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

[FastLoris]

@ rosabud,

I have not disputed the fact at all about the crime going down. My point is that this fact is actually further evidence that lapdancing clubs are not a good thing for the reasons I have already said above.

So basically: if they cause crime to go up, that proves they're bad. And if they cause crime to go down, that proves they're bad too? [hhmm]

[Sausageeggbacon]

Posie one dancer I know and a lot of research from Leeds University saying the same thing.

So lets take any performance from a woman... does the man have the right to pay and watch? There are plays that feature nudity, should they be banned for the same reason. There are some ballets that are performed nude, should they be banned? There are males strippers for gay men should they be banned? Any performer (and this will include dancers as some are members of Equity and are defined performers by their Union) has the right to be paid for their performance, if nudity is an issue then any performance that has any nudity should be banned under those guidelines.

The majority of censorship is driven by groups who want to exercise control, governments, religions and it seemsl feminism.

So as clubs seem to cause crime to go down they are wrong but they would be more wrong if they didn't? Sorry I am giggling just a little and I probably shouldn't.

[Frans1980]

Men who frequent such establishments are sad losers,

Shaming tactics aren't going to help your argument. On the other side of the coin people could say those who want to ban strip clubs are sad bitter prudists. But throwing insults around isn't the way to debate your point.

re Iceland- In Iceland strip clubs are illegal, which means lapdancing will be done underground out of sight of the police and completely unregulated. If a stripper is abused or assaulted there she will be unable to go to the police out of fear of being arrested herself. 100% of the profits will go to the traffickers and nothing will go to the government (and Iceland is already in serious financial trouble and still hasn't paid back the $2billion the UK lent them years ago).

[Frans1980]

Even if a woman has a right to choose does a man have the right to pay for her and watch?

That's a decision made by the stripper and the man (and the club she works at), not anyone else who thinks they know better and have the right to tell other adults what they can and can't do.

[KRITIQ]

Just a cautionary note about "sex worker activist groups" not always being what they appear to be. This article is from the US, but I am aware that ECP and Scot-Pep aren't as "grass roots" (so to speak) as some would make out.

[Frans1980]

That's a very accusatory article but where's the evidence?

btw I personally know a woman who is a sex worker and a member of SCOT-PEP.

[KRITIQ]

I didn't say there were not prostitutes in membership of Scot Pep, but can you provide evidence that none of its members profit financially from the prostitution of other people?

If a trade union has significant numbers of members who are at management level, this could compromise their credibility in claiming to speak for front line workers. By nature, there could be conflicts of interest between those who work on the "front line," and those who manage them.

Same here.

[rosabud]

So basically: if they cause crime to go up, that proves they're bad. And if they cause crime to go down, that proves they're bad too?

No, that is not at all what I have said. I do find it frustrating when people cannot follow the course of an argument. Let me say it again:

No, if the clubs cause crime to go up they are bad (although from all the evidence it would appear that they do not cause crime to go up). If they cause crime to go down because they are diverting the kind of behaviour that leads to sexual crime into a sanctioned environment then that is also bad because, obviously, that proves that the clubs are all about the kind of attitudes to women that are sexist, mysogynistic and dangerous. If they cause crime to go down because of some other reason such as the great decor and skillful dancing then, hallelujah, we have discovered a really easy way to get crime to go down.

The "we shouldn't be controlling women's choices" argument is irrelevant as, in order to live in a structured society in which behaviour that leads to discrimination or detrimental treatment of individuals or groups of people is disouraged or outlawed, we prevent some choices all the time. For example, we do not allow bed and breakfast landladies to choose that gay people cannot stay in their guest houses, we do not allow paedophiles to choose to have sex with children, we do not allow people to choose to make racist comments, we do not allow parents to choose arranged marriages for their children, we do not allow naturists to choose to walk naked down the street and so on. Living in the complex society we do is about controlling the choices of many in order to make society bearable for all. We should not allow people to choose to paticipate in activites which encourage women to be seen as sexual servants of men as it has a wider significance for how women are considered and treated in general.

