To be pissed off DP went to a strip club....

[NancyShrew]

When I made it perfectly clear I'd be annoyed about it.

DP doesn't seem to find it an issue and I'm fuming. He wanted to go to a strip club to "see what it's like", I said I wasn't happy and we'd discuss it at a later date.

He went anyway on a works night out last night, but apparently it's fine because it wasn't an enjoyable experience.

"So why is a response to a film seen as subjective, but not a strippers experience?"

Actually, I was careful not to make my point just about strippers' experiences.

A person can't be wrong about whether they enjoyed a film. Or even about whether a film was "good".

But they can be wrong about how much power they have in a given situation. And frequently are.

I find the idea of "feeling empowered" by anything faintly ridiculous, and it always seems to be something that women are supposed to feel about things that don't seem to offer any genuine power - baking cupcakes, wearing high heels, going to a spa, taking off their clothes for money.

How much power you genuinely have in a situation is important. How "empowered" you feel is just flannel.

"I agree but would also say that power can be a complex, shifting and nuanced thing."

Yes, absolutely.

You've made some very interesting points about that already.

Although I would be interested to read more :)

Not if you had a rhino in your purse lazy!

I didn't mean to imply that you were only referencing strippers on your post JYP but as that what we were taking about on this thread I don't think my question was inappropriate.

I'm still very unclear on why people can be wrong about how much power someone perceives they have in a situation. I can't see how that's black or white?

Join, I think I get you on the empowered vs objective power issue.
The two are usually conflated and I see that this is misleading.
Would you say that a person who provides a paid for sexual service is always and necessarily not in a position of power relative to the customer?

This debate is interesting, although I still want to know if OP is okay and what's happened since!

The taking clothes off thing is weird.

I personally don't find nudity offensive, nor do I find it sacred.

If some say It's degrading to get naked for money, then are they implying that being naked is a significant thing, something that should be kept to oneself or one's partner?Is that where degradation comes into it?

Another thing I can say may be 'empowering' to me, is the amount of free time the job gives me.

I had a fairly prestigious office based job a few years ago, worked a lot of hours and when I compare my life now to then, I am significantly happier. I wasn't good with early starts, I found the job stressful and (most of) the people were horrendous, I just didn't fit in. Also I was unhealthy, unfit and absolutely knackered!

Now I can relax most days, exercise , visit my parents (they live a while away and are semi-retired) whenever I wish to. I'm not sure if this is 'empowered' or just 'grateful' that I feel the job does for me. :)

Drop, I think it's that feeling powerful doesn't necessarily mean you are powerful.

So a stripper could say she feels empowered, but then she's still working in an industry that many would say is totally against female equality.

A customer could feel empowered because he can get a girl naked because he has money, but when he tries to touch a dancer she calls the doorman in and he's thrown out....

I wonder if a lot of this comes down to whether sex/nudity is (or ought to be) sacred?

With regards to nakedness, our culture accepts that naked=powerless. Getting naked implies vulnerability, opening up to being hurt or abused or pleasure. That is why in countries where human rights abuses are rife, one of the first things that happens when you enter prison / concentration camp etc., is that you are stripped. The guards who strip you remain fully clothed, emphasising the gulf of power between the captives and their gaolers.

That's not to say that naked=powerless inevitably in all circumstances, but to ignore the powerful cultural resonances of it is to miss something, I think.

Viz empowerment, I think if it genuinely gives power, then you need to look at who is doing it. Are men getting naked and waving their bollocks around alluringly in order to feel powerful? Or are they making multi-million pound decisions which affect thousands of lives to feel powerful? Let's think of women we know who have power. Angela Merkel, Theresa May, Hilary Clinton, Condy Rice - did they get naked and wave their arse around so men could get boners? And yet they don't have empowerment, or power-lite as I prefer to call it, they have power. Real power. Like men have. One of the greatest lines the patriarchy has ever spun women, is that power-lite or empowerment, is the same as power. When clearly, it isn't.

"I'm still very unclear on why people can be wrong about how much power someone perceives they have in a situation. I can't see how that's black or white?"

I don't think that perception = reality

I don't think someone can be wrong about how much power they perceive they have. But I do think that perception can be wrong, in that that they might have more or less power than they think they do.

I can't imagine believing that all that mattered in a given situation was my perception of it. That would be a funny way to go about life.

Perhaps the girl and the customer are equally exploited by the club?

What then of an independent escort who provides sex for money to customers who she personally vets, controls all her working conditions and keeps all her profits?

That's what I'm getting at LS. If taking your clothes off is degrading, then that to me implies that people do not (or shouldn't) want to take their clothes off.
Objectification=treating a person as a thing/object. If I have my clothes on, why am I less of an 'object' than if they're off?

I'm not arguing, I'm genuinely interested (and procrastinating, I should have taken the dog out some time ago but It's raining)!

