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

Sausage, your comments on increased trafficking are pure conjecture. Are you seriously saying that men have to have access to sexual services provided by women? They don't. No demand for women for sexual services = no profit for traffickers.

Tackle the demand. Tackle the attitudes of the men who think they're entitled to pay for sexual services in seedy establishments. Men like daddancer, who can't see a difference between going to a LDC and going to see performers in a concert. Men who truly see women as equals don't expect to be able to pay for private wiggles in lap dancing clubs.

No Sabrina the council doesn't have to, neither did Inspector Drummond and look how right he was. The figure is easy to check get the post code for Heat in Coventry and see how many violent crimes took place within 50 metres (violent crimes includes all sexual crimes). It is easy enough to prove disprove. The figures I have seen was for the calendar year 2011 and the one crime took place in December. Doesn't say what the cause was just that it is under the violence classification.

Yes it is conjecture, so you think if the LDCs closed the demand would stop? Well personally I doubt it. But that is just my opinion.

Sorry should have added you need the police.uk database.

Sausage - other things are taken into account when considering lap dance club licenses.

From the BBC:

When discussing the change in licensing law for lap dancing clubs:

Home Office Minister Alan Campbell said: "Many people have told us they don't want a lap-dancing club in their neighbourhood and feel that the existing legislation does not adequately take account of their concerns."

"The existence of a large number of lap-dancing clubs in a small area does have consequences for people who live and work there"
Chris White
Local Government Association

There are more things to take account of than just crime rates. I expect Coventry Council are aware of that.

Sausage, are you against LDCs in principle want LDCs to stay legal primarily because you are concerned about what would happen if they were not legal? Or are you pro LDCs in principle?

Insert "but" between "principle" and "want" above, sorry.

Sausage, could you clarify for me - is the only evidence you have for Drummond's figures being wrong the 'Newquay Voice' website?

If all LDCs closed tomorrow, I wouldn't expect the patrons to immediately move on to illegal sexual purchases, no. Would you? Is that what you think men do - that they have such powerful sexual urges that they must buy sexual services at any cost?

I would expect them to go to normal clubs and pubs instead.

The Home Office 'crime map' was actually quite controversial in Portsmouth, because the Home Office took a whole post code and mistakenly put the 'X' in Surrey Street instead of Guildhall Walk, didn't it?

Two years on, it has put the 'X' where it belongs. That would have the apparent affect of 'reducing crime' massively in Surrey Street.

DoS I am for the right of choice. By taking choice away from dancers I believe we are heading backwards not forwards. Probably would in other minds say I am Pro club but I would say I pro dancers.

Running the Paper's figures were obtained from the police under a freedom of information request. So would appear to be true unless the police gave out the wrong details.

Line, I didn't know about the x in the home office computer. The deputations from local residents was positive for the safety aspect though.

One local resident, Sausage. Just the one.

Sausage - were the figures published then? I coudn't see them on the Newquay Voice website?

Ah, so we're back to arguing most men go now, are we?!

We'll it's only last year that I left the UK after 13 years living there. I must have been the start of a mass exodus, if your stance that in any week c. 120,000 men go, and that's most men. What's the population of the UK again? Over 60 million, isn't it? Come on. Even taking the women and the under-agers out - in whose world is 120,000 - your entirely guesstimated figure - most men?

Even the men on this thread who claim to go, say that they hardly ever go any more (distancing themselves from it all - why would they do that?), but when they did, they really only went on 'special occasions'. I'd say then, that it's a significantly smaller group of hardcore regulars making up the basis of the audience.

And as I said before - a point that Jo took delight in scoffing, but that's obviously pertinent - if most men truly did frequent these places, they'd be on par in prevalence with bars, pub and clubs, etc. And they're clearly not.

In other words, most men do not go to SEVs. Most men do not need them. Most men can function quite happily without them. Most men's crime rates go neither up nor down with the absence of SEVs in their lives - because it's irrelevant to them.

As an aside, I name-change on a regular basis on this forum, but the one consistency is that I will always argue the toss and stick up for good, kind, decent men. I'm lucky to have only such men in my life and am raising my DS to be another one. I will always argue for every woman's right to have such a man in her life, and not to put up with anything less.

There's clearly plenty of these men out there who don't need SEVs in their lives - and as long as there are, then here I will be arguing against such places' existence (again: not by banning; but by challenging mindsets so that the demand dwindles of its own free accord). Clearly enough men don't need these places. They're not an essential requirement to function as a man.

Yes it is conjecture, so you think if the LDCs closed the demand would stop? Well personally I doubt it. But that is just my opinion.

Hang on, so it's OK for you to post based on 'conjecture' and 'opinion' but you'd like the rest of us to stick to hard facts? OK... Makes sense.

I have to get ready for work now. Will drop by later this evening.

Running the figures are in the text.

However at this point I will do what I said and leave the discussion as it looks like all opinions will be worth nothing and it will be settled in european court.

Sausage - according to the BBC, the FOI request brought back 'no recorded information held' ? So what figures was the Newquay Voice using?

Interesting point Running, the Newquay Voice asked for figures on Rape and Sexual assault in 2010, the BBC asked if the Police could provide any evidence to support the claim that Lap Dancing clubs contribute to sex offences which the Police had no evidence to back that claim. This was done in 2012.

Which when you think about it is supports the original claim of the Newquay Voice. The are no figures to support the claim of Inspector Drummond.

