Bristol strip club ban

I see the bat signal went out over night.

It's always interesting how poorly the pro punter lobbyists argue their case. The more they protest , the weaker their case gets.

I may be one of the minority it seems in wanting strip clubs being closed, be they women ogled by men, men ogled by women or any other combination. I don't accept the 'driving underground' argument for strip clubs, much as it may apply to banning other activities.

I do see the argument you're making. But the p3 was in a national newspaper that children were exposed to. I agree that the pornification of society has a horrible drip drip effect on women.

I disagree with sexualised advertising in general. But clubs that are operating as adult only venues I dont have an issue with, I find drunk men to be horrible generally not just the ones who go to strip clubs. Your experience with the smoking area of a strip club is the same as mine at any number of the outside smoking areas of normal bars near me. Sexual harassment is never ok and we need to address the entitlement that men feel in doing that. But in my experience that's not limited to men outside strip clubs. I would campaign for strip clubs to better manage their effect on local areas if there are drunk men harassing women outside a strip club that's quite patently not on. I'm not sure closing the strip club is the answer though.

CC isnt like that and never has been. One strike and your barred is the order of the day. Makes for a happy club, happy workers, happy neighbours and happy customers.

Don't tar everyone with one bad experience you have had please.

The feminist argument is not about telling young women what's best for them. What I'm talking about is the halo effect that strip clubs have on other women and girls. I used to live opposite a strip club and it was horrible walking past there (which I did every day) and at nighttime it was actually quite scary. There would be men hanging around smoking outside the door looking extremely intimidating and often making sexualised comments.

We had this same argument about page 3 where the other side were all "why are you taking jobs away from working class young women? Why are you trying to tell other women what to do?". It's not about the handful of women doing page 3, it's about the effect it has on the other 30 million plus women living in this country.

The conflation of strip clubs with illegal prostitution is very telling, and says a lot about those doing it and their opinion of the women invovled.

So called feminists view women they don't approve of in a worse way than the men they claim to be 'protecting' them from.

Well I think it would be difficult to get any real data if you're going to conflate all those vastly different activities.

With strip clubs, I think you'd be best to speak to groups or unions that represent them. I would absolutely welcome research into ALL those activities. I think there is a world of difference to dancing on a stage in a licenced club, with CCTV, an employment contract, security, checks on age and immigration; and meeting random strangers in hotel rooms. I think many of the things on that list ARE very damaging and exploitative, I just don't agree strip clubs are one of them.

I’ve linked to an example of credible up to date research and pointed out some of its limitations. If anyone’s got credible research that points to something else they want to highlight, maybe they could do the same..?

No dancers don't sell their bodies. What a horribly misogynistic thing to say.

I'm not sure what children have to do with strip clubs. They are adult venues so children should be nowhere near them. But yes controlling the industry environment should definitely be done, as with mills and mines. I think most evidence goes to show that control works better than banning.

It's something you see in countries that have controlled drugs as opposed to banning them. Banning just moved things underground.

No.

The fact you can't see that says more about you than them.

🙄

Stop sending children down mines and into the mills? But you would be depriving them of jobs! All those so-called child welfare advocates just want children to starve. They are proud of earbing money to suppoet their families and the owners were children once too.

Just looking at that list, its waaaaaay too broad. Some of those things have absolutely nothing in common, though may come under the broad term sex work. Though much like the trans umbrella I think it does a disservice to lump all those categories together.

I'm not sure you can accurately collect any data from such a broad and conflicting list. Many if not most of the women involved in these industries will stick to one not dip in and out of them all.

I mean surely you must see the difference between dancing in a club under constant supervision, and working as an escort and going privately to mens hotel rooms in order to have sex. They just aren't comparable. I would love it if someone would do some proper research, that is accurate.

Chattylion

Are you equating stripping to prostitution?!

In Spring 2018 a team of researchers at the University of Bristol were commissioned by the Home Office and the Office of the South Wales Police and Crime Commissioner to report on the current ‘nature’ and ‘prevalence’ of prostitution in England and Wales.

This pre-pandemic 2019 report offers a snapshot of the experiences of 500 or so women interviewed and the NGOs and professional bodies supporting women in this area. Important limitations apply: it only looked at over 18s. Voices specifically absent or underrepresented were ‘Migrant sex workers; plus British and non-British individuals who are/were forcibly coerced, who are/were trafficked, who are/were sexually exploited and/or who are traumatised in relation to their experience’.

The research team developed a working definition which took a broad view of the sex industry:
‘Prostitution and/or sex work constitutes the provision of sexual or erotic acts or sexual intimacy in exchange for payment or other benefit or need.‘

Therefore they looked at
Bar-based sex work and hostess bars
BDSM, kink and fetish
Brothels, parlours, saunas
Erotic and exotic dance
Erotic massage
Escort: independent
Escort: agency
Pornography, Glamour and Erotica
Sex parties
Street and outdoor
Sugar arrangements
Telephone, text-based, TV-based, Live voyeurism Therapeutic services
Webcamming

A very concerning conclusion is that it shows that in the UK we don’t even bother to nationally collect data on how many women are involved in this work. That’s how much we care about women and their safety. They’re completely expendable.

At very least the onus should be on the shills, advocates and beneficiaries of this exploitation to come up with actual evidence that it’s harmless and empowering to women or just doing a job like anything else or whatever claims they make.