Great post, Basil.

Basil, yes Real power is economic and political power, most of which is held by men.

YY to the huge significance of nudity whilst other people are clothed

Ok, so I get that. And in your purse gun thief example it makes sense. Because you have no real choice about what happens...you've lost that power because an experience was forced on you that you have no control over.
The thief would always feel they were in a position of power. I would imagine they would have to or they wouldn't try to threaten someone. BUT what happens if you knew that there was a sniper trained on your thief, or you were a Marshall arts expert and weapons expert that knew his gun wasn't loaded...all of a sudden he perceives he has the power but really you do. Again, in this situation I can see how it can be simplified down to black or white, because there's a "winner" and a "loser" to the situation.

However, in other situations how do you determine who's the "winner" and therefore who actually had the power in the situation (I know that's actually a really bad word choice, but not sure how else to explain). And my point is that sometimes there won't actually be any "winner" (or loser) in a given situation. So why is someone wrong to perceive that they were in control?

I completely understand that Sugars experiences might not be true for every single stripper in the world. But they are true for her. She certainly sounded like she was in control of what she would it wouldn't do. I assume she therefore felt that she had control or power because she had the choice. If that's her perception, then how can it be that someone feels they can tell her she's wrong about how she felt?

Good example, Basil-I doubt anybody who had ever been in that situation would claim that they felt empowered.

Escorting I separate from stripping totally for one reason, that it involves skin to skin nudity, sexual intercourse, and puts one's physical health at risk.
I couldn't ever deal with doing that, I know I would be a mess emotionally.

But I don't judge those who do it and are comfortable with it.

I have turned down ridiculous amounts of money when men have offered it to me for sexual services though. I do find sex quite sacred. I know many disagree but that's just my own feelings about it.

Festered your posts have been very interesting, I get the attractions of a job which pays well for only a few hours work but attracts disapproval from most quarters.

Basil, yes men aren't generally the ones providing sexual services, but isn't that (in part) because they have more appetite for casual sexual gratification.

I don't mean that women are less sexual, more that they tend to require a connection with the other person that men don't always want or need.

Although that may well be learned behavior which arises out of a patriarchal culture.

DP has bern made aware in past conversation that a trip to a strip club in any situation would be the end for us. If he chooses to go to one anyway then I'll be discussing him leaving on his return.

I have very, very few deal breakers but that is one of them, and the old line of 'but all the "lads" were going" doesn't make it ok.

Oh and OP, keep the handbag.

It seems as if strippers separate themselves from escorts, so strippers who allow customers to touch them are problematic because they blur the boundaries.

This is dealt with by separating strippers into clean and dirty, of course the moral vs immoral connotations of these terms serves to further the self esteem of strippers.

I do appreciate though Fester that you take a non judgmental stance towards escorts.

It seems as if strippers separate themselves from escorts, so strippers who allow customers to touch them are problematic because they blur the boundaries.

This is dealt with by separating strippers into clean and dirty, of course the moral vs immoral connotations of these terms serves to further the self esteem of strippers.

I do appreciate though Fester that you take a non judgmental stance towards escorts.

@FreudiansSlipper you said "As with all sales it is about what the customer wants as they have the power as they are the ones spending their money"

i would disagree with that completely - the shop has all the power as they have the goods the customer wants - the shop are the ones who advertise and manipulate the media to make customers believe they want their goods - that their goods will give them some special quality.

I have known strippers who go on to be escorts, or who do both.

I'm also uncertain on the 'you either do extras or you don't' thing that was mentioned earlier in the thread. In fact I don't agree with this.

A stripper who lets a guy touch her breasts isn't the same as one who lets a guy lick her sexually, or gives a guy a blowjob.

Most of the clubs I've worked in are so strict (cameras, doormen watching etc) that girls couldn't get away with doing more than they should. And I've seen many get sacked for it.

:) thank you-yes I do judge extras girls more than I judge escorts, because it makes it harder for the cleaner dancers to earn, and it encourages other dancers to do things they are not comfortable with, for the prospect of more customers. If you're willing to do sexual favours for money, why not do it in the correct environment for it, you'd earn more money for that, and not affect other dancers nor put the club license at risk.

Festered, thanks for explaining...I see your point!

"yes I do judge extras girls more than I judge escorts, because it makes it harder for the cleaner dancers to earn, and it encourages other dancers to do things they are not comfortable with, for the prospect of more customers."

This makes sense to me. Their behaviour makes your working environment more difficult and more precarious.

But by the same token (and this is not the way that I feel personally), how would you feel about women who judge "clean" strippers because they feel that their decision to display their bodies and arouse men in a commercial context for personal enrichment, makes men's attitudes towards other women less respectful, and encourages other women to do things they are not comfortable with?