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

Not sure we can say far removed, after all a story about a happy dancer isn't going to be all over the guardian feminist pages is it? The fact the majority of dancers are satisfied or better with the work suggest they are happy and the average pay for the amount of time spent is certainly a lot better than bar work or shelf filling. Assuming 4 shifts a week £48k per annum is better than the average wage in the UK and there is nothing stopping dancers earning more if they want it. So yes there are people making a profit from their work, not going to get away from that as someone needs to own/rent the property and employ the bar staff bouncers etc and provide tables/chairs and alcohol for the customers. As a business opportunity there is a lot that could go wrong.

You didn't read that Guardian article at all did you sausage ?

The Leeds study is frequently upheld (by posters like Larry ) as supporting lap dancing and is taken as proof that lap dancing is not damaging to the women who do it.

But it has been criticised for only interviewing women currently working. People currently working in the sex industry have a tendency for cognitive dissonance about the work they are doing - ie. for the sake of their own self esteem they will often delude themselves that they are satisfied at work, and that they are empowered and doing the work through their own choice.

You get a different story from dancers who have exited the industry.

Running,

You say that and I do find that idea interesting. However, when I have asked for surveys to support this (as opposed to anecdote, of which you can find many in the other direction) there is always the sound of tumbleweed (or some random distracting personal insults).

Larry. I'd guess all the evidence is going to be anecdotal to an extent - because you're talking about people's feelings about a job. The Leeds study is only a collation of 300 lap dancers' interviews - and so is not exactly hard empirical academic evidence. You're dealing with peoples' feelings here.

I do think people are highly likely to put a positive spin on things when being interviewed - especially when it is a job that is not particularly socially acceptable. Don't forget that 'having to lie about the job they did to friends and relatives' came very high up on the 'disadvantages of lap dancing'. Lap dancers may not want to admit to themselves that they are lying to friends and family about their occupation, when they don't enjoy the job that much anyway.

Running,

As an ex investment banker, I suspect that if I and 300 random colleagues had been interviewed, we would have put far lower numbers on job satisfaction than the lap dancers. I don't think any of us (or any still in the profession) would suffer from cognitive dissonance.

The Leeds survey is not anecdotal. It is a scientific canvassing of people's feelings. 300 is plenty to constitute statistical significance. I am sure they reported degrees of confidence etc somewhere within the research and I suspect they were way over 95%. Happiness surveys can be 100% scientific even if they concern feelings rather than facts. Of course you do then enter the land of cognitive dissonance and reasons people are not honest with themselves about how they feel, especially in areas such as lapdancing.

But, if you say that lapdancers are exploited and having a bad time and someone produces a scientific survey saying that is wrong and you then say, ahhh, cognitive dissonance, it becomes catch 22. You are then left projecting how you think they should feel, and how they might feel in retrospect, onto them. That then becomes a lot like forcing a political agenda onto the area rather than really taking an interest in the real people who work within it.

You will say "the myth of the happy hooker" to which I would counter "the myth of the exploited lapdancer". We can then both produce anecdote (and I can produce one proper survey) to back up our positions. The point is labelling something a "myth" does not make it a myth, in as of itself. And, it would not be hard to do something like the Leeds survey on ex lapdancers to establish the truth one way or the other.

Actually the Leeds University survey interviewed far fewer dancers than that.

Running you know you get a different response from those who have exited the industry that have been selected to present an aspect that the feminist press wants. I wouldn't trust Bindle or Banyard as far as I could throw them when it comes to their agenda. If you only interview people who had a bad experience then that is the message that comes across. If a happy ex dancer came forward there would still be the claim she it making it up to make herself feel better. How many ex dancers have been interviewed and publish into the papers? There must be hundreds that have retired in the last few years so why aren't there hndreds of stories?

Proof from existing dancers can be ignored? Only dancers who can quote bad experiences get press time. When portraying anyone in the industry if they are male they are evil if they are female they have been brainwashed. I mean really there should be thousands of stories over the years of bad experiences but instead there are only a few. Even though Object and other bodies ask for the bad stories there just isn't the volume that should be there if it was really as bad as some make out.

I think the point is that a survey should have a statistically meaningful sample.

Having checked only 200 were interviewed and they believe there are 10,000 dancers in the UK. Sample size is 2%. Not sure would be a valid sample size?

I am not neglecting the bad issues like erratic system of fines, better conditions needed for the dancers (showers and changing rooms), more union support (only Equity and GMB) and more finance guidance so more dancers finish dancing with property portfolios or other investments.

Larry - as someone who used to work in HR for an Investment Bank (really) I can tell you that the Investment Bankers were considerably happier and better paid than the HR dept were!

