How do you feel about lap dance club/pole dancing stuff.........?

[niceglasses]

My dh works in a bit of a boyish industry - mobile phones - tends to be bit 'scummy'.

I'd say ohhhh 5 or 6 times now on a night out they have ended up at these lap dance/topless places. At least he doens't lie about it! He says they just want the extra drink. He doesn't get home till about 4/5 in the morning.

I have gently let it be known I don't like it - he says its harmless.

What do you wise lot think? I don't feel like I can 'ban' him but I do feel a bit put out.

free will or not, I wouldn't be particularly proud of my daughter if she was a stripper. Sorry about that.

If I had a dd, I'd be happy for her to do anything, as long as it was what she wanted to do, made her happy, wasnt harming herself or others, and if it made her a tidy profit to invest, mores to the good. I'm trying to think of the equivalent for my ds's, other than just being male strippers/dancers (which I would also have no problem with).

i'm sorry pinktulips and ladyf,i didnt mean to cause trouble.i am going to do as im told (by dp who gets fed up with my ranting)and stay away from threads like this,as i have personal issues on the subject.

didnt mean to cause offence

I wouldn't be proud of a son who did it either, tbh. Yes, both my sons or daughters would still be welcome, and I'd still love them, but I wouldn't be proud of them, that's a rather different thing.

Completely agree about the arms trade along with a hundred other things which are legal but utterly immoral. A man could rape his wife until 1970-80something - does this make it fine? The idea that you just accept everything that is currently legal in our particular society as fine and everything that is illegal as not fine is completely unthinking - how do you think laws are made and changed if no-one questions them?

Pink tulips obviously made a free, informed and independent decision to work as a stripper which is great for her, but to say that no woman is forced to strip is blatantly untrue. And then so many women again who are not literally forced to strip but do it under very unpleasant circumstances (e.g to fund their drug habit). It is (relatively speaking) good that some women are free to make the informed choice to become strippers but sadly this is not the case for every woman by any means

Well Pinkt - I respect your consistency. And I apologise for being really rude earlier to you, Lostpuppy and Expat. and anyone else I offended. Honestly I am sorry.

I think these are my final questions!

Would you go into you a room with your dd and her friends (say when she is about 16/17) and present stripping or any work in the sex industry as a career choice with benefits?

I don't blame any individual for practical choices and I;m sure there are many strong women using this kind of work without feeling personally compromised. But we are all part of this society and I believe we are all, men and women, negatively influenced by women being objectified. We should aim high shouldn't we? Not low surely?

In Germany in the 30s people accepted anti-semitism as the norm, kicking off could risk your security, better not to think. Apartheid South Africa - how many white South Africans would have been happy to not think about racism?

We have a society full of all sorts of sexual problems - shouldn't we look at gender issues and be uncomfortable sometimes and question things? Maybe our blase approach is part of the problem.

also, good point skidaddle about the majority of women in sex industries being far from free and strong. Strong empowered women in these industries are the minority.

What do we say about British sex tourists in the far east who are known to pay extra for virgins/very young girls? These are our countrymen! Are we proud of them? These girls are incredibly young, often sold by their families who are desperate for money. Daddyj and Lostpuppy - what about those men? Do we say they're paedophiles when they just sleep with Thai prostitutes who are under, what, 12? What about the ones that are 12 but look 16? How do the 'non-paedophiles' know how old they are?? This is what I mean, these girls are people, not objects, not just flesh for these horrible men to use to satisfy themselves.

Selling of young girls to an ilegal sex trade is not comparabe to a grown woman willingly working in a lap dancing bar. Not at all. No one is condoning this for one minute.

