Article about strip clubs in the Guardian

I don't think disney princesses are quite comparable - but thanks for your input.

Ah yes, because children's pole dance kits are like waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more prevalent and pervasive in society and the lives of children than, um say, the billion dollar Disney machine that has touched virtually every cinema, TV set and toy shop in the western world.

Daddancer - violent video games now? Ok, you might want to read some of Dr Tanya Byrons research on that.

GetAll - you worry about disney dresses then - why not start a separate thread about it if it's of concern to you?

But, yes, I was talking about the effect of lapdancing clubs on objectification of women, the culture our daughters are growing up in, and how harmful I believe they are. I agree that there are a multitude of negative influences on children - but one of the most powerful is the increased sexualisation of children - MN is campaigning against that at the moment. Here, I will again draw your attention to the toy pole dancing kit aimed at children, I kinked to earlier. Teaching girls how desirable it is to make money from stripping from an early age Somehow I don't think disney princesses are quite comparable - but thanks for your input.

So you do admit there are problems in the clubs then, sausage? Can there ever be 'properly run' clubs by men happy to profit from selling womens' bodies as titillation for men? I'm not so sure.

How about the problems wider problems of sexual objectification of women that aren't addressed by properly run clubs? Punters like Daddancer can put his fingers in his ears and bury his head in the sand all he likes - but problems for all women arise from these clubs - not just the ones who work there.

What you are essentially talking about here is a trade in women's bodies. This is not remotely comparable to someone serving you a round of drinks, cutting your hair or serving you in a shop. The woman's body is the commodity - you can pay her £20 to wiggle her boobs at you. And you seriously think that all punters coming out of these clubs say 'ok lads, we're out of the club now. Time to treat women as humans again'?

Women who have experienced abuse and harassment outside these clubs are not all liars.

Running there was already 2 clubs existing in Exeter and they have had problems with one as it is located on the top floor of a night club (not sure which bright spark thought that up). The council is settling on one club being the total number clubs they will have in the area. Therefore an additional club would not be allowed.

As I said I am for the dancers and want properly run clubs, if a club is not properly run then it should close. But I can't see the point of closing all clubs because a handful are mismanaged.

I was talking about lap dancing culture and the effect on our daughters (I have a young daughter too)

No you weren't. I posted about why I don't see LDCs as the biggest issue in terms of objectification, that there are bigger fish, which you then interpret as...

GetAll - so women (including your daughter ) need to just get used to sexual objectification - because it's not going away. No point at all in fighting it?

At no point have I said women just need to get used to it ( objectification ) or that there is no point in fighting it ( objectification ) . That's you putting words in my mouth.

And in order to answer your question, as you're assuming I see no point in fighting objectification, I need to mention an areas which I feel are more corrosive and pervasive, where I do feel there is a point in fighting it ( objectification ).

What I do try and challenge ( as an example ) is the type of 'Disney dress' culture my daughter is exposed to. I have far more concern over that than LDCs.

I mention Disney dresses ( and all that goes with them ) as ( a ) it's an issue with my dd ( as you mentioned her ) that I'm trying to challenge, and ( b ) they are fairly symbolic ( a metaphor ) of the type of objectification many three year old girls are exposed to.

Do I really need to explain to you why things like Disney dresses and the culture and messages that go with them are damaging ? Really ?!

Could one of you pro- lap dance posters please answer somerset's question? She's posted the minor sexual assaults thread up here twice now - did anyone actually look at it? The huge majority of women have suffered some manner of sexual assaults - with many never telling a soul about it.

yeah i have read the thread, and it's sad to hear the testimonials on there, however for reasons i have said before you can't go blaming LDC's as part of the cause (FastLoris has written a excellent piece above which explains this well and also Sausage wrote a response back ages ago to this which I totally agreed with) .
It's the same as trying to blame violent video games or video nasties (to quote Mary Whitehouse) for people committing crimes. It all reverts back to this nanny state mentality where people are assumed that they can't be trusted so the state needs to control them.

Of course you're part of it Daddancer - you go to these clubs.