I don't think Investment Banking as a career can be compared with lap dancing. Investment bankers are well renumerated, with considerable bonuses on top if they perform well. Investment bankers all earned considerably more than the 48k that is being bandied around for lap dancing as well.

I was about to say that investment bankers don't hide their profession from their families and friends - but that may not be true since the recession!

Sausage - I think you are ignoring the bad aspects of lap dancing.

I should also add, that like Sabrina and many others on this thread I don't think lap dancers are stupid or uneducated either.

I reserve my disdain for the men who visit these clubs - they are vile, entitled individuals.

Sausage - are you dancer?

Sorry, Sausage - are you a lap dancer?

Running depends what you mean by bad aspects, there are certainly changes needed to make a better working environment. Personally I don't want to lose 10,000 women their jobs. And that is just the dancers lets not forget security and bar staff.

And the reason dancers keep their jobs secret? Probably how judgemental so many feminists are. As a woman I can't believe how badly we treat women we have never met because their job doesn't suit our moral judgements. I am not a feminist I am believe in Egalitarianism.

You're wrong about feminists being judgemental, sausage. I don't judge the dancers - I've taken the trouble to say I don't judge the dancers, or think they're stupid or uneducated.

I judge the men who go to these clubs.

Ha - now we've reached the 'I don't want 10,000 women to lose their jobs' part of the argument, have we? Any argument about the sex industry ultimately gets there in the end. I've so been here before. I'll be called a Nazi next and we'll have fulfilled Godwins law as well.

Right Sabrina! I know, let's just get brothels and a lap dancing clubs open on every corner of every city - imagine all the employment opportunities available for those lucky, lucky women!

I love the idea that the dancers keep their jobs secret because of feminists. Because feminists are entirely to blame for the culture of shame surrounding the sex industry, despite the fact sex workers have been stigmatised and badly treated since several millennia before feminism even started.

I judge the men who go to these clubs.

Can I ask you why ? I mean the majority of lap dancers are taking their clothes off of their own free will for fairly good money. Nobody is holding a gun to their heads, there is no mystery about what the job entails.

So if the main damage being caused by lap dancing is in it's negative impact in terms of objectification of women do these women not bear some responsibility in your opinion ?

GetAll - I judge the men who go there because of precisely this point. If the majority are there of their own free will and there is a minority who aren't (or who are there as the result of drugs or alcohol addiction or are underage), there is no way for the men who go to the clubs to know which is which. So they are willing to risk that they are paying to take part in exploitation.

GetAllTheThings.

I judge the men who go to these clubs as they are the ones creating the demand for lap dancing clubs.

They're the ones who feel entitled to pay a woman to walk around with no top on or mash her boobs in his face. (Or, pay a club to get a woman to mash her boobs into a face who then pays her a paltry percentage).

They're the ones who are treating women like walking boobs and bum - and most definitely not treating women as equals.

By frequenting these clubs they're endorsing it.

And of course, because I am a consummate man-hater.

sausageggbacon - you didn't actually read the thread I linked to, did you?

The entire point of that thread is that it doesn't just cover standard sexual abuse and DV, and is not about abusive men per se.

The thread covers the whole gamut, and a huge chunk of it is about every day, 'low level' harassment - the sort that most women accept as part and parcel of being a woman, and take for granted. Groping, touching, being felt-up in clubs, wolf-whistled at in the street, leered at, made to feel scared and uncomfortable. And of course, a whole lot worse. Men who feel entitled to do this in an entirely casual way, without a second thought. Women who have to put up with it and have become almost immune to it in many way.

Seriously - why don't you actually read the thread. And then try to tell me that we don't live in a society that objectifies women, and that lap dancing clubs and the like don't feed directly into that.

I should add - when I opened that thread, I was all set to say, 'of course YABU, I've never been sexually absued'. But then I recalled the countless low-level assaults I've experienced in my lifetime, and had to admit, that yes, most women have been. They're just so common and to-be-expected as to hardly register on the radar.

You, yourself have been. It's the very rare woman indeed that can say with her hand on her heart that she's never, ever experienced any sort of unwelcome, unwanted and un-invited attention that has caused her to feel, at best, uncomfortable.

runningforthebusinheels and TunipTheHollowVegemalLantern

Thanks for the answers.

SomersetONeil I completely agree with your point.

The world is not an equal place for women - and it is not made more equal by job opportunities for women being of the 'take your clothes off for men' variety.

How men can enjoy entering into a cash transaction with a woman at these clubs is completely beyond me. I've met many men who think that to do so is the height of sadness and desperation. Not all men think lap dancing clubs are cool - but men who do frequent such establishments prefer to think that they are normal and that 'most' men got to them. Otherwise they'd have to face the truth - that they are creeps.