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

Somerset I understand that I am the one person that you don't want on here. A woman that understands that objectification in and of itself is not necessarily wrong. If it leads to a sexual crime then it is wrong, if it is just in someone's head and they don't live their life around it then is it harmful? And having lived with an "emotionally controlling man" I believe he would never have set foot in a LDC as he would have had no real control which would have driven him nuts. Him seeing me as a babymaker who belonged in the kitchen was not because of LDCs.

Also I do my research, thats why I can call Object, Eaves and Fawcett liars. Knowing they know how useless the research they have is and yet they still trot it out hoping the person they are telling hasn't heard how flawed the research is.

As for being a feminist, interestingly I see myself as one. I want women to be free to choose their own lives not have some moral guardian controlling them. So maybe I should stay and challenge people who don't care about 10,000 women. Who don't care how many women who are funding their education can't finish it (the taliban will be cheering that one).

As I said clubs in the UK will challenge any action to close them by councils in a european court of law. The way the law is with grandfather rights and protections around business that have been trading having a protection from closure if no laws are broken I just can't see the councils being able to close an existing venue. Once 1 council losses no council will risk the legal bill and thats it for any council control until either the law changes again or the UK leaves the EU.

You want other women to take the brunt of the bad behaviour of your controlling ex, Sausage? Well done there.

LDCs may not have been the cause of his abusive behaviour, but they sure as hell condoned his ideas that women are for domestic or sexual services to men.

somerset strippers have nothing in common with chickens. They don't have feathers, and they don't lay eggs.

My problem is with the view that women are nothing more than the helpless victims of male evil. That women are either clever rad feminists or unwitting facilitators of male evil.

You don't have to be a radical feminist to hate LDCs, Jo. Nobody has argued that all women are helpless - that is a straw man argument.

Sabrina you really think you can comment about my ex and what I want? Okay well guess as your arguments have no factual support and are only your beliefs it helps to decide what is in my head.

We have no causal evidence that LDCs do harm to women. Here's an interesting fact for you 2 clubs half a mile apart one in the same area as night clubs and the other away from them, guess which one is in an area where low level harassment takes place and which isn't... which one has violence nearby and which one doesn't? If people really wanted to deal with harassment, violence and sexual crimes the night clubs should be tackled. One near me has the label the meat locker, don't see people rushing to close it down even though 14 and 15 year olds talk about it.

Just an update on Wiggle in Portsmouth, which was refused Planning Permission by the local council.

Wiggle appealed to the government inspector in Bristol and the appeal has been allowed.

I have to say I am bit surprised that the government is still over-turning local planning decisions.

Line think this shows what will happen if/when a club takes a council into European court. It will end any threat the council has over the club and set a precedent that will freeze councils for years from doing anything to help protect dancers.

And so it rumbles on....

Simple question: Is "objectification" per se bad or is it just bad when it overwhelms other value judgments of a person?

Personally, I think that everyone objectifies sexual partners (or generally anyone of the opposite sex whom they fancy but don't really know). And most youthful relationships are based, at least, on an element of "fancying" which is objectification by another name. I believe that decent human beings are able to value members of the other sex as both fully functioning human beings and sexual objects. And I believe that this binary of sex object/real person is a completely artificial trope which some people assume to be true.

Does anyone know, has any council actually attempted to close any SEVs under 'nil cap' licensing powers; or are those councils which are introducing a 'nil cap' actually introducing a future nil cap and not a retrospective one?

I agree with you Sausage that if councils can be over-ruled on planning and licensing decisions (or fear that they will be) by 'higher powers' then this is something significant.

The first attempt looks like Oxford, the court has already allowed the club to operate until the case can be settled in Europe. Which will be a year or so from what I have read. The clubs has no history of harassment or crimes and the police offered no complaints which is why it has a license. Nil policy is suppose to shut existing clubs down but...

Hackney's Nil Policy is such that the existing clubs continue and I believe that is the same in Portsmouth. Issues will occur if the clubs can't be sold or the council try to close one without very valid grounds. If Oxford lose then the councils will probably not want to go down that route and be scared of doing anything that could see the clubs taking them to court.

You come onto a feminist forum, where people examine the world through a feminist lens and look at issues from a feminist angle, and insult those people?

We aren't on a feminist forum. We are on a parenting forum that has a section to discuss feminism. It's not for feminists, it's for discussions about feminism and issues surrounding it.

It's a common mistake people make on here when they think it's 'their' forum.

Yes Get All, but if folks come into this specific room, seeking to rubbish feminists and their views, they shouldn't come over all hot and bothered if they aren't greeted with cupcakes and mugs of cocoa.

Try going into the Litterbox and saying you think moggie owners are accessories to bird murder and see what happens.

True KRITIQ. But likewise I'd add that others shouldn't be get hot and bothered when their ideas are challenged.

The idea that the sex industry should be banned isn't an idea universally accepted by all feminists. It's obviously divisive. Yet anyone arguing against banning seems to be seen as anti-feminist.

< goes off to The Litter Box to confront the bird murder accessories >

Clearly, GetAllThings, my point was specifically about Jo resorting to insults. Not coming onto the forum and simply 'disagreeing' and 'confronting'.

