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

Really depends if you believe MacKinnon and Dworkin that all objectification is negative or Nussbaum that Objectification can be positive. I am with Nussbaum.

Sausage, Can I please inquire again what you mean exactly by 'nil policy'?

The council policy where the number of LDCs acceptable in the area licensed by the council is Nil

I thought that Portsmouth and Newcastle allowed the existing ones to stay open?

Is this woman lying about her experiences sausage?

Taken from here.

First stage of success for Fawcett Exeter campaigning for a nil policy. Here and here

I have seen that on the Object pages, bit worried about the I wish to remain anonymous. Very hard to check up the comments. It is also about taking men from clubs to a massage parlour. Not sure how checkable the story is. Not sure how far this goes back as it has been around for several years. The whole point is with proper controls this wouldn't happen. So lets get proper controls rather than banning.

As I said the moment it goes to court the clubs will win and no one apart from the club owners will be better off. Control is needed for LDC .

Ok bored with repeating teh same stuff to people who wont listen.

So you're happy to completely disregard evidence like hers - you think she's lying or unreliable? Well, then there's no hope for you, I'm afraid.

The woman writing that letter didn't hold out much hope for 'proper controls,' as you put it, being of any use whatsoever. WHat 'proper controls would you put into place that aren't there already?

Sausage only believes statistics/anecdotal evidence if they support the use of LDCs, Sabrina.

Her neighbour - valuable insight.
Fawcett/Object - women inventing stories of sexual assault.

Oh well.

Stripping the Illusion - Undeniable truth.
Avon & Somerset Police - Lies.

^Stripping the Illusion - Undeniable truth.
Avon & Somerset Police - Lies.^

Agreed

Sarcasm lost on you was it Daddancer?

While you're there can you answer my earlier question:

"Daddancer asks how many dancers have to come on here to say that they are happy dancing and do it through choice, before we will listen?

I would like to ask him - how many reports have to show the level of abuse in these clubs before he will listen, and stop going to them.

The Leeds study again: 40.1% of dancers report that customers are rude or abusive to them. 30.7% report that they have lost respect for men.

Daddancer - are you proud to be part of that? Proud to be part of the reason that dancers have lost their faith in men?"

GetAll - so women (including your daughter) need to just get used to sexual objectification - because it's not going away. No point at all in fighting it?

Well I'm struggling with princesses and not wanting to wear trousers at the moment etc etc. My dd not me. I'd guess she gets those messages partly from her nursery, a bit from her mum certainly not LDCs.

But I can't ban the nursery or her mum. Nor would I want to.

But obviouly one picks ones battles, I'm yet to be persuaded that LDCs contribute in a big way towards objectification of women as a whole compared to religeon or advertising or a myriad of other example. I agree they do contribute to a degree, it's a question of to what degree and whether it warrents the effort and whether a ban would achieve the desired goal.

And as I said I think they'd just go underground anyway if you banned them.

So no I don't think there's no point in fighting negative attitudes I just feel there are far more pervasive and corrosive activities to challenge before lapdancing.

Yes, because dressing as a princess at age 3 is on a par with lap dancing culture. Or maybe not.

Doctrine -

LDCs are a contributor to the objectification of women.
-A culture in which women are objectified/othered is not a good thing. For example, this objectification contributes to a culture where minor sexual assaults are acceptable (not just immediately outside the LDC but pervasively)

Repetition is not the same as evidence. Do you know of any evidence that LDCs increase the number of assaults on women?

These terms like "objectification" are so woolly. I'm yet to see any coherent explanation of how or why some feelings of sexual desire towards a person count as objectification and others don't - it seems to just be taken for granted that it's objectification when straight men do it, and not when everyone else does. Or why one person fulfilling a sexual need for another objectifies them when people fulfilling all kinds of other needs for each other all them time (financial, entertainment, other service-related, protective, whatever) don't.

And now they're being "othered" as well, whatever that means. As far as I can tell in the society I live in there is me, and lots of other people. They are the others, so I must "other" them. Sorry but this stuff just doesn't have anything approaching the objective meaning or coherence necessary, for basing rules about others peoples' lives on in a democracy.

Plenty of things are banned or have been discontinued because of a negative impact on wider society or incompatibility with modern perceptions (smoking in the workplace and the Black and White Minstrel Show being examples of the former and the latter)

Those are invalid analogies. Smoking in the workplace is banned because the health impact of passive smoking has been scientifically proven. The Black and White Minstrel Show wasn't ever "banned" (as in decreed by government that noone was allowed to make it) AFAIK. It simply stopped being made because it no longer reflected contemporary attitudes or tastes. Since it was made by a government funded organisation, there was an issue about being seen to support things that some people found objectionable. But noone's suggesting that the BBC should make a lapdancing show. Only that private organisations and individuals should be allowed to do so if they wish.

