data.

LineRunner as to money it is from what I gather how much work a dancer wants to put in. Certainly a five day week is worth over £1000 to my neighbour. And the fringe benefits like claiming all your shoes and undies as tax deductible seems a little [hshock]

I don't feel that another women being desirable demeans me, but I am of the age objectification is a long way behind me. There are so many more things in life that really demean women like FGM, religion and needing women only shortlists as we are obviously not good enough to get the job on our own skills and a abilities. Those are the ones that really bug me. I would say with religion if a woman chooses to accept the practices I don't dislike her choice if it is hers it is more about the overall issue that women have to be subservient. I feel that with the club if it is a dancer's choice I shouldn't be making decisions for her as an intelligent woman.

Thanks Doctrine and yes, folks can come and go as they wish here, surely!

One of my other concerns is the "group think" that can happen when a group of people together will do and/or support other group members in doing things that they would be unlikely to consider if they were on their own or were just with 1 or maybe 2 other people.

Men tend to go to strip clubs in groups - stag nights, work parties, mens' nights out, that sort of thing. They tend to drink alot of alcohol and sometimes take drugs.

I've spoken to men who have said that they felt bullied and were even threatened with violence during such outings if they refused to go along with what the group was doing. This could happen, for example, when they said they didn't want to go into a strip club or if they didn't want to pay for private dances or for sex. It could also happen if they objected to the way other men in the group were treating women in the street or in nightclubs afterwards, including sexual assaults.

There is immense pressure to conform to a very sexist "ideal" of masculinity in outings like this - one that sexually objectifies and demeans women as a class. A whole industry has grown up with the purpose of making men feel good about objectifying and demeaning women, and paying lots of money for that good feeling. It's not like they are going to watch demonstrations of flower arranging.

Frans that was uncalled for, we are all at liberty to stop posting whenever we wish on a thread.

Kritiq, great post.

PosieParker Mon 29-Oct-12 13:13:47
Now am hiding the thread.

That's right, go back under your rock now that your stats have been shown to be inaccurate.

Digerd, just a quick point related to your recent post. People can become sexually aroused in all sorts of situations. That doesn't mean they will necessarily go out and coerce or force another person to perform a sexual act or engage in a sexual act with them as a result.

However, if a person is conditioned and on the receiving end of continual messages in popular culture, from peers and in society in general, that says they are entitled to use other people to fulfil their "wants and needs" (including sexual ones,) then they are less likely to feel qualms about coercing or even forcing another person to "give" them what they believe is rightly theirs to have.

The environment within a strip club is predicated on conveying the idea that women exist to be appealing to men, to please them, to defer to them, to serve them and that women's own needs and wants aren't important. No, further than that - that women's own needs and wants are fulfilled through servicing men, sexually and otherwise.

It's of course not the only message that men receive pointing to this, but it is one of the most overt and explicit examples. It serves to reinforce and justify the concept of women as sexual objects, that their personal boundaries are completely permeable and that they are in a perpetual state of sexual consent.

I think that in itself is a problem.

So what do lap dancers actually earn?

It seems to be an argument floated frequently by those who support SEVs, and yet there seems to be no official information about the profession's gross and net salary medians and averages, as you would expect for, say, engineers or croupiers.

This article previously in the Guardian suggests a precarious income, but could be wrong I suppose. There seems to be so little real data for lap dancers as a profession.

The clubs seem to do well out of it, though.

So you disagree with me on the point that our treatment of people will have an effect on our opinions of them?

In real life, lots of people may well agree with you or they may agree with me but the point of a debate in "real life" is to discuss the issues and attempt to change people's opinions as a result. Lots of people agreed with slavery but eventually, by persuasive debate, opinions were changed. Putting forward, "lots of people agree with me" is not really a serious avenue of argument.

Welll you made your point Rosa I just disagree with it, sorry I don't see the clubs as some threat to society that needs changing. You have your belief the same as people believed the world was flat. Just saying that not everyone agrees with you and IRL that seems to be a large majority.

As to the debate you have you opinion and I have mine, interestingly none of the key fact that I based my initial discussion on has changed, however data thrown up by people has proven so far to be misrepresentations. When people use data that has been disproved you create an environment that is more flat earth than slavery.

Fortunately Rosa the majority do not hold all the things you believe to be their truths,

Sausages, you are not following my argument at all. You seem to think that I am arguing from some sort of religous perspective which is not the case at all. The "truth" I was talking about (although I didn't refer to it as a "truth," I referred to it as a "belief" and I mean belief as in, I believe global warming is connected to human activity though others think it's a grey area - that kind of "belief") was the genreal belief that the way we treat people affects our opinion of them and our opinions of them affect our treatment of them. This is not some odd new age notion, it is quite an accepted way of viewing things, hence my examples quoted above and hence why a lot of effort goes into changing society's treatment of people in order to change opinions about them or vice versa. I really don't think many people would believe otherwise, ie that it is possible to treat people in one way yet have a low opinion of them in another. For example, it would be very difficult to treat a black person as badly as slaves were treated if you did not also have a very low opinion of them. In this case I would argue that it is very difficult to have an opinion of women as equals in society if you are treating them in a way which suggests they are there to serve men's sexual needs - quite unequal treatment.

Of course, I don't think such a change of opinion and treatment can be achieved by Orwellian thought police, but I do "believe" it can be changed by not promoting the kinds activities which do suggest that women are there to serve men's sexual needs such as a lapdancing club. I would also try and change this opinion by promoting activities which do NOT suggest that women are there to serve the sexual needs of men, for example perhaps ensuring that women who are stacking shelves (an activity which does not promote the idea that women are there to serve men's sexual needs) get paid more money than women who are lapdancing (an activity which does promote the idea that women are there to serve men's sexual needs.)

Does that explain the connection between opinions of/treatment of people a bit better for you? Eventually, just as ending slavery and discrimination against black people changed opinions towards black people to the extent that they are no longer thought of as subhuman (ie opinions were changed by changed treatment rather than thought poilice - which would probaly have been quite difficult), so ending the circumstances where women are shown to be sexual objects to serve men's needs, such as lapdancing clubs, will lead to changed opininions of men towards women regarding objectification/there to serve their sexual needs etc, again not through thought police but through changed treatment.

Animals have strip clubs ?

Watch animal programmes. I did say some men could. You are a man, you should know the biological need once your testsoterone is raging through your erm blood vessels.

digerd any your evidence for this is......................

Some people behave like DS2 when he doesn't get his own way. I always worried about how he could turn out, will work harder on him.

So digerd if the men are in heat how come rape figures haven't gone through the roof in the locale of the clubs? DH is more than capable of controlling his urges and I expect it is likely to be young men coming from night clubs that are going to be much more sexually aggressive. Its only my opinion but I would put money on the fact that sexual crimes are more likely to occur near night clubs rather than strip clubs.

@ Rosa:

And you have implied that the comment about the invasion of pricks was mine which it wasn't and I think you ought to acknowledge that.

Ah, sorry. I was replying to posts by you and PosieParker and got them mixed up. Something about "Rosa" and "Posie" I suppose.

My apologies.

Posie
I agree with your many posts. The one at 12.43, is exactly what crossed my mind - as these clubs sexually arouse the men who attend - they wouldn't do it if it didn't-, then afterwards some could be like a male elephant in musk - aggressive to say the least with no self-control.