Nobody has cherry picked parts of the Leeds study to suit their arguments, or said it is invalid - it has been criticised for only interviewing current dancers - so therefore doesn't take account of the dancers that have left the business. Ex dancers may well display more negative responses to the questions.

Btw, it doesn't say that only 40% of dancers have experienced abusive behaviour, it says that 40% cite it as a negative about the job. Very different things.

Anyway, yes, you take comfort in the fact that 69.3% of the dancers you come into contact with haven't had their faith in men destroyed. Never mind the 30.7%.

Just remember that a third of the women that are dancing for you in these clubs have lost all respect for men, purely due to working there.

runningforthebusinheels

Sarcasm lost on you was it Daddancer?

yeah i knew you were being sarcastic, I was just being cheeky

^The Leeds study again: 40.1% of dancers report that customers are rude or abusive to them. 30.7% report that they have lost respect for men.

Daddancer - are you proud to be part of that? Proud to be part of the reason that dancers have lost their faith in men?" ^

Oh right so the Leeds study is a valid now? Earlier on in this thread objectors were more or less saying it wasn?t worth the paper it was written on and now you want to cherry pick the negative parts and argue them against me. Even though i have never once used the Leeds study to back up any of my arguments.

No I am not 'part of that' because I don?t insult the dancers. I respect them.
And remember it?s not 40% of all customers are abusive to the dancers, it?s 40% of the dancers have experienced some abusive behaviour, so that could just be a few idiots, which you get in all walks of life. I have never seen any trouble at any of the clubs I have been to or persons being rude to the staff or dancers, although I have seen people turned away for being too drunk at the door.
And the 30.7% is that for 'all men' or 'some men'? Either way at least 70% haven't lost repect.

I was talking about lap dancing culture and the effect on our daughters (I have a young daughter too) - and you started talking about other negative influences, and mentioned her dressing up as a princess. Why did you bring it up then?

GetALl - you were the one that brought up your 3yr old dressing up as a princess, on a lap dancing thread, not me.

You asked me a question that referenced my daughter. Usually when that happens in a debate the person answering may well refer to that which is being referenced. In this case my daughter and the influence of objectification.

With the suggestion that as I put lap dancing down the list of evils in my dd's life I therefore turn a blind eye to objectification as a whole.

What I didn't do is say dressing as a princess at age 3 is on a par with lap dancing culture. That is what you said.

I wonder why Avon & Somerset Police were opposed to the new LDC opening in Exeter?

I suppose they are all raving feminists or liars too.

So - you can hardly claim that all the reports were made up then? Why were no complaints made to the police? What a naive question - the vast majority of sexual assaults are not reported to the police. Women don't generally report sexual harrassment on the streets to the police - I know I never have.

I believe that lots of people lie - including the people that own lap dancing clubs. Like the Spearmint Rhino club that had a 15 year old working there?

Lilith is not the only research available - Lilith was only studying Camden. I'm not a member of Object, and I'm not here to be their spokesperson. I have my own objections to LDCs - and they do not stand or fall on whether crime statistics rise or fall when a LDC opens.

Actually Sabrina the only people Object even mentioned harassment to was it's closed user group. The template letter they put out to the public made no mention of harassment. Yet the template given to the activists did. Why only even mention it to the activists and not the general public? Why were they no complaints registered with the police?

More importantly why do object use a report that was so flawed it was easily torn apart? If the data was good it couldn't have been made a mockery of, but the data wasn't good, wasn't researched properly so could be shown as a useless waste of energy. Sorry Object lie and I believe they encourage their activists to lie. You don't have to believe it Sabrina what most people will do is wonder why even 3 years after the report was shown to be flawed groups use it as a key point to try and close LDCs? It plays right into the hands of the owners of the LDCs and weakens any position when someone quotes it.

Ok going to try and drop this (again) and if the fairy tales come back will try to ignore them.

I'm just loving the peekaboo dance pole.

Harmless fun?

Sausage, just because Stripping the Illusion found a suggested template letter on a closed form on Object, with suggested wording (saying amend as applicable) about being sexually harrassed outside the clubs, does not mean that all the women talking of being harrassed outside clubs are making it up.

That should be obvious even to you.

Encouraging members to write to object to something is not the same as what you claimed, sausage - you claimed that the women made up stories of sexual assault.

