You lot are far more articulate than I am, so how should I have responded?

[MarionCole]

A friend of mine commented recently that lap dancing bars exploited men as much as they exploit women, just in a different way; they exploit men's weakness for sex and charge them hand over fist. I tried as hard as I could to explain that it's all about power and it's enabling a patriarchal society to control a woman - pay cash and she will do what you want her to do; that it objectifies a woman and has wider repercussions about how society views women. I don't really feel I did the argument justice, all the arguments are going around in my head and they just don't come out of my mouth coherently. In response to my power point, the response was "well when you're there I doesn't feel as though the man has any power", to which all I could say was "bollocks" .

I need to read more widely, I have Equality Illusion on order. I came away from the discussion feeling very disappointed in myself.

What would you have said?

I think I would have said what you said, tbh.

It's absurd to talk about whether or not it 'feels' as if an individual man at a lap dancing bar has power. So what if he feels powerless? He still has money in his pocket, does he not? He is therefore the buyer, and in a capitalist society that is a position of power.

That is even before you get into the kind of power-loss it is to sell your body (as opposed to anything else). Once you get into that ... how can anyone think that men 'feeling powerless' has anything to do with it?!

I dunno, maybe it is like drugs - is a coke dealer exploiting me if I hand over loads of £££ for dodgy product? Possibly. Does this really compare to the other evils within that industry as a whole? Not even slightly.

I've heard women who work in that industry say that it's empowering and they feel powerful over the men who pay them

That's not altogether surprising and, when you think about it, quite logical. They are rationalising. If they couldn't rationalise into feeling powerful they probably couldn't live with what they do. It's a survival technique (though I suppose there are some women who do enjoy it for some bizarre reason - takes all sorts...)

I think your response is pretty much spot on.

Who ends up making all the money though? Certainly not the women.

Lapdancers make plenty money though don't they? that bb3 doc she made 2k a night easy.

Re:OP I think you made your point fine, alot of what people call articulate on here doent transalte well into RL as is can sound precocious and waffly.

No sure - I remember seeing a programme about these 2 girls who went off to be lapdancers and followed them from their training to first night in a club.

On their first shift (which was about about 7-8 hours long, and included doing a naked 'private dance;) one had earned nothing and the other about £27. They had to pay the club owner to work there. It was a really sad programme.

Still, I can't see anyone paying me £2k a night to dance naked (maybe to put my clothes back on).

I think it is very unusual for lapdancers to make 2k a night. I wonder why people are so ready to believe it?

It glamorises the industry and ensures that more women are drawn into it. Anecdotal evidence that Object have gathered from ex-lap dancers shows that very few earn that kind of money. The Dispatches documentary shown in 2008 which filmed undercover in lap dancing clubs showed empty clubs and women offering prostitution so that they can earn back the money that they had to pay out to work a shift in the first place.

I think your arguments were all spot on, MarionCole. And to say that men are powerless really does give a sexist view of men as Ethelmoorhead says. You could have asked the person you were speaking to if their opinion of men was so low that she/he believed that all men are ruled by their genitals. Most men manage to control themselves and to go about their everyday lives. Saying that men are that weak puts them no higher on the evolutionary scale than chimpanzees. I personally like to think that men are better than that.

And it is the men who are going in and paying. They have the choice as to whether or not to blow wads of cash on champagne and a lap dance!

It is amusing how feminists are often accused of saying 'all men are rapists' when in fact it's usually the rape/strip club apologists who say things like 'poor men, they can't control themselves'.

Oh, the irony!

Well thats what she said, maybe trying to save face.

Well thats what she said, maybe trying to save face

however I didnt know they had to pay to work there, how odd.

It's not odd really - someone spotted another way to make money out of women who needed it, and did it. Simple.

I think you did fine. It sounds like the guy you were talking to pretty well had his mind made up and chances are, whatever you said wouldn't have made much difference to his belief that men are exploited by strip clubs. I think many people need to believe this and all the other myths of four figure a night wages, happy hookers and all the rest of it. Otherwise, they'd have to face the sinister truth of what it's really like and what they are supporting if they go there.

Basically, strip clubs provide a service to the customers/consumers who walk through the door. Customers pay either directly or indirectly for goods and services (e.g. drinks, to watch a strip, to have a "private dance," for other sexual services, etc.) Does this relationship exploit the customer? No more than a cinema exploits movie goers or a day spa exploits people who go there for a facial. Their services "tempt" the customers, but no one forces them to go there or purchase their services.

Jess makes an important point here - the same people who whine that feminists believe all men are rapists (but of course they don't) don't see the irony in then claiming that men are exploited by strip clubs because they are ruled by their dicks.

I suppose it's a business model that makes it easier for the club owner; if they were employees as opposed to self-employed I expect there would be responsibilities towards them (such as paying them properly and protecting them from harassment) that the owners don't have if they are self-employed. It also enables a situation where in order to make money the dancers have to allow stuff like touching which would break the licensing conditions but the club owner gets to turn a blind eye, because the onus is on the dancer herself. It's quite devious really.

There is a really good document by OBJECT called "stripping the illusion" - as it shows how little power lap dancers actually have. I can't seem to find the link for it but here is an article from the F Word that talks about it. Should help you if you encounter that argument again.

Apart from which, your friend's argument that men are exploited and portrayed as slaves to sex could be countered with a "well that is why men need feminism too!". Feminism did after all give us the language to deconstruct sexual stereotyping of any kind.

messy I love the way you think.

Using the patriarchy's shoddy logic against them!

Thanks all, that's been very helpful.

Yeah well, the patriarchy is full of shoddy logic Anon

I remember being told by one feminist-basher that the problem with feminists is that we "hate men" and then a few sentences later that we "all want to be like men"! Go figure ....

Here is the Stripping the Illusion report

And here is what happens when you try to challenge Peter Stringfellow:

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/8124537/Lap-dancer-loses-employment-tribunal.html

Who did, incidentally, try to claim that lap dancing clubs are not sexual at a House of Commons select committee.

Read a funny article about it here:

www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/nov/26/stringfellow-lap-dancing-association-commons

Oops, sorry, link here:

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/8124537/Lap-dancer-loses-employment-tribunal.html

Well, messy, we feminists do generate contradictions wherever we go, it's hard for non-feminists to find a way to express it - they find they're almost having two incompatible views they have to force together ... almost like ... like ... there's some kind of cognitive diss ... diss ... dissawhatsit we're forcing other poor people to recognize.

How mean of us.

jess - that's really depressing!