Article about strip clubs in the Guardian

[SaskiaRembrandtVampireHunter]

Never read such a load of twaddle in my life:

www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/oct/19/strip-clubs-new-normal

"Is it good or bad that for young men, going to a strip club is the new normal? I'd venture that it's a good thing. It's a place where they can step outside the anxiety-fraught dating scene and talk to a woman who, as long as he keeps tipping, will give him the time of day. It's a world where women parade around nude or nearly so in which doing so doesn't get anybody arrested or elicit gasps. It's a private room wherein a lap dance is on the table and a man expressing his sexuality isn't going to be met with a sexual harassment lawsuit."

Oh yes, because thanks to the feminazis it's now illegal to talk to women

would you like it if i was ?

nah in all seriousness it's to demonstrate that striptease can be enjoyed by people regardless of gender, sexuality etc. and it's not a case of the gender war that is being portrayed by many people on here.

[hhmm]

Why are some of the posters who agree with lap dancing emphasising that some of the women have higher education qualifications? So what? With 40% intake to university these days degrees don't mean that much any more in terms of intellect, except as an aid to getting a better (hopefully) job than those who don't make it to university.

As it does not take a degree to qualify for taking your knickers off in public I find it sad that university places are being taken up by women who don't appear to want to make use of their education but are depriving others of doing so.

If lap dancing is a socially acceptable, freely chosen career as is being asserted, why don't these club owners offer apprenticeships in lap dancing and proper wage structure?

I wouldn't ban lap dancing just because I dislike it and think it is seedy and exploitive as I am wary of censoring things just because of my personal views; exhibitionists and voyeurs will always have ways of finding each other, so it's probably better than it is done legally to give women at least a semblance of protection, however flimsy.

FastLois - a quick google of the writer of the article in the op, Susannah Breslin, tells me all I need to know about her viewpoint, and her agenda in writing that article - be it in the Guardian or not.

I linked to another guardian article HERE which I suspect shows a much more realistic picture of the scene in lap dancing bars.

Okay here are the things that I will respond to about facts.

1 Violence and rape are linked to clubs, the Lilith report has been proven to be inaccurate, the Holsopple report is over 20 years old and comes from America which is a totally different set of circumstances. Inspector Drummond's claims for Newquay were not based on fact he just thought it sounded right and in fact the figres show a downturn of rape since the clubs opened. Wiggle in Portsmouth in its submission show a 95% downturn in violent crime in comparison to before the club opened. The claims that Bristol shows violence is based on the fact the area that 3 of the clubs are in have been designated a crime impact zone and is full of night clubs and bars, the police and councillors have laid no blame on the clubs or they would have been shut.

1. Dancers are stupid, poorly paid, trafficked and don't enjoy their work. The 2009 Leeds research shows all 4 points to be fallacies.

I am sure there are other things that will bug me but realistically I got involved because of the facts so that's what I will challenge people about. Your beliefs are just that and just like a religious mantra you can think what you like. Just remember every time you want to force your views onto others it is one thing but trying to silence opposition by insults is a form of objectification. Does defeating objectification by objectification seem a valid and reasoned solution?

Sausage why do you see insulting someone in a discussion as objectification ?

I also think the pro-lap dancing lobby are picking and choosing the parts of the Leeds that they like.

Sausages point above: "Dancers are stupid, poorly paid, trafficked and don't enjoy their work"

Lets take the first point - has anyone said dancers are stupid? No - well if they have can they please show me the quote because I haven't read it on this thread.

Poorly paid. Well, the Leeds study certainly does say that the main reason cited by lap dancers for entering the industry is MONEY. Instant money (presumably paid at the end of the shift) and more than a shift in Tesco I'm sure. But read a bit further in the study and you come to these negative points about the work:

59.1% of respondents said that the worst thing about the job was never knowing how much they will be paid.

Furthermore, lifted directly from the Leeds study:

Financial Exploitation: Fees, Fines & Commission

• Dancers had to pay ?house fees? ranging from
  £0-£200, though it usually was around £20-30
  in the North and around £80 in the South. On
  dancer explains: In the clubs the house fees
  are so enormous it puts you in such a stressful
  position to start up with; it?s not a good
  attitude to go and start working from.
   Commission on private dances ranged from 0-
  66%, though it was usually 30% commission
  on each dance. In the North, a 3 minute dance
  usually cost £10, with the dancer taking away
  £7.