Well I have no DD but if I had one I would be happy for her to work at whatever she chose. And if she chose to work in the sex industry, I'd be happy for her and supportive of her, and there'd be a whole load of honorary aunties to give her good advice on how to succeed and stay safe. The same, naturally, will apply to my DS when he's older.
I do not think that exchanging sex (or an imitation of sex, or a sexy performance) for money is wrong, you see. I'd be far more concerned if my hypothetical DD saw her sexuality as something she had to trade only for a wedding ring, or the promise of "commitment".
ANd it's not having sex, performing in a sexually-explicit fashion, or liking certain types of sexual activity that "degrade" individual women or contribute to a faulty perception of women. It's the perception of individual women as, each one, somehow standing for the whole of her gender, be she a virgin, a mother, a soldier, an oncologist or a painter that means women are still constantly divided in to 'real' (praiseworthy, deserving of emulation, good, acceptable) and 'not proper' (decieving themselves, lying, an exeption to the rule) that serves only to confrim sexist prejudices, whether those prejudices favour the idea of all women being unselfish carers, or all women being insatiable nymphos. WOmen are human beings and some of them like group sex!

madamez - your defence is very strong and I have to admit it is making me question some of my assumptions on the subject! However, I have not questioned that some women are fine in this work - that is self-evident. But what of those who are not? What about them? It seems a little 'I'm alright Jack'. Are they a different category because they are not as strong and clever as you? I think that's a valed moral question.

DrN- vis a vis far eastern sex trade. One of the strongest arguments, imo, against the sexual objectification of women is that it educates a lot of men that women are objects and that is why they have no compunction in using them so! That is the whole point! If society tells us that women are objects (rather than people) then a significant number of men lose any sense of conscience about abusing them/using them. If women are human - they don't matter. obviously there are other causes - but this imo is a profound cause!

For the women who are fine: fine.
And the women who are not fine?

If society sent stronger messages validating women as people then there would be less abuse of women as objects.

Sorry I meant 'If women are not human, they don't matter'!

ipg, regarding the women who are not fine (or underage/held against their will) the solution has already been presented:
legalise their trade, give them protection by law (instead of prosecution) and regulate the industry.

Use police resources to chase the real criminals - the ones peddling paedophilic porn / trafficking women against their will - not adult women who are trying to earn a living.

It was suggested that this is 'empowering' in inverted commas - why?

DaddyJ - with respect, there are strenous global efforts to address all these things! Efforts which fail mostly - I think we could agree on that! The problem is the demand is so great. And actually I think there is a real grey area in men who do not think of themselves as paedophiles but seek sex with very young girls in the far East. There is a real relationship between the messages society sends, and what people think is acceptable. Do you disagree with that?

30s Germany - anti-semtism is acceptable
pre-apartheid South Africa - apartheid is acceptable
Post-Loaded UK 2007 - Sex industries - largely acceptable to most people (with exceptions)

Do you agree that it was right to seek to change social standards in Germany and South Africa? If you agree with that principle then it is arguable that we too need to improve the way women are presented in our society.

What I'm trying to get you to address is what messages we send to people about the value of others. Could you address that?

Also just because we want something doesn't mean that it's good does it??

sorry I meant Apartheid South Africa!

There is one big difference between the things you list - apartheid, anti-semitism,
paedophilia/paedophilic sex tourism, the arms industry - and, on the other hand,
the sex industry:
Your list consists of activities that create misery and destroy lives. They don't help
mankind and, yes, we should work towards eradicating them.

The sex industry - when properly regulated and policed - is a force for social good.

People are horny by nature, ipanemagirl, and they can't always satisfy their needs within
the narrow rules of morality that you deem appropriate.
If you deny them a properly regulated and safe outlet of release, you are creating social problems
because the sex drive is such a powerful urge. The sex industry provides this outlet.

Personal freedom should and does entail the right to sexual satisfaction in any manner the
individual desires as long as no one else gets hurt.

I have to disagree that the global efforts to clean up and legalise the sex industry have been
a failure. On the contrary, this debate is old hat in the European countries because they have
implemented an enlightened framework for sex workers. Problem solved.

And the authorities in Thailand have had quite a lot of success in curbing paedo sex tourism
ever since they realised that it is a real problem - ask Mr. Glitter.

