Bristol strip club ban

Hello,

Just read through this thread. I've never commented on mumsnet, only read through for hot tips when I'm struggling with my kids..

I have been a stripper for 14 years. The Bristol clubs are my favourite. I've worked in a few. I am actively engaged in fighting for women's rights and passionate about it.

My view, in a nutshell, is that I am campaigning hard for the clubs to remain open, as I see it as a much broader issue - I'm fighting for body autonomy, freedom of expression and freedom for women to do as they choose (as long as they're not hurting anyone). Saying that strip clubs, the sex industry or sex workers are linked, or cause male violence against women and girls, or even that it adds to societal attitudes that are linked or cause male violence... is unacceptable. That not only places the blame for violent men's crimes in the hands of women, it also let's those criminals off the hook a bit.

A well run strip club goes pretty much unnoticed. A badly run club is a nightmare for everyone affected. The Bristol clubs are the most regulated, impeccably run clubs I have worked in.

Yes Cirque du Soleil are incredible, I've been fortunate enough to have seen many of their shows and I've even had friends involved in them.

Theres quite a few online groups for people involved in circus stuff and dance and there's been so much chat recently about how amazing it is that we no longer have to hide from our "legit" circus contracts the fact that many of us supplement these contracts with working in strip clubs. It's sad for me to hear that obviously for many people it is still an issue.

I guess I want to 'evolve' strip clubs as it were as opposed to banning them. Thanks for engaging all I'm now off to write to my MP (again) enjoy your Sunday.

I wasn't aware there are pole dancing clubs where you can go to watch women pole dance that are not called strip clubs. Glad to hear you know of some! Please share where women can work if they enjoy pole dancing that are not strip clubs and are safe and I'll be applying in a jiffy

Not clubs but prior to lock down there were 100s, maybe 1000s of alternative circus troupes with aerial acts. Cirque du Soleil is the most well known.

These performances are beautiful. And fully clothed.

Can you honestly not fathom that many "real" circus performers also work in strip clubs? I do for a start. Many of us have a history of circus and dance and that's how we came into stripping. I can say confidently that no artist friends of mine who work in all manner of different aspects of the arts find the comparison risible.

Ah now we're getting somewhere! See to you sex and strip clubs cannot be separated. To me pole dancing is an art form, in the same way I go to jazz cafes to enjoy jazz, i go to strip clubs to enjoy pole dancing.

I wasn't aware there are pole dancing clubs where you can go to watch women pole dance that are not called strip clubs. Glad to hear you know of some! Please share where women can work if they enjoy pole dancing that are not strip clubs and are safe and I'll be applying in a jiffy.

I'm not denying that there are unsavoury people or practices associated with strip clubs. I just think that the problem is in monitoring them and running them as opposed to there being something fundamentally wrong with women pole dancing.

Prior to lockdown I regularly went to legitimate dance performances. I've no intention of sitting in a strip club to verify if your fellow strippers are on a par with The Royal Ballet, Nederlands Dans Theater, Martha Graham, Rambert et al although I very much doubt it and even if they were I don't particularly want to sit beside some leering punter.

I'm also keen on contemporary circus- the skills used by many performers are stunning but they don't need to take their clothes off.

Strip clubs sell sexual titillation and sex- that's why they exist. Your attempt to compare them with legitimate art forms is risible and insulting to real dancers and aerial artists.

There has been a number of comments that implied the women who work in these clubs have been tricked into thinking that working there is empowering.

Again with the sweeping statements. I did not say ALL customers are there for the dancing. Many are there for the drinking and you're absolutely right that some of them are hoping for extras. Many different people go there for many different reasons.

I haven't denied I find the money and mugging off of numpty men satisfying and if you asked me I wouldn't deny it. But that's one tiny aspect, I adore the dancing, I love working with other women. I love watching the skill involved in spinning around 15ft in the air with just a toe.

Again how much time have you spent in a strip club Barbary or speaking to women who work in them. I can tell you that the level of dancing required at the majority of the clubs I've worked in is very high and there is definitely little walking and wiggling.

I'm afraid I really don't care if apologists for punters, the commercial " sex industry" and the commodification of female bodies doesn't think I'm a nice person.

I actually do think women need protecting. They need to be protected from judgy f*ers like you.

I'd rather live in a neighbourhood with a 100 sex shops than have to put up with obnoxious, holier than thou people who think their way of conceptualising the works is the only valid one and everyone else is wrong and deserves to be treated and talked to like shit for daring to have the 'wrong' opinion.

I can tell you now without any hesitation, every stripper I have ever met (and most of the 'punters' as well) have treated people with far more basic respect than you seem to be able to manage.

How on earth do you think you separate stripping from selling sex? It's the whole damn point of it.

Oh and btw there are already 1000s of places women can enjoy dancing safely.

I find it a bit much that you refuse to believe that anyone goes there for the dancing

Sure they do, of course. No I don't believe it. Even the actual trained dancer in the article I posted was disparaging about the quality of the "dancing"

Oh and btw- cut out the invented insults. No one has called you a silly, brain- washed stripper. Basically I don't think you are stupid- you simply don't care in the slightest about the wider, societal implications of normalising the sale of bodies for sexual titillation.