• 70% reported losing money at work.

Yup, that says 70% reported losing money at work. Not looking so lucrative now is it?

The average wage for a shift is £232, I am guessing that every dancer will have bad shifts. The fact that the average is more in 1 shift than a lot of people earn in a week. If they weren't earning they wouldn't stay would they?

Sausageeggbacon

Wiggle in Portsmouth in its submission show a 95% downturn in violent crime in comparison to before the club opened.

It is my understanding that the Police who gave evidence to the Portsmouth City Council Licensing Policy Committee, when specifically questioned on this, confirmed that crime rates in the central area where Wiggle is located are down sigficantly in general, and when pushed by a councillor on whether Wiggle's presence had caused the downturn said No. It was all minuted and recorded.

significantly sorry typo

That's interesting, Linerunner - you don't think that sausage could have been twisting the facts to fit her argument, so you?

I've lurked on these threads for a while, and found them to be dogmatic. I know from the secondary literature that the subject is more complicated than misogyny, patriarchy exploitation and objectification, but I don't know the literature well enough myself to take on the hard-liners. It's really informative to see someone injecting some data and analysis into the debate. Thank you sausage.

Yes, the lure of easy, instantaneous money is cited in the Leeds report as being the main reason the women do the job. However, I think that the money turns out to be not so great all the time - particularly during the recession - since the money (never knowing how much they will earn) is also a reason cited for lap dancers' dissatisfaction with the job.

Oscar Owide (owner of the Windmill in Soho) says he wants many, many girls there so that the clients have a good choice. This pits the girls against each other - having to compete with one another to earn money from the suckers customers. All this with their 'fee' in mind - the amount they have to pay to the club to just be 'allowed' to work there. They have to make their fee back before even breaking even for the night.

Plus - I would wager that many dancers do manage to get out of the industry, or want to get out of it. 70% have been working for less than 5yrs - however, many cite the '5 year myth' ie that they only planned to lap dance for 5 years - but ended up doing so for longer - I don't see many lawyers/doctors/teachers saying that about their careers.

A agree with jothehot these threads tend to follow the same path and become v dogmatic. The only thing missing is empiricle experience which tends to be roundly ignored.

I do find that the anti group commonly start to revert to insults when their arguments start to wane.

Interesting when you see groups who talk about myths a lot perpetuating their own.

I'm sure it's possible to obtain the entire transcript of the Portsmouth Licensing Policy Committee meeting earlier this month, including the Police evidence, where the Committee decided not to allow any further SEVs in the city (i.e. to take 'No' as the starting point in respect of any further applications; and obviously to be able to review and remove the few existing licenses where deemed necessary.)

LineRunner the police said no but did not say why the figures went down after the club opening. So if it wasn't Wiggle what happened at the same time to cause crime to fall? I am guessing the police wouldn't want to put on paper that clubs decrease crime as we have seen from Inspector Drummond they would rather make up claims of an increase. Sorry but crime drops after a club opens and the police think the crime just disappeared for no reason?

I will be happy to ask for and provide the transcript of the digital recording from the Portsmouth Licensing Policy Committee Meeting.

Has Wiggle got Planning Perrmission yet?

Thanks linerunner

Cool Linerunner, I would love to know what the police ascribe such a massive drop in crime to. And lets assume it was something else there is still the downturn of rape in Newquay and the adjusted figures for Lilith. I read back over "that blog" and one guy claims to have figures showing that rape and violent crime is not associated to LDCs. He gave an e-mail address so I will ask for his figures about it. Without knowing how he got the figures not sure his statement is provable or not.

Does anyone know of any studies regarding any effect on the behavioiur of people visiting LDCs with their partners/spouses?

Has Wiggle really still not got Planning Permission?

I mean, I'd never have seen this stuff if someone hadn't mentioned Wiggle upthread.

The last few posts have been very confusing as, to me, Wiggle is a cycle kit shop

SEV in Portsmouth.

I figured that out but my brain still goes to cycle kit first...