I completely agree that as a society we need to be aware what kind of
messages are sent out by ourselves, our politicans etc

However, you need to take into account what we know about the nature of sex:
The more we turn it into a Big Deal, the more we are moralistic about it
and try to supress it, the more irresistible it becomes.

"But the objectification of women is to do with how men are educated to think of all women!"

Ipanemagirl you speak a lot of sense and I like the way you explained that.

Women who work in the sex industry may not feel exploited or objectified, however some men, somewhere, are certainly doing just that.

women are also objectified and exploited by other women for financial gain though. let's not exclusively demonise men!

I've been to a pole dancing club. Believe me sweetheart the competition isn't that great.

Ipgirl: actually, the women of my acquaintance (some of my dearest friends) who work in the sex industry are, in several cases, involved in activism to help the women who are working in the industry against their will (those who have been trafficked, those who are underage or being abused by pimps, etc). So it's not quite as "i'm allright jack" as you seem to think.
Again, as to the objectification of women. that didn't spring up the minute the first issue of Loaded hit the streets. Women have been objectified throughout history as the carers, the childbearers, the houseworkers etc, and they still are. Ask any domestic violence worker and you'll hear that, while some assaults originate in some aspect of sexual behaviour, many more are about a woman not wnating to stay in her traditional place ie battering occurrs after rows about cooking, cleaning, or daring to speak to anyone outside the home. Look at the comments made by Bob Geldof a year or so back along the lines that women should cook more and take care of men more... Should we advise our DDs to avoid couplehood because so many women are beaten, exploited, raped and killed in domestic couple situations?
And finally, I don't think that denigrating women who work in the sex industry or telling them to leave the industry when they are in it of their own free will does any good - all it does is reinforce the idea that a "good" woman is one who has little or no sexual desire, whose sexuality is passive and the property of one man rather than many - again, pandering to the sexual objectification of women rather than accepting the wide diversity of women as human beings.

Totally, totally unacceptable.

Madamez, good to hear that you acknowledge the losers in the sex industry and that you consider that they have needs too.

I think you and I have very different views of the objectification of women. Women are politically less powerful in our society for very many reasons I agree. But I do not equate all domestic labour as equivalent to some kind of sexual slavery!

Also I do not understand why you think that a woman who has strong reservations about the sex industries is, necessarily, a dried up frustrated, sexless frigid old prune who wants to stop everyone having a sex life or enjoying themselves! That is an extraordinary assumption! And I happen to have a very happy and fulfilling sex life and have done most of my adult life - I've been far from a prude. Most women who I've spoken to and read interviews with from various sex industries do not consider their work to be the place they find sexual fulfilment - quite the opposite!

Daddyj - honestly you don't have to look far to find reports of the huge numbers of women being trafficked into the uk as sexworkers - and the same thing is happening in Holland and other 'oases' of your imagination! It's not just about policing it's about addressing this need in men to seek younger and younger women. This is perverse and I don't think it's restricted to paedophiles - I think we are blurring the lines so you get jokes like "If there's grass on the pitch" etc which sums it up for me.

I do think we should have safe/legal sex workers and I think they do an important job. But if our society brought more men up to be capable of real physical and emotional intimacy - they would not need in such overwhelming numbers to look to have two minute bursts of masturbatory relief with women who are seen as an extension of their porn fantasies. You don't have to look at much porn to have serious concerns about what image it protrays of women!

"But if our society brought more men up to be capable of real physical and emotional intimacy - they would not need in such overwhelming numbers to look to have two minute bursts of masturbatory relief with women who are seen as an extension of their porn fantasies."

Have i been badly brought up too then?

Yes, PG, that statement assumes that only men can detach sex from emotions and 'love'.

Erm, not true at all .

I was brought up in a fairly religious home - parents married for well over 40 years, sex not talked about at all.

Well, I liked sex and I enjoyed having it with many partners, some I loved, some I didn't. As long as everyone's honest about the feelings involved and is a consenting adult, why should they be made to feel that's something immoral and wrong?

I watched porn with partners - I was even the one to suggest it!