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

Excellent point, well made.

Well found out there isn't any need to debate here, the decision over clubs won't be made by consultation. Which is a shame as the clubs have been winning the consultations so far but as it no longer has an relevance to the future of the clubs and peoples input has no real relevance not going to spend time commenting [hgrin] I haven't read the comments since I last come on so say what you want.

I wonder why sausage believes that the public consultation process is so pro-lap dancing clubs? In my experience the public opinion is always against the opening of such clubs in their town centres/ neighbourhoods.

After all, as Linerunner pointed out Portsmouth council have ruled that no more will get licenses - as have many London Boroughs- a strange decision considering sausage's assertion that they are so good for the prevention of sexual crime?

Except, that's right, they're not effective at preventing crime. Or at least Linerunner debunked the 'Wiggle opening in Portsmouth, crime fell by 95% assertion. And it would be disturbing indeed if they were - what would that say about men? That they need paid women performing sexual services for them otherwise they'll go out and commit sexual crimes against women?? A disturbing thought indeed.

And Daddancer - you take a lot on yourself 'pointing out the flaws' in the English definition of 'sexual objectification'. How kind of you to point out these flaws in the English language to us.

Mind you, I'd expect nothing less than a punter to try and twist definitions like this - after all, you don't want to believe that you are are part of the culture that sexually objectifies women - so best deny that that is precisely what lap dancing clubs do.

My thanks also to Somerset, Sabrina and others who have clearly and accurately argued how lap dancing bars objectify women.

"This is what i call assumed objectification. This is what your perceive the customer thinks. But you can't know for sure what they think because everyone is an individual. just because someone fancies someone, is turned on by them, then why would that automatically make them not regard the person for anything else than this? or even regard them as a lesser person?"

This is a really important point. Everyone "objectifies" people of the opposite sex (or sometimes same sex) for the purpose of sexual relations. That is what sex is. When you are having sex even with the most interesting person in the World, you are probably regrading them as a collection of holes or a glorified vibrator (at least sometimes). I defy even the most radical feminist on this board to claim that in the moment before orgasm they are excited by their partner's interesting take on Wittgenstein's "Tractatus".

The reality is that well adjusted people of both sexes can perceive a person as BOTH a "real" and interesting person and a sex object. It is only when someone is maladjusted or society overwhelmingly portrays one sex as ONLY an object that problems occur. In our society which is broadly sexually equal (at least compared to any point in history and 95% of the World) we can see women as mothers, in high positions at work, as authors, as academics and as lapdancers. Most men are not as stupid as a lot of posters assume them to be. We are able to see women as multidimensional but, of course, one dimension is as a sexual object. Which is exactly equivalent to the way women see men.

This bifurcation trope (someone is either a real human being OR a sex object) is one of the fundamental myths perpetrated on this board and used to label any normal male as dysfunctional and sexist.

larry - did you read the thread I posted? Did you?

Assuming you did(?) Do you think men have the same experience as women do, with regards to daily low/medium/high-level sexual assault and abuse?

Do you you think you can speak on behalf of women?

Look it doesn't really matter, but every public consultation so far has been in favour of the clubs and the councils have acted against the wishes of the majority. Within a year I think things will change again and are likely to be for the clubs. Especially as the figures do back up the claims clubs don't case issues in the way night clubs do. Would say with Portsmouth 96% of respondents were in favour of the clubs after a campaign led by a board member of object. The fact that no clubs were closed is a victory as Object believe? I find it hard to believe how few people voted for the nil policy or actually I don't.

I must stopped getting dragged in but lets be clear the argument on objectification I could have done a better job of arguing for it. And I don't believe it is such a bad thing even martha nussbaum pointed out that objectification could be positive. Sexual desires exist in males and females and at some point we all have fantasies which deny the agency of an individual. I am leaving the discussion because I now believe that all the claims by people on here will have no impact in the real world.

I don't care about strip clubs. Isn't the best way to get them shut down simply for women to withdraw their employment from the establishments? No women working in them = no business.