[FastLoris]

Fair enough. I suppose the bottom line is that we don't know, on the available evidence, why they cause crime to go down (I personally didn't even know that they did, and remain not entirely convinced. I rather suspect any effect either way is negligible). One very simple thought that occurs to me is that if they open in areas where there is not a lot of other nightlife, and stay open late, they increase the number of night hours when there are lights on and people around. But I admit that is just conjecture.

If they cause crime to go down because they are diverting the kind of behaviour that leads to sexual crime into a sanctioned environment then that is also bad because, obviously, that proves that the clubs are all about the kind of attitudes to women that are sexist, mysogynistic and dangerous.

I'm not sure what you mean by "the kind of behaviour that leads to sexual crime". Sexual crime itself is, by definition, a behaviour. Touching someone intimately without their permission is a crime; doing so with their permission isn't. I'm not sure if anyone has successfully defined what behaviour "leads to" the behaviour of the crime, as prior to committing it the criminal could have been doing just about anything.

If it's true, as has been claimed earlier, that most clubs do enforce the no-touching rule for fear of legal consequences if they don't, then the only kinds of behaviour or attitude being exercised in the clubs are looking, conversing and thinking. Now let's suppose for the sake of argument that those things are happening in the "worst" possible way according to feminist principles - that the men are completely "objectifying" the women and living out their most lurid misogynistic fantasies through them.

If we then find that actual sexual crime (eg assault, flashing etc) in the area has gone down, wouldn't that disprove the very idea that "objectifying" via looking, thinking and fantasizing automatically leads to such crime?

[avaboosmummy]

rosabud

Get a grip love
I am sick and tired of strippers/sex workers/ prostitutes being used as scape goats for society's portrayal/treatment of women.
I wonder what your problem is with this group and why you would be so short sited to place the blame on this group of people.
You have no evidence that this is this case.
Should we ban everything just in case it offends someone somewhere?
How about sky diving, base jumping, all extreme sports? Ban 'em cos the participants have no regard for their own lives, so must have no regard for anyone elses right?

[GothAnneGeddes]

As an aside, I find the so-called academic specialists "in sex work" who've never done any actual "sex work" in their lives, but spend their whole careers defending it and denying/minimising the harm it causes to women to be very creepy indeed.

[DadDancer]

in order to live in a structured society in which behaviour that leads to discrimination or detrimental treatment of individuals or groups of people is disouraged or outlawed

but that's exactly what you are doing by bashing lap dancing clubs. Your a phobic against voyeurs (customers) and exhibitionists (dancers). Remember its consenting adults and it's behind closed doors and 100% legal. So you can't compare it to the other things you have mentioned

We should not allow people to choose to paticipate in activites which encourage women to be seen as sexual servants of men as it has a wider significance for how women are considered and treated in general.

that's just another assumption like just most of your other arguments.

Also why do you keep making this a woman vs man argument?, when there are a lot of women who attend lap dancing clubs too. Last time i went there was a roughly 50/50 split of female and male customers in the club. All 3 of my local clubs are owned and run by women too and one of the clubs even features male dancers and drag acts.

[DadDancer]

FastLoris thanks for clarifying those figures, i did think it seemed very low for a weeks earnings.
LDR Dragon now owes me an apology , i bet she won't though [hhmm]

[LineRunner]

Are there any published figures for how much women earn in Sexual Entertainment Venues, for various jobs, per hour, gross/net?

I mean actual empirical data. Not newspaper columns or guesstimates.

[FastLoris]

Both the Guardian article from the OP and Indie one I linked to earlier are based on research from the University of Leeds described as "one of the most detailed studies of the lap- dancing trade ever conducted in Britain". So they're not just some journalist making it up. I'm not in a position right now to look into that research in more detail though.

[LineRunner]

No worries. I just wondered if there was any data from the Office of National Statistics, for example, about wages.

[LineRunner]

p.s. I've read the Leeds study. Another kind MNer linked me up!