Encouraging women to come forward with stories of sexual harrassment outside existing lap dancing clubs is not the same as asking them to make them up.

You're accusing women of making up stories of sexual assault here.

Well Sabrina considering Object encouraged its members to write into hackney complaining of harassment and they quote the Lilith which is flawed and Object know it yes I would call them liars.

GetALl - you were the one that brought up your 3yr old dressing up as a princess, on a lap dancing thread, not me.

What do you think is more damaging to your daughter - dressing up as a princess or lap dancing culture?

Perhaps if she came home asking for the Peekaboo Pole Dancing Kit you wouldn't be so dismissive. I particularly like the fake money that's included.

Sausage - the Lilith report has been ripped apart and 'reanalysed' by all sorts of people that have a financial vested interest in LDCs and the sex industry. Big surprise.

There are plenty of other studies that show the damage caused to women, everyday women, not just the ones working in LDCs. But no doubt you'll dismiss those as lies too. Here's one woman's experience:

?Until a strip club opened outside this bus stop I had never experienced a single instance of harassment,
intimidation or any anti-social behaviour whilst waiting there at up to 11 pm at night. Since it opened in
April I have been subjected to numerous counts of verbal abuse best described as sexual harassment.
It?s not every night, and most weekdays there has never been any problem. It?s most often on Friday
and Saturday evenings. The first time I ignored it and thought nothing of it, it was just a bunch of drunk
men on their way to a club.

Then it happened again the next week, and then again a fortnight later, to the point that now I will not go
there. It?s basically come to the point where in the space of five months, a public bus stop where I would
feel safe to wait and travel home is a place I now cannot go because of the likelihood of receiving verbal
abuse from men going into the club or walking past. I am just trying to make my way home at night
using public transport. I cannot believe this is 21
st
Century Britain?
In this context it is difficult to sustain the argument that lap dancing clubs are ?just harmless fun?

Plenty more on the Object website. Although no doubt they're just all making it up too.

However, Sausage, yesterday, you have accused women of making up stories of sexual assault to licensing committee hearings. Do you stand by that comment?

Sabrina : Yes, because dressing as a princess at age 3 is on a par with lap dancing culture. Or maybe not

Eh ? Who said that ? Is that what you think ?

Twas not what I said at all. In terms of my dd ( as you mention her ), currently in her life, it's not LDCs that are responsible for the all pervasive messages about what a female's place is in the world and how she should look and behave.

I then mentioned areas of life that I feel are very corrosive, far more than LDCs. Religion and advertising for example.

And that was in answer to another one of your false assumptions about me not caring about objectification and giving up just because I don't agree with you about shutting all LDCs down.

Ok I'm sure people felt look she is not posting anymore because she can't deal with the fact Fawcett Society have a quote that says everythings she has said is wrong. Well as someone here suggested the clubs could and will have bent the truth to make themselves look better and I have no doubt they would and will. I want to explain why I believe that Fawcett/Eaves/Object are much worse than bending the truth but actually resorting to lies.

The lilith report was commissioned by Eaves to investigated and try and prove links between LDCs and rape, something that if it truly existed should be easy to prove. The researchers were so keen to prove the theory they ignore a couple of years with data that didn't fit the theory and made the calculations without allowing for basics like population growth. Nor did they compare to boroughs that have no LDCs so there is no proof of the theory against a baseline. Which is either incredibly shoddy research (and Eaves should ask for their money back) or a deliberate misuse of the data to get the result required. I can't believe anyone doing research would be that poor at maths so think the report is pretty much an out and out lie.

What makes it worse is even though anyone who spends a little time researching will find out just how inaccurate Lilith is, it is still used as a claim to justify the closing of LDCs by Object/Eaves/Fawcett even though they know it is a completely flawed piece of research. That to me is a deliberate lie and if they can lie once do people really not think they will lie again?

Are you standing up for that viewpoint or just saying we should ignore it?

Neither, obviously.

Daddancer said Great posts tittydancer and nice to get another insight from a dancer. I do wonder how many dancer testimonials would be required before people on here would even begin to step back and listen. I posted a link a couple of days ago with a dancer interview which had positives and negatives, but it was sadly ignored.