Yet to absolutely nobody’s surprise, this report- even with its acknowledged significant gaps in the data- provides insight pointing to very worrying conclusions for the welfare of women.

assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/842920/Prostitution_and_Sex_Work_Report.pdf

As the authors’ preface points out:

‘We recognise that there are many individuals in prostitution who are subject to acute exploitation and serious and sustained harm. Some identify selling sex as a pleasurable and lucrative career choice, or as a therapeutic vocation. Our sense from the data that we have collected and from reviewing existing research is that a substantial proportion of individuals (mainly women and trans women) are selling sex to get by financially, given different constraints in their lives around caring responsibilities, physical and mental health, lack of access to social security benefits and support services, workplace discrimination, or other reasons. Their situation is compounded by stigma and managing safety, and many find that the longer they sell sex, the harder it can be to leave completely. This moves beyond individual ‘choosing or ‘not choosing’ and recognises the structural economic and social context in which choices are narrowed: or in the case of those coerced in to selling sex, choices removed. We ask readers of this report to recognise and hold these tensions in mind.‘

There's no point having this conversation as FWR are very anti strip clubs. Yes there is truth to objectification of women being bad, though I disagree that strip clubs are any worse than a myriad of other ways women are objectified. At least the women who work there choose it!

The issue, like so many things is the way they are run. I don't think you can say women dancing in itself is harmful, it's the fact its generally run by men for men. Women ran strip clubs sound great, and I think its really sad that women run businesses were targeted during a global pandemic.

I think it's best to control not ban. Same as factory fast fashion, or anything that has the potential to exploit the workers. All that will happen by closing this club is the activities will go underground. If you want to work in a strip club, them being shut isn't going to stop you seeking out that work. You'll just likely be more unsafe.

[quote Jumpalicious]@TheImber when I was a 20 something I kept quiet because I didn’t want to seem uncool. Objectifying women is hideous for women. We are more than meat. A few of those in the industry gain. Especially those that own the businesses that employ the women. I don’t expect you to understand what it’s like to be objectified as a woman, since it’s hard to empathise with an experience you’ve never had.[/quote]
Did you read the articles? The original one and the one I posted?

The businesses are owned by women. All the women who work in them are happy and desperate to not lose their jobs. I used to know a lot of the girls from Central Chambers in the 00s and they were all more than happy.

Have you ever actually spoken to any of the women involved, or have you just made your mind up?

If you don't like stripping and think its disgusting, then don't do it. Easy really.

I notice nobody is railing against the male stripper industry.

@TheImber when I was a 20 something I kept quiet because I didn’t want to seem uncool. Objectifying women is hideous for women. We are more than meat. A few of those in the industry gain. Especially those that own the businesses that employ the women. I don’t expect you to understand what it’s like to be objectified as a woman, since it’s hard to empathise with an experience you’ve never had.

www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/objections-raised-bristol-strip-clubs-1253542

I have an interest in this issue as an old girlfriend used to work at Central Chambers years ago.

She heard all these arguments in those days from so called feminists, and she had no time for them. None of her friends did either.

Please actually take the time to read what the girls who work there have to say rather than your own, blinkered views.

Just with everyone here. I used to live near, and over many years in different jobs work near, strip clubs and also pubs with strippers in the daytime. It was particularly scary walking home or leaving work late with the men outside entering and leaving. Even in the daytime with plenty of people around, it was upsetting and harassment normalised. I used to absolutely thank my lucky stars I had the option not to work in any of those sex exploitation industry jobs or venues, because of how absolutely open to abuse I and every woman would be. Physical, mental, sexual, financial, abuse around immigration status, housing, threats from exes around retaining custody of children, blackmail of different kinds, you name it.

So many well meaning idiots or self-interested misogynists will always minimise, seek to normalise and depoliticise the sex industry. Women aren’t stupid. It’s always been exploitative and very dangerous. It comes from a whole system and economy geared against women. No little girl aspires to be a stripper when she grows up. No parent ever wanted that for their child. Don’t be bloody ridiculous. We urgently need proper social security providing a universal basic income and we urgently need to tackle porn culture as a society.

The completely unregulated home-based industry that has grown up around sex exploitation sites online, OnlyFans etc is extremely worrying too. At very least with a physical venue then noise, antisocial behaviour and other issues are able to be raised with councils who have some minimum responsibilities to the neighbourhood. What happens to protect women online?

What laws have the Bristol strip clubs broken exactly?

The 'harm' that strip clubs cause seems to be to the marriages of those attending them. Thats unfortunate, but also self inflicted and not the responsibility of the girls inside just trying to make a living, and now having that living threatened by their feminist 'friends' who know what is really best for them.

How condescending.

So you're happy to arbitrarily close down female owned businesses, that employ 90% women, during a global pandemic? Purely because you are ideologically opposed to them?

We shut down businesses all the time that are deemed to be dangerous or damaging to the local community. Where I grew up the nightclubs were constantly getting shut down because of the effect they were having on the local residents and the fact that they were increasing crime and anti-social behaviour. It's called regulation. Why is this any different?

Also "during a global pandemic" strip clubs are already shut down. Most women who work at strip clubs are not formally employed (they normally have to pay a fee to even be there) so they've probably been surviving on universal credit for the last year. Another reason why strip clubs should be far more tightly regulated.

I wonder why more women don't want to be feminists?

god, we always get punter / house mother types on these threads don't we

always someone desperate to shill for women's rights to be objectified