As I said the moment it goes to court the clubs will win and no one apart from the club owners will be better off. Control is needed for LDC

Sausage If 'nil policies' effectively mean that existing clubs remain open, which clubs will need to go to court?

Do you mean future clubs-that-don't-exist-yet which are denied a license on the basis of a 'No' presumption in the future? I thought the law was that they can still apply for a license, but the starting point is 'No' unless the applicant can prove exceptional cirumstances, and that that is a perfectly legal position for a council to take.

FastLoris, my post was in response to NCG's request for the feminist argument. As a feminist, that is my argument. It isn't based on statistics because I don't believe whether assaults go up, down or stay the same is the key point. The key point, to me, is what the existence of such clubs, the granting of planning permission to such clubs, the continued attendance of some men at such clubs says about us as a society. I consider what it says to be as unedifying as the B&W Minstrel Show, as a racist or anti-Semitic joke, as a gay couple being denied a holiday in a B&B etc.

You consider personal freedom or whatever it is you like philosophically about the LDCs to be more important than the above.That's up to you.

Running -

Yes, it is a sad state of affairs that sexual assaults happen anywhere and everywhere - even sadder that they are most likely to happen in a woman's own home by someone they know and trust.

Do you not think that the sexual objectification of women in society is in some way responsible for that though?

I think there are three things responsible for that. (1) A lot of men want more sex than they're getting. (2) A smaller number of those men are willing to ignore the rights and suffering of another person in order to get what they want. (3) Men are on average physically stronger than women, so in many cases those men who are willing to so ignore the rights and suffering of their victim will be ABLE to get what they want.

Crime is crime. Burglars don't care that they upset the person whose house they turn over. Football hooligans don't care about the feelings of the person who's face they smash in. It's anti-social by definition; that's why we have laws against it. If that's what "objectification" is then fair enough, but I don't see what's so special about sex crime that it's supposed to automatically say so much about non-criminal sexual activity. I can look at a woman in terms of pure sexual attraction, without there being any question that I'm going to break the law and abuse her, just as I can look at a rich person and be completely overcome by how opulent their house is, without there being any question that I'm going to burgle it.

That women are the sex class - not someone with rights over their own body, but fuck toys that men can buy? They are just their for male sexual gratification - look men can go along and pay some half naked chick to wiggle for them, or just be part of the background decoration. Do you not think that men with that attitude towards women in LDCs have that attitude to all women?

No. I think people are highly complex organisms with highly complex brains, and are capable of holding different attitudes to different people; different attitudes to the same person at different times; even different attitudes to the same person at the SAME time.

This is the thing that seems really ridiculous to me - the idea that a man can't possibly hold an attitude of sexual attraction AND a whole bunch of other attitudes at the same time (like respect for another person's rights, or for the law). I mix with women all the time in loads of different circumstances. Some I find attractive, some I don't. Some I've been in positions of authority over, some under. Some have amazing brains that I admire, some don't. These are all just factors in the vast, complex panoply of human interaction, and feeling horny about someone doesn't immediately change them all in some mysterious way. If I'm going to shag somebody then how horny they make me is obviously a relevant factor. If I'm going to discuss a work proposal with them or decide whether to vote for them then it isn't, and I judge them on what's relevant to the situation.

And I think your description of the lapdancing scenario is just a self-fulfilling prejudgment. The dancers clearly aren't JUST there for male sexual gratification, they're there to make a living too. Are they not objectifying the punters by seeing them as walking wallets to be drained as quickly as possible with no thought for their own feelings? And if so, what litany of evils in wider society can we link this to?

Fact is we live in a soceity with a money-based system where people pay each other to give them things they want. Thus everybody objectifies many people every day.

Urgh, your post chills me to the bone FastLoris. I think I'll need Botox for the frown it gave me.

"A smaller number of those men are willing to ignore the rights and suffering of another person in order to get what they want" Are you standing up for that viewpoint or just saying we should ignore it?

We're not talking sexual attraction here - sexual attraction is a perfectly normal part of human behaviour - which we should all learn to control at an early age. We also learn to enjoy it - hiopefully appropriately. We're talking about sexual objectification - where the structure and behaviour of those owning, working in and visiting lap dancing clubs sets women up as something to buy, just a pair of tits and an arse - to be paid to be part of the decoration or to dance suggestively on demand. Or worse - something to grab, insult or abuse.

