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

btw if anyone doesn't like the Amsterdam/Iceland comparison, try Nevada vs other states.

This question may have been missed in the melee, so I will post again.

Let's say I was a healthy, educated, uncoerced lapdancer (female, obviously). What would you say to me? That question is open to other too, by the way.

Sabrina, I would like to see you condemn strippers because I find your view of women very negative. You give the impression women are lesser; that they are not responsible for their actions.

So are drug takers solely to blame for the drug trade? No demand, no drugs.

I wasn't talking about the beauty industry though was I?

You were using horse meat consumption to illustrate your views about supply and demand.

Your point being that supply does not provoke demand. I was using the beauty industry to also make a point about supply and demand that is less easy to frame as demand being responsible for supply and that it is not as straight forward as you seem to be putting forward.

You use a metaphor I use a metaphor . no ? Is it really that hard to grasp ?

Can I ask why you seem so desperate for me to condemn the dancers and not the men who go the lap dancing clubs?

I'm not desperate for you to do anything honestly. I just don't see why women escape the kind of criticism and bile that gets fired at the men in relation to LDC's.

Saying it's because women have feelings and needs ( as someone posted above ) doesn't really answer the question as every one has feelings and needs. even men !

You couldn't be more wrong, Jothehot. Why would condemning the strippers help at all? Would condemning the strippers be a postitive stance to take for women?

I don't admire the strippers, but I condemn the men who go the clubs.

The drugs trade is frequently brought into arguments about the sex industry - I don't really think they're comparable - as you're talking about lap dancing clubs (where the commodity is the woman) and drugs - where the commidity is ... drugs. I don't really like comparing a woman to a batch of cocaine.

The drugs trade is way more complicated than the lap dancing industry. But in very-simplistic terms - if you take the demand away from anything, the supply drops.

Anyway, I'm a little tired of all the amateur Jeremy Paxmans barking questions at me - real life calls. I'll look in later and see what other spurious comparisons to the lap dancing industry have been made

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is where radical feminism calls falls flat on its arse. Applying half-baked classroom theory to complex real-life situations.

No political doctrine can answer a complex problem when it knows the answer before understanding the situation.

Tunip I am still interested in your opinion about if the police has stamped out trafficking or they can't even though prostitution is illegal. The fact is either way some of the arguments are badly affected. And could you clarify Nevada vs other states? Is this about dancing, prostitution, trafficking or something else? I am sure that you won't answer one without the other.

Sabrina no men don't have to, just so happens that those are the 4 biggest issues on the relationship board therefore the ones that affect women most.

'Sabrina, I would like to see you condemn strippers'

That is seriously one of the weirdest things I have ever read on Mumsnet.

If I'm an amateur paxman, that must make you an amateur michael howard .

Would condemning the strippers be a positive stance to take for women?

If you are very vocal in views against the objectification of women and feel as has been said many times on this thread, the objectification in lap dancing clubs affects all women negatively, then one might well expect you ( who express these views ) to condemn women who freely ( of their own free will etc etc ) objectify themselves.

If I'm an amateur paxman, that must make you an amateur michael howard

:o

I can't see why people are so desperate to see women condemn other women either - how on earth would that be a positive thing for women?

Jothehot, getallthethings, namechangeguy - you are badgering posters on here.

Many people have been quite clear that they think the men who go to these clubs are ones who should be condemned. It's quite a simple concept to understand. Badgering posters with ridiculous questions isn't going to make them change their mind.

I think the logic is 'I want you to condemn women so I can find some evidence for my prejudice that feminists despise women who work in the sex industry.'
Which they don't. A good number of radical feminists are ex-prostituted women or sex industry workers themselves in any case - Andrea Dworkin was, Rebecca Mott is among those who was forced to strip.

I am not badgering anyone. I asked a question and opened it to everyone. I thought it was missed, so I posted it again, again to everyone. At least Sabrina had a go at answering, but everyone else ducks the issue - as expected.

A badgering yes. the great silencing technique.

We are bad, you are good.

Nobody is desperate here.

It's just that you've resolutely failed to give an adequate answer and seem to avoid tricky questions. You say badgering, I say you're being evasive because you don't have a response.

Men, to you, are wankers for engaging in an activity that objectifies women, women engaging in an activity that objectifies women are beyond criticism.

I just don't understand, and there hasn't been a clear explanation for this.

I think the logic is 'I want you to condemn women so I can find some evidence for my prejudice that feminists despise women who work in the sex industry.'

No that's just your incorrect conjecture. I don't want you to condemn women, I just don't understand why you don't apply the same judgements and bile towards those women who freely partake freely in the objectification of women as the men who do when you are so against the objectification of women.

Allthe - Sabrina has answered the question over and over. Read back.

You may not like or agree with her answer - but she has answered you.

She condemns the men who go to the clubs - as do I. She doesn't condemn the women dancers - because they are just supplying the demand of misogynistic men who want to go to clubs and leer over naked chicks.

As said upthread (again, read back) condemning the women dancers is holding women responsible for men's bad behaviour.

Getallthethings I have answered that question many times. I condemn the men because they are the ones doing the abusing.

I was directly quoting JoTheHot, who says she wants Sabrina to condemn strippers.

If I asked one of the posters on here to strip for me, for money, would she be within her rights to strip?

I dont' think men want to see normal bodies. Which is :-/ and all tied up with strip clubs and porn.

there's a part of me that would like to strip, NOT for money, but to show what the body of a woman who exercises 5 times a week, doesn't smoke, walks everywhere, eats low gi diet actually looks like because strippers' bodies are caricatures.

I have been lurking before anybody says 'read the thread'. I have been reading on and off. Although I can't chime in with an opinion on every single point.

And I agree with the supply and demand. If you gave the strippers £1000 to phone in their shift I'm sure they would. The amount of money they can make. or whether it pays for a college education is not the point.

If you gave the strippers £1000 to phone in their shift I'm sure they would

Well who wouldn't. I'd take a grand to phone in my shift at work.

tunip when you say you're quoting exactly, you should do so. I said nothing that even remotely approximates the quote you ascribe to me. I said I wanted to see sabrina condemn strippers because, by her morality, strippers are immoral. She says stripping is evil, but only condemns the people that watch it. By my morality, strippers are not immoral. By refusing to condemn strippers, the subtext is that condemning them would be to pick on something weak and defenseless, something lesser than Sabrina. It is by not condemning, that sabrina shows that she despises strippers, because she thinks they are not even worthy of criticism.

^JoTheHot Fri 02-Nov-12 10:25:28
Sabrina, I would like to see you condemn strippers because I find your view of women very negative. You give the impression women are lesser; that they are not responsible for their actions.^

So are drug takers solely to blame for the drug trade? No demand, no drugs.

That was your entire post Jothehot. I don't think Tunip misquoted you at all. I also don't agree that the subtext is that women are weak or lesser in some way - you are reading things into peoples' reasoning that just isn't there.

Sorry, italics fail there!