Lap dancing club and assault

[grimbletart]

I remember a thread ages ago on lap dancing clubs and a report (Fawcett??) linking them to the prevalence of assaults.

Interestingly, it seems the police are now making links.

Depressingly the boss of this particular lap dancing club in Newquay is female..

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/9284609/Lapdancing-clubs-encourage-rape-and-sexual-assaults-claims-police-chief.html

How anyone can think that an environment where a man can 'buy' a woman (sex or dance, she's still being sold) could not have serious repercussions outside of it, I'll never understand.
Lap dancing clubs tell men that they have the right to any woman they want, and that women are objects not humans it's only common sense that this sense of power and lack of respect is going to stick with them once they walk out the door.
We need to follow in Iceland's footsteps and get rid of lap dancing clubs for good, and any other place that demeans/sells women/encourages rape for that matter.

WOAH "those leaving the premises, having been subject to highly sexualised performances, may be at greater risk of committing sexual offences."
AT RISK???? The men are not at risk of anything, the women they prey on are at risk of being raped.

Have a friend who lives near a lap dancing club that she vigorously campaigned against. Both her and her teenage daughter have been propositioned on the street by those leaving or going to the club. So this doesn't surprise me at all

That's horrible Eats. Have they contacted the police?

Yes and the police are doing extra beat patrols as a result and are very sympathetic to the problems.

Except that sex crime appears to be down, not up.

There don't seem to be any reliable figures, and a lot of the claims made are agenda-driven, not based on fact. This sort of scaremongering does women no favours as it's just another flavour of 'Stay indoors or Bad Men will get you.'

That report is from March 2010, so over two years old. The police officer quoted in the Daily Telegraph referred to the last two years when there were, according to him:

"69 reported sex crimes within a mile radius of the club between January 2010 and February this year, which also included 15 cases of indecent exposure and six "other" sexual offences. Five of the rapes and 16 sexual assaults were committed within half a mile."

So, if you can't draw a statistically valid conclusion from the DT article I doubt you can draw a statistically valid conclusion from that two year old report either. And that's before you even consider the numbers of assaults women don't report.

What you would need to do to draw proper conclusions is a comparison between the type of area/demographic etc. around the club and another comparable area where there was no club and studied in the same time frame. Oh, and the study would have had to be big enough to invalidate the play of chance.

So, is that not a problem in itself?

Although there is some evidence to suggest a connection between the presence of lap dancing clubs and sexual assaults on women in the immediate area, no one is investing in independent research to show more conclusively whether there is a connection or not.

The disinterest in finding out whether there IS an increased risk to the safety and welfare of women in and of itself I believe speaks volumes.

I agree. Proper research is needed otherwise it's just speculation. And yes, it does speak volumes that no proper research has been done.

In the meantime though I think the precautionary principle should prevail.
Seedy clubs should be confined to areas where willy tuggers can't do much damage e.g. industrial estates during non working hours.

Statistically, women are still far more at risk of violent attacks from men they know, not random arseholes in the street. The Big Lie of the dangerous stranger is one of the most damaging around, what women are basically being told is: get yourself a male owner to protect yourself from the other men, when actually the man who thinks he owns a woman is the one most likely to hurt her. The vast majority of men, whether or not they've had a wank in a lapdancing club, do not attack women in the street.

True SGB but for me personally as a teen/young woman the things that annoyed/angered/upset me were more casual comments / staring / leering etc which were much more frequent than actual assault.

And I think it's that sort of low level stuff that contributes so much to girls and women often feeling not entirely comfortable when out and about and is related to a whole load of other stuff which is not good.

So I would be interested to know if there is a change in low level intimidation / unpleasantness / mild following / all that stuff which actually freaks the fuck out of females but is rarely reported to the authorities.

Of course women are more at risk of harm from men known to them, but that doesn't mean they are not at risk at all from men they don't know.

As Sardine says, sexual harassment and abuse from strangers is still distressing and damaging to self-confidence, self-esteem and can lead them to restrict their movements and activities to avoid abuse. in Ten Young Women Sexually Harassed in Public Spaces www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2012/may/25/four-10-women-sexually-harassed?CMP=twt_gu

Soz about the link:

Four in Ten Young Women Sexually Harassed in Public Spaces.

SGB knows that I have stood next to her on the night bus at 3am after a visit to the electric ballroom, even if we didn't know each other

I absolutely agree with her about women being hobbled when it comes to night-time freedom by scaremongering.

However I also have a feeling that the environs of strip clubs will be uncomfortable places for young women to walk though.

And that's on top of the general discomfort that many people feel when near sex encounter type places (not just women).

SardineQueen: eh? Is this some conversation we had at an MN meetup which I have totally forgotten about? was I doing something diabolical on the nightbus by any chance?

OK, so street harassment is a problem and has been for a long time, but how much of it is down to Evil Lapdancing Internet Porn Culture and all that, and how much of it is down to the idea that women shouldn't be out without a male owner? I used to ride nightbuses and roam the streets in the small hours 20 years ago (and still sometimes do now) and there was often a bit of verbal, when the clubs were chucking out and there were pissed idiots on the street, and this was before there were many strip clubs.

No don't panic! I just remember the ballroom coming up and both having a stalwart view that going home at night in london by yourself was fine etc

It's a theoretical standing next to each other - I was upstairs smoking anyway, for a start

xposts!

I strongly suspect that strip clubs might result in increased street harrassment.
But like others say - where are the studies? There should be some.

SQ: Fair enough. I was always upstairs smoking as well. I just wondered if you might have been the one I called the ambulance for/puked on/scrounged fags off/squabbled with about something met one night or something like that

Sorry SGB that was a bit weird and stalky last night! Had had a few bevvies