So must stop posting.

The reason I'm nitpicking on the veracity of the claims by Newquay Voice is that you have to be very careful of who you listen to when you're talking about the sex industry. There are a lot of 'pro-sex industry' organisations/blogs that seek to sanitise the sex industry and you have to look at the motives behind them. They are not neutral - and if you dig below the surface they are generally funded by those seeking to profit from the sex industry.

From the BBC on the subject of Newquay:

Mr Drummond-Smith said: "I cannot prove any link, nor did I claim to prove any link.

"I said at the beginning of the hearing that we could not prove it.

"I will concede that the letter was a bit ambiguous, but I still believe it is an inappropriate place to have a sex club in an area which already has a higher-than-average number of sex offences."

He said the licensing committee also heard from a number of women who had been sexually harassed by men coming out of the same premises when it was lap dancing club Halos.

I still haven't seen the actual FOI that the Newquay Voice did - just the claims on the website. For all we know the writer may have a vested interest in the club.

Obviously, people may claim that Object and the like are equally biased - but I would argue that Object will not financially profit from the closing of strip clubs.

the only stats you need to worry about are the ones off police.uk website. I tried it for the two lap dancing clubs in my town and the stats are really low, comparable to a typical residential street of about 2-3 a month. Interestingly outside the nightclubs in the other parts of town this was around 20 to 25 a month. It doesn't surprise me as LDC's are calm places where binge drinking is frowned upon, unlike nightclubs.
In the past Object have told their members to make up claims that they have been harassed outside LDC's, so can't be trusted.

With regards to the 'most men have been to a lap dancing club' statement i would say this to be pretty true, as most men will no doubt go on a stag do at some point, and an LDC is pretty standard for this. Loads of men i know go for xmas parties and birthdays too. I would certainly say more have been than not.

In the past Object have told their members to make up claims that they have been harassed outside LDC's, so can't be trusted.

Really? I wasn't aware of that. Could you point me to the evidence so that I can look at it too, thanks.

DadDancer, do you think that women are sexually objectified in our culture (porn, grid girls, adverts with a disembodied pair of breasts or legs etc) but that none of this affects women in general? Or is it only lap dancing that you feel isn't part of a general effect ?

I think that the notion that somehow a bloke who sees some porn or girly images/adverts, lap dancers etc are going to alter they way they treat women, is far fetched and being overplayed on this thread. Yes a few blokes may be affected by it, but i believe the vast majority will be able to separate fantasy from reality. I think that for the men who are sexist it's more a power thing like bullying and has little do to with the images they have seen through life. These claims of the decline of society and the sexualisation of women all sound a bit like a Daily Mail style scaremongering campaign to me.

LineRunner it was highlighted on the stripping the illusion blog. Regarding OBJECTtionable behavior.

Great posts tittydancer and nice to get another insight from a dancer. I do wonder how many dancer testimonials would be required before people on here would even begin to step back and listen. I posted a link a couple of days ago with a dancer interview which had positives and negatives, but it was sadly ignored.

Couple of questions, i was wondering how you felt about dancing for other women and couples? is that something you would normally do? and if you do who do you prefer?

Do you have a direct link? Thanks.

Before we sit back and listen to what, DadDancer?

Again, I don't know how many times I have to repeat myself. My issue is not with the dancers themselves who may or may not choose to do it (and I'm not even talking about trafficking - I hadn't even had cause to use that word until after TD's post when I suddenly had to keep reminding people that I had never claimed women even were trafficked - I'm talking about women who perhaps 'choose' to enter the sex industry (not just lapdancing) for all sorts of reasons that many of the rest of us would hope never to have to face).

My issue is with the impact that places such as lap dancing clubs have on women as a whole. You know, the bigger picture that so many seem to have difficulty getting their heads around. Not sure how many more times I'm going to have to make this point.

These claims of the decline of society and the sexualisation of women all sound a bit like a Daily Mail style scaremongering campaign to me.

Right. You'd know, of course. Being a woman who is subjected to the impact of a culture which feeds into objectification. Oh, wait... Did you read the thread I linked to twice now? You still want to deny the effects of objectificaiton on every day women after reading all if it?

Why don't you sit back and listen?

Are you honestly saying that men and women are exactly equal in this world, that there are the same numbers of women in the boardroom, as CEOs, running companies, making up seats in Parliament, routinely being paid the same, not being the default option to stay home and raise kids and clean the house, and have their careers held back?

I know it's futile to keep arguing - I know you simply will never get it.

Out of interest, DadDancer - are you white?

Running the line that they have been verbally and physically harassed comes from a template letter that Object posted on their closed yahoo user group Article Here and wasn't given to the public for general use. The women who claim sexual harassment don't ever seem to report it to the police from what I have read but if people want to check just ask the police.

As to Object and money, interesting that they have had to move offices from the Womens Resource Centre to a PO Box in Lambeth. Also now that they haven't received grants for a while a lot of the old directors have left. It is a wonder where all the grant money went, the £25,000 for women exiting prostitution, they bought a website and designed a logo and thats all I could find. While they were being paid a lot of people stayed around all of a sudden a lot of people left can't be sure if it was a case of we have run out of money so I leaving a) so you don't have to pay me to save money or b) as you can't pay me.

So you'd criticise the finances of object and not the men who own these clubs and profit from the exploitation of women?

Sounds like you're more the daily mail readership tbh.