Have been a lurker for a while, but this thread has caught my attention as I happen to know a woman who worked within the sex "entertainment" industry.

We went to school together, lost touch then I met her again briefly at sixth form college, before again losing touch. We recently "met up" again on FB and oddly she now lives near me, despite the fact I moved away from my place of birth several years ago. I knew she had done some modelling while at college but didn't realise this quickly graduated to 'glamour' modelling and then to working as a stripper.

She's quite open (with me at least, dont suppose she advertises it widely!) that she worked in LDVs and so I asked her about some of the assertions made on this thread and how she and the other women she worked with felt about what they did and the men they came into contact with.

These were her main points:

1. Viewed in hindsight, she believes ending up as a stripper was a progression from the original modelling - while at the time she saw it as losing her inhibitions and 'working her way up', financially especially, she now feels it was like a quicksand she got further into as she lost her sense of self worth
2. Any ideas she once might have had about "empowerment" soon wore off - ask her how she feels about it now (and did for the vast majority of the time she was doing it) and words like cynical, hardened, used and dirtied come up a lot
3. She, and every other woman she worked with at LDVs, utterly despised the male clients, not least because they feared at some level what it said about maleness and about relationships between the genders.
4. She doesn't like herself much, finds maintaining any kind of relationship with a decent man very difficult and, in her own words, has "anger issues" that she is struggling to deal with

I've read the whole of this thread, and laboured through all the tortured arguments and stats this, stats that, not to mention the self serving nonsense from men who use these clubs. And then I've spoken to a real woman who has been there, done it, taken off the t-shirt (and the rest) and I know where I stand.

My friend said this: "ask the men on that thread sticking up for lap dancing if they would be happy to see their daughter do it. They won't admit it, but what they'll be thinking is 'you must be fucking joking, she's a nice girl' ie not a whore like the dancers."

theOriginL

with all due respect if you'd read the entire thread you'd know that the question of ones daughter ( and I'd just add it's not just men over the divide ) has been asked, answered and debated already.

Does a debate ever close? I don't think so.

Especially not 790 messages in, LR!

Lady, thanks for posting another lapdancers perspective, it was interesting.

Given the frequency of this topic coming up I completely agree.

GetAllTheThings - I'm merely reporting what my friend asked, re daughters dancing.

She did ask a punter that once - he said "I'd fucking kill her" which is interesting, no? Kill your daughter, not the perverts drooling over her, or the exploitative club owners

TheoriginalLadyFT - great post and very enlightening, thank you so much for sharing.

So, just tracked back to the bit about how would you feel if it were your daughter...

Daddancer's response absolutely sums it up - total freak out, how dare of bring my family into it etc etc. Would be funny if not so sad

The hypocrisy on this thread is mind blowing (much like the decor, eh)

theOriginalL

Apologies, I should have paid more attention to the speach marks.

I assume it's not a retorical question so I'll try and answer again.

I would say firstly I don't see dancers in LDCs as 'whores' , I see them as human beings. As such I wouldn't think my dd was a whore for working there and not a 'nice girl'.

A point made earlier.

I also wouldn't kill her, quite the opposite.

There is an assumption, false IMO , that anyone who isn't saying 'ban LDCs ' must ( a ) be a man ( b ) think dancers are whores ( c ) think women are nothing more than tits and bums.

I don't visit SEVs ( once in my 45 years ) . I'm not out campaigning for more LDCs I am just not convinced they should be banned.

The Lileth report or the Leeds report ? Is there less sexual assult around LDCs or more ? Does one anacdote for trump another against ? Do the clients bear all responsibility or do the dancers bare some responsibility ? Would it go underground ? And all the other unresolved questions. For me at least.

But then your friend believes I'd never admit my true feelings on the matter so I can't really win.

But I think if you are suggesting that anyone arguing against LDCs being closed, views dancers as whores or less than human then it's just a form of demonization.

TheOriginalLadyFT

No It was the insulting way in what was said which annoyed me. Let me remind you:

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.

then i replied back later with:

Yeah but when they are over 18, it's their life, it's their choice. You are making personal attacks about my family which you know nothing about and my daughter happens to be a minor.

and

My issue was not the fact of implying my daughter will be a dancer but the fact that you feel the need to include her as part of your joke, when she is a minor and has had no involvement in these discussions.

not really the same as saying "I'd fucking kill her" So please don't try and twist it around. If they had simply asked me: Do you have a daughter who is over 18 and how would you feel about her lap dancing, then i wouldn't have got annoyed.

and you are wasting your time with dancer testimonials, people on here, well the objectors just don't want give them the time of day. See their responses back to TittyDancer above. To quote a couple:

Come on, one dancer coming onto MN isn't the oracle of all lap dancing clubs.

Who thinks Tittydancer is a man...? I'm not quite ready to alter my feelings and beliefs on this topic based on one person's alleged experience as a lap dancer. Sorry if that disappoints.

Need i say more.

Actually is your ex dancer friend a bloke by any chance?..............

^If they had simply asked me: Do you have a daughter who is over 18 and how would you feel about her lap dancing, then i wouldn't have got annoyed.
^

So Daddancer when your daughter turns 18 how will you feel about her lapdancing?