I'd have more respect for your views if you had the honesty to admit you like taking money off gullible punters ( whom you probably wouldn't countenance with a bargepole unless they paid you) and giving them a hard on than peddling this codswallop about their being there for the appreciation of dance.

Sorry one more thing, I'm obviously not saying that a world where women and girls are propositioned on the street is ok.

I guess what I'm saying is can we get to a place where we accept that women working in a strip club doesn't mean all other women not in the strip club are fair game.

We used to have horrible ideas as a society about many things women did and what that said about them. From what they wore to the circumstances they became pregnant in to a thousand others. Do you think it is impossible to get to a point where women can enjoy dancing safely in a club and that has no connection to sex work and sexual harassment? I think you think it is? I don't. I think we need to educate people, mainly men but that we could get there in the end!

[quote peak2021]@MissBarbary I don't agree with strip clubs regardless of who is taking their clothes off.[/quote]
Well of course- so do I.

And again Barbary I find it a bit much that you refuse to believe that anyone goes there for the dancing. Once more with the greatest respect unless you've spent as much time in them both as a dancer and a customer as I, I'm not sure how you can make such a statement.

Sweeping unsubstantiated statements don't bolster your argument. I think working in absolutes is silly. Much better to be accurate and realistic. But what do I know, I'm just a silly stripper whose been brainwashed into enjoying my own oppression.

I guess we're just not going to agree. I want there to exist a world where women are not judged for pole dancing and clubs where people enjoy watching pole dancing are allowed.

I and the many other educated women who enjoy working in these clubs would love to have the opportunity to create happy, non exploitative, working environments.

If there is deemed to be a risk to women as a direct result of these clubs opening then that's obviously not on. I've never worked at a club in a residential area, so I can't comment on that. The clubs I've worked at have been in busy city centres, next to bars and night clubs that are open till the same hours and who have (in my personal experience) far drunker, less respectful, loud and obnoxious clientele.

I agree MissBarbary definitely it has national/global effects on women’s lives

@MissBarbary I don't agree with strip clubs regardless of who is taking their clothes off.

It's not just about what happens directly outside the club though. There is plenty of evidence that the negative effects on women and girls are more widespread in the local area

And on society in general. Women will never have full equality whilst the idea of buying sexual services from women is acceptable or, that weasel word "empowering"

And stripping is selling sexual services. It is not dance- no one goes to a strip club to admire the aesthetics and artistry of the "dancers".

Gerla’s polluting factory analogy is excellent in my experience it’s a health and welfare risk to local inhabitants, the area is no longer cared for or policed properly and its not able to used and enjoyed by those who live there, as well as abusing the workers and making them unsafe at work and ultimately making a few people rich at a lot of other peoples’ expense.

It's not just about what happens directly outside the club though. There is plenty of evidence that the negative effects on women and girls are more widespread in the local area. You don't get to decide that just because a business makes money and employs women, nobody else counts. Btw I wasn't talking about Holbeck. There are plenty of places where police turn a blind eye to what is going on. Would you really like to live and bring up a family where men openly proposition girls in the street because the message is that is what women are for here? It enrages me that some women see feminist criticism of strip joints as condescending or even as a reaction to cheating husbands whereas the truth is a lot more than this. Yes, feminists see that a lot of women in these clubs are exploited but they are also criticizing the well-documented effects of these places beyond their walls. I would argue that it is extremely selfish not to consider what effect your work has on others just because you like it and it makes money.

I offer the analogy of attempting, possibly half a century ago, to persuade an Apartheid supporting South African, or a Ku Klux Klan group in the Deep South, to believe that black and white skinned people were absolutely identically equal human beings.

So...what are the most empowering and equal of entertainments? What about having clubs for white customers to drink and gamble on the outcome of savage fights between the exhibited black men, encouraged to fight degradingly, maybe to serious injury, incentivised by the unusual ability to earn good money, because in the way the rest of their society is arrange, they have little or no equal opportunity to earn in the same way as whites?

Would that make those whites start to respect all black skinned people as equals, treat them well, pay them fairly, employ them on the same basis as their own friends and family? If not, what would?

Let white customers go to another club to drink and order naked black women do various sexual acts? No? Still not empowering or equalising, and still not making for a mixed-race society with equality of respect, opportunity and pay?

Certainly, the maimed black skinned survivors of the fight-to-the-death clubs would have adjusted their mind-sets to approve what was bringing them a good income, where nothing else would. So would the naked black skinned sex workers. They would not want the income stream stopped, any more than the club owners and white customers would. You would easily find them arguing that their work was somehow a good thing, since they all need to convince themselves of what they know to be a lie.

Red light districts are appalling and I have campaigned continuously against Holbeck. That is the only legal one I'm aware of in the UK.

If there is a problem with harassment outside of clubs that needs to be addressed. I've lived above/next to busy bars so I do understand how horrible it can be to have drunk, leering men nearby your home.

You may not be best placed to judge if you have no experience

Experience of what? Living close to a strip club or in a so-called red light district? I have experience of that. It was hell, not what I want for my kids either. For me the argument you're making is the same as for a polluting factory. Yes, it makes money for a few but it harms far more. You don't get to decide that your experience earning money trumps my experience of earning nothing but still being hassled for living nearby.