Sorry if this has been mentioned, but I don't fancy reading 14 pages of shouting.

'There may be some house rules and sometimes a dress code, but how is this any different to any other place of work?'

If you really can't see how having to wear fancy underwear and heels to work is different from smart casual, then I fear there's no hope for you.

That wasn't my point, I was just saying that LDC's are no different to any other place of work by imposing a dress code. Obviously this is going to depend on the nature of the work. If you work on the highway you can expect to wear high vis gear. If you work as a underwear model then it's underwear. etc However the clubs i have been to, the dress code was that the dancers had to wear evening dresses when they were on the floor and not walk around in just their underwear like they do on the stage.
Hardly seems like an unreasonable rule.

Why do women persist in challenging men on speaking on behalf of women and yet every woman on this board assumes that they totally know every man's motivation, even to the extent of being entirely uninterested in their views. People might take that to be somewhat prejudiced.

This is so very true

You do know that most women think that men ( especially those over the age of about 25) who go to strip clubs, are sad twats ?
Does it not bother you that they think men who pay for sexual services like lap dances are pathetic and inadequate?

But Daddancer has trouble with the meaning of words - they mean what he wants them to mean.

Somebody makes a point on another thread about denying a woman the right to earn a living however they see fit (within the law). If feminism thinks a woman has the right to control her own body over an issue such as abortion, how can feminism also seek to control her right to shake her thang on a stage? Forget the male audience and what they want for a minute - from the dancer's standpoint, how can you grant her autonomy over abortion and not over lap-dancing?

He thinks I'm Anyfucker, oh that's priceless.

NCG, a woman choosing an abortion is affecting only herself (and her partner if she has one) , its a purely private matter - a woman choosing a career as a lapdancer, or in porn, is affecting all women and how they are perceived.
I bet DadDancer wouldn't want his daughter, or sister, or mother, to be behind a curtain in a club grinding her breasts or vulva on sweaty business men or drunken stag party attendees for £20 a time, for all his talk of the dancers making intelligent choices and being seen as autonomous human beings.

Can't help picturing DD in a LDC and finding himself suddenly staring at his daughter wiggling her boobs and vulva in his face.....wonder what he would do. Sit there with a red face, exit quickly or 'enjoy' his daughter's nakedness.

Everyone is someone's daughter [sad}

a woman choosing a career as a lapdancer, or in porn, is affecting all women and how they are perceived.

I'm going to dip my toe back in because I really don't understand the rational here.

If lap dancers ( and strippers, and sex workers ) are damaging to all women why aren't you describing them in derogatory terms and telling them to stop working if they do so of their own free will ?

I understand the argument about men in clubs, just not why all the anger is aimed only at the clients.

I did ask a similar point to GetAllTheThings' earlier - why not just ask all women dancers to withdraw their services? If they understood the damage that is described on here, wouldn't they stop?

namechangeguy

Yes. I just wonder if it's a taboo question, or if it's glaringly obvious and I'm just being thick.

I mean yes I can understand in a context where women are forced to do this stuff by men, but surely if they do it of their own free will they bare as much responsibility as clients, if not more, if one believes it denigrates and objectifies women as a class.

I did ask a long time ago and I was just asked if I'd like my daughter doing this. It didn't really answer the question.

I'd genuinely like to know how this fits into the arguments.

" why not just ask all women dancers to withdraw their services? If they understood the damage that is described on here, wouldn't they stop? "

Isn't that an argument that could be used for women who use their body in any situation to make money? Page 3 models, those women who get parade around boxing rings / Formula 1 / anything where appearance is the only thing that counts?

It's selling your body because men like to see the female body and will pay for it - they're not paying for the person within the body but are paying for the body as an object. Some women are perfectly happy to do this as they know men will pay.

But then that leads men to see women as objects - and some women to be perfectly happy to sell themselves as an object.

How do you break the cycle? You rarely see men selling their body for women - in female sports, you don't see men in hardly any clothes parading around with the scores, you don't see men sprawled over a sofa enticing a woman to buy it?