If you think all men that visit lap dancing clubs can compartmentalise their feelings towards women as 'those we can pay to touch' and 'oops, she works in the office with me, better leave her alone' then you're far more optimistic about things than me! And of course we're getting onto the 'madonna/whore' complex here...

But then, I have been subject to porn-based harrassment at work - so what would I know? Those men who harrassed me clearly didn't know the difference between the woman posing for page 3 - and me - a young and female colleague.

Daddancer said 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.

It wasn't ignored. I answered it, in fact I thanked you for posting something that clearly supported all that we had been saying re the objectification of women and others answered to say that they agreed with me. You ignored my answer but I notice you either tend to ignore all answers that get to the heart of the debate or irrationally go off on a tangent when the debate makes you uncomfortable (as when you were asked how you would feel if your daughter or wife pursued this job).

Are you standing up for that viewpoint or just saying we should ignore it?

Neither, obviously.

Ok I'm sure people felt look she is not posting anymore because she can't deal with the fact Fawcett Society have a quote that says everythings she has said is wrong. Well as someone here suggested the clubs could and will have bent the truth to make themselves look better and I have no doubt they would and will. I want to explain why I believe that Fawcett/Eaves/Object are much worse than bending the truth but actually resorting to lies.

The lilith report was commissioned by Eaves to investigated and try and prove links between LDCs and rape, something that if it truly existed should be easy to prove. The researchers were so keen to prove the theory they ignore a couple of years with data that didn't fit the theory and made the calculations without allowing for basics like population growth. Nor did they compare to boroughs that have no LDCs so there is no proof of the theory against a baseline. Which is either incredibly shoddy research (and Eaves should ask for their money back) or a deliberate misuse of the data to get the result required. I can't believe anyone doing research would be that poor at maths so think the report is pretty much an out and out lie.

What makes it worse is even though anyone who spends a little time researching will find out just how inaccurate Lilith is, it is still used as a claim to justify the closing of LDCs by Object/Eaves/Fawcett even though they know it is a completely flawed piece of research. That to me is a deliberate lie and if they can lie once do people really not think they will lie again?

Sabrina : Yes, because dressing as a princess at age 3 is on a par with lap dancing culture. Or maybe not

Eh ? Who said that ? Is that what you think ?

Twas not what I said at all. In terms of my dd ( as you mention her ), currently in her life, it's not LDCs that are responsible for the all pervasive messages about what a female's place is in the world and how she should look and behave.

I then mentioned areas of life that I feel are very corrosive, far more than LDCs. Religion and advertising for example.

And that was in answer to another one of your false assumptions about me not caring about objectification and giving up just because I don't agree with you about shutting all LDCs down.

Sausage - the Lilith report has been ripped apart and 'reanalysed' by all sorts of people that have a financial vested interest in LDCs and the sex industry. Big surprise.

There are plenty of other studies that show the damage caused to women, everyday women, not just the ones working in LDCs. But no doubt you'll dismiss those as lies too. Here's one woman's experience:

?Until a strip club opened outside this bus stop I had never experienced a single instance of harassment,
intimidation or any anti-social behaviour whilst waiting there at up to 11 pm at night. Since it opened in
April I have been subjected to numerous counts of verbal abuse best described as sexual harassment.
It?s not every night, and most weekdays there has never been any problem. It?s most often on Friday
and Saturday evenings. The first time I ignored it and thought nothing of it, it was just a bunch of drunk
men on their way to a club.

Then it happened again the next week, and then again a fortnight later, to the point that now I will not go
there. It?s basically come to the point where in the space of five months, a public bus stop where I would
feel safe to wait and travel home is a place I now cannot go because of the likelihood of receiving verbal
abuse from men going into the club or walking past. I am just trying to make my way home at night
using public transport. I cannot believe this is 21
st
Century Britain?
In this context it is difficult to sustain the argument that lap dancing clubs are ?just harmless fun?

Plenty more on the Object website. Although no doubt they're just all making it up too.

However, Sausage, yesterday, you have accused women of making up stories of sexual assault to licensing committee hearings. Do you stand by that comment?

GetALl - you were the one that brought up your 3yr old dressing up as a princess, on a lap dancing thread, not me.

What do you think is more damaging to your daughter - dressing up as a princess or lap dancing culture?

Perhaps if she came home asking for the Peekaboo Pole Dancing Kit you wouldn't be so dismissive. I particularly like the fake money that's included.

Well Sabrina considering Object encouraged its members to write into hackney complaining of harassment and they quote the Lilith which is flawed and Object know it yes I would call them liars.