It wasn't ignored. I answered it, in fact I thanked you for posting something that clearly supported all that we had been saying re the objectification of women and others answered to say that they agreed with me. You ignored my answer but I notice you either tend to ignore all answers that get to the heart of the debate or irrationally go off on a tangent when the debate makes you uncomfortable (as when you were asked how you would feel if your daughter or wife pursued this job).

Urgh, your post chills me to the bone FastLoris. I think I'll need Botox for the frown it gave me.

"A smaller number of those men are willing to ignore the rights and suffering of another person in order to get what they want" Are you standing up for that viewpoint or just saying we should ignore it?

We're not talking sexual attraction here - sexual attraction is a perfectly normal part of human behaviour - which we should all learn to control at an early age. We also learn to enjoy it - hiopefully appropriately. We're talking about sexual objectification - where the structure and behaviour of those owning, working in and visiting lap dancing clubs sets women up as something to buy, just a pair of tits and an arse - to be paid to be part of the decoration or to dance suggestively on demand. Or worse - something to grab, insult or abuse.

If you think all men that visit lap dancing clubs can compartmentalise their feelings towards women as 'those we can pay to touch' and 'oops, she works in the office with me, better leave her alone' then you're far more optimistic about things than me! And of course we're getting onto the 'madonna/whore' complex here...

But then, I have been subject to porn-based harrassment at work - so what would I know? Those men who harrassed me clearly didn't know the difference between the woman posing for page 3 - and me - a young and female colleague.

Running -

Yes, it is a sad state of affairs that sexual assaults happen anywhere and everywhere - even sadder that they are most likely to happen in a woman's own home by someone they know and trust.

Do you not think that the sexual objectification of women in society is in some way responsible for that though?

I think there are three things responsible for that. (1) A lot of men want more sex than they're getting. (2) A smaller number of those men are willing to ignore the rights and suffering of another person in order to get what they want. (3) Men are on average physically stronger than women, so in many cases those men who are willing to so ignore the rights and suffering of their victim will be ABLE to get what they want.

Crime is crime. Burglars don't care that they upset the person whose house they turn over. Football hooligans don't care about the feelings of the person who's face they smash in. It's anti-social by definition; that's why we have laws against it. If that's what "objectification" is then fair enough, but I don't see what's so special about sex crime that it's supposed to automatically say so much about non-criminal sexual activity. I can look at a woman in terms of pure sexual attraction, without there being any question that I'm going to break the law and abuse her, just as I can look at a rich person and be completely overcome by how opulent their house is, without there being any question that I'm going to burgle it.

That women are the sex class - not someone with rights over their own body, but fuck toys that men can buy? They are just their for male sexual gratification - look men can go along and pay some half naked chick to wiggle for them, or just be part of the background decoration. Do you not think that men with that attitude towards women in LDCs have that attitude to all women?

No. I think people are highly complex organisms with highly complex brains, and are capable of holding different attitudes to different people; different attitudes to the same person at different times; even different attitudes to the same person at the SAME time.

This is the thing that seems really ridiculous to me - the idea that a man can't possibly hold an attitude of sexual attraction AND a whole bunch of other attitudes at the same time (like respect for another person's rights, or for the law). I mix with women all the time in loads of different circumstances. Some I find attractive, some I don't. Some I've been in positions of authority over, some under. Some have amazing brains that I admire, some don't. These are all just factors in the vast, complex panoply of human interaction, and feeling horny about someone doesn't immediately change them all in some mysterious way. If I'm going to shag somebody then how horny they make me is obviously a relevant factor. If I'm going to discuss a work proposal with them or decide whether to vote for them then it isn't, and I judge them on what's relevant to the situation.

And I think your description of the lapdancing scenario is just a self-fulfilling prejudgment. The dancers clearly aren't JUST there for male sexual gratification, they're there to make a living too. Are they not objectifying the punters by seeing them as walking wallets to be drained as quickly as possible with no thought for their own feelings? And if so, what litany of evils in wider society can we link this to?

Fact is we live in a soceity with a money-based system where people pay each other to give them things they want. Thus everybody objectifies many people every day.