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

enimead - I guess it is the same question. If it is harming women, why don't women stop? I still don't see an answer.

I would never condemn those women from backgrounds that have made them vulnerable and who have low self-esteem that consequently causes them to think that their body is their only asset, but unlike some posters here I don't hesitate to wonder why non-abused, intelligent, well educated women do it when they could use their education and intelligence in more positive ways and in careers, which while not instantly paying a lot of money, have better long term prospects.

After all, even if lap dancers earn the healthy sums that some posters have mentioned (though none seem that particularly high earning to me) their careers in lap dancing will be relatively short. The punters will lose interest when gravity takes over and by that time these women's educated peers will be well advanced in proper careers with proper prospects.

My personal view is that these women don't actually care what message they are giving - being a feminist myself does not mean I support women come what may. Or maybe they have mistakenly fallen for the myth of empowerment and simply like parting idiots with more money then sense from their money. Or maybe they are exhibitionists looking for voyeurs to appreciate them. Who knows?

But LDC are like any other business insofar as they fail when demand dries up, not the supply. Take the tobacco industry (as a similar anti-social activity) as an example. The reason it turned to China, the East and Africa to hook new addicts was because the demand was falling in the West and the industry could no longer survive on Western European consumption - too little demand.

Take away the demand and the LPD would fail in the same way. Take away supply and punters would simply turn their attention to other areas of the sex trade and exploit other types of sex workers.

I think it would be very difficult to persuade men that harm is done to women by visiting these establishments - especially if the women themselves don't see any harm. I am not sure therefore how anybody could 'take away the demand'.

I think you mean "men who like to visit these establishments" - my DH is a man and he can see the harm done to all women by the existence of SEVs.
Every other week there are posts by women on the relationships boards who are distressed to learn that their partners have gone to strip clubs, they are definitely being harmed by their partners visiting them.

Thanks Grimbletart. Some food for thought there.

It's just that I've never seen anyone on these threads ( including this one ) ever round on lap dancers / strippers / sex workers for contributing towards the objectification of women by their own free will, whilst 'prick' , 'wanker' and 'low life' are fairly liberally banded about in relation to men who visit these clubs.

Or indeed in any thread that touches on objectification.

It doesn't really seem to help get to the roots of the matter, or why men go there other than to say that they are 'entitled'.

I still don't see how the demand can be taken away, if it is a legal transaction between two adult parties. I have missed another TLA though - what is an SEV? Is it the same as an LDC?

SEV = Sexual Encounter Venue ( I think )

sexual entertainment venue

I consider any man who goes to one of these venues when he has no way of knowing (which he doesn't, given that trafficking remains a problem) that the women he is paying to leer over is there of her own free will, to be a prick, a wanker and a lowlife. I don't think that is unreasonable.

And tbh I'm not interested in getting to the roots of why men go to these places. I'm more bothered about getting them to stop going there and exploiting women.

The fact that there is a proportion of dancers at these places who do not consider themselves exploited is neither here nor there. The fact is that there are women in LDCs who are being abused, and this has got to stop.

Tunip - and what names do you call the dancers? Dancer A might have no idea whether dancer B is trafficked, even if A herself is not. What is more, she might not care.

'...I'm not interested in getting to the roots of why men go to these places. I'm more bothered about getting them to stop going there...'

If you know why, you have more chance of stopping them.

She's not the one doing the exploiting though is she? Why are you so keen to find a woman to blame for the harm that men do?

I am in touch with someone on Portsmouth City Council over whether the digital recording of the deputations and the Police evidence at the Licensing Policy Committee Meeting (re: SEVs and the 'nil cap' issue) is available, and if it is allowed to be published in the public domain.

If the answer is yes, then I imagine that other Councils' debates are similarly available.

SEVs (Sexual Entertainment Venues) include lap dancing clubs, sex shops and sex cinemas, that require a license from the local council.

They also need a thing called Planning Permission.

Tunip, I am not keen to find a woman to blame. I am more interested in why you are only looking at 50 per cent of the equation. I can see blame on both sides, men and women. Can you?

As I said before, Namechangeguy, it is the men who are doing the exploiting.

It is not women who are prepared to risk paying to watch women strip who are there because they have drug problems/histories of childhood abuse or because they are trafficked and effectively enslaved. It is men.

Women are not 50% of the equation when the harm is committed by men.

Trying to find a women to blame for men's bad behaviour is exactly what you are doing.

I agree Tunip - always happens on threads like this - people try and find reasons to blame women for the bad behaviour of men.

GetAllTheThings - The root of the matter is the demand for these clubs by men. It is the demand that keeps these clubs open - otherwise there would just be a lot of naked girls sitting around doing nothing in an empty club.

Running,

And without the women, there would be no clubs. Chicken and egg. And what about women who manage or own LDC?

That is a seriously flawed argument Larry - no doubt you'd like to think of it as chicken and egg - but in business without the demand, the supply dries up pretty quickly.

Unless of course you are thinking that there are all these poor lickle men being tempted into lap dancing clubs by evil naked women?

Of course...but where there is demand and no supply, you equally don't have a business. However much people might want to eat a roasted dinosaur, you just ain't going to have a dinosaur restaurant.

GetAllTeThimgs - 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 ?

The fact that you even ask this question is very telling.

Why don't feminists, and indeed most women, describe lap dancers and other sex workers in derogatory terms? Well, because we recognise that they're people with feelings and concerns and needs and worries, with choices to make. Not objects.

We also don't know which ones are there of their own free will, which have 'chosen' to be there to fund, say, a drug habit, or 'choose' it as the only way to make some easy money even though they might hate it. And which ones absolutely have not chosen to be there at all. We have no idea, so how can we possibly talk about them all in derogatory terms? The men frequenting these establishments have no such concerns about the women and don't care which of these camps they fall into.

I'd have thought this was obvious - to me it's very telling that it's clearly not

Everyone has to make their way in the world - and given that the world is constructed under patriarchal terms - we often have to make our own negotiations with the patriarchy to get by. For example, I wear make-up and shave my legs. I'm not brave enough to make the stand against it - to be the make-up-free, hairy-legged women, because of all the judgement I'd get if I did that. Judgement that men don't get and can't understand.

These women make choices, too. I'm not going to condemn them for those choices - it would be hypocritical of me to do so.