[Sausageeggbacon]

Rosa your argument about controls apply to things that are against the Law dancing isn't. If the law changes then it will go underground as Fran said. The intelligent women will get out but then there will be those who will fill the gap and these will be the weak and the vulnerable. And we we cry out about the abuse these women are put through and forget that the people who closed the clubs down and their supporters are the ones who were a causal effect to the abuse.

We don't know why clubs seem to have a good effect on crime. We do know that nightclubs have a lot of violence and sexual crimes in and around them but we don't see people campaigning to close all nightclubs.

FastLoris I agree if no contact is taking place then the question is why do clubs have what appears to be a causal affect in crime reduction. However one of the key arguments for the closure of clubs has been "they cause sexual crimes" and if you take that argument away if comes down to points of view and personal belief.

[PosieParker]

Where is this invasion of pricks coming from?

[Sausageeggbacon]

Well reasoned debate, btw Posie I am still waiting on what your opinion is of Drummond making statements up as you were so keen on quoting him.

[PosieParker]

Sorry, cannot find any decent evidence for him having made anything up.

In addition I would like to know what motivates you to find arguments that support men paying women for sex work, you and Frans who [boak] wants to discredit figures on trafficked women. Why would any decent human being actually want to diminish the already pretty low level importance of such a disgusting thing?

And finally I wonder why it's not on your radar that if Feminism achieves it's goals the world will be a better place to be a man too? If you do not demean women and so called 'women's work' you may find family courts a better place to be a man.

[L01S]

eeeooow. If "expressing your sexuality" results in a lawsuit then you've totally disregarded the fact that contact has to be consensual, and that the woman has to want the 'contact' then I doubt going to a strip club and purchasing the commodity of wimmen is going to help.

Posie, so true, so true. I've always thought, if men had to take longer paternity leave (equal to their wife) then employers would have less logical reason to pay men more for doing the same thing. The pay gap might narrow in time. So, divorcing fathers wouldn't feel stung for half of their pension etc..... If the mother earned as much as the father then access could be more equal and it wouldn't 'go without saying' that the low earner takes on the bulk of the childcare and leave the father 'stuck' with the role of provider for children he's not even living with.

Like you say, if men GOT that feminism would benefit them too, it could be one step forward.

[L01S]

@ Posie, I hear you. I hear you.

I was thinking recently about low paid work and what to apply for.. I have no qualifications and no earning potential and I wwant to be a bin man for ?40 a year or a postman for ?40 a year. I don't want to look after children for ?17 a year. THIS IS WHAT leads young women to wiggle their hips around a pole.

[rosabud]

Interesting argument that sexual objectification, or allowing men to look and think about their fantasies of objectifying women, does not actually lead to them carrying out these fantasies so therefore we don't need to worry about it. I would argue that it would be better for sociey as a whole if men didn't have fantasies about objectifying women and that the idea that women should be there to serve such fanatasies of men is not helping to promote equality between the sexes. So even a lapdancing club which allows no touching, which has no effect either way on crime or which employs very intelligent lawyers to dance, is still promoting the idea that it is OK for men to think, to some degree, that women are there to serve them sexually. How you react to that will determine which side of the fence you come down on in this debate. Personally, I think it's an attitude which should be changed as I would like to see women and men in more equal sexual relatiosnhips generally and I also believe it perpetuates an attitude which prevents women from achieving equality with men in society.

Re the argument that curtailing choice is only appropriate regarding something that is against the law. Well that is what we are debating, should lapdancing be banned, should we take that choice away from people? In the case of the gay couple at the guest house, NOW it is against the law to discriminate against them but once it would have been perfectly legal for the landlady to choose to barr them and many would have argued that her choice was important and that they could easily have found another hotel. However, we now accept that to allow people in our society to choose to dissasociate with gay people affects attitudes to and general acceptance and equality of gay people and that it comes under the banner of discrimination so we have taken that choice away from landladies. You have to decide how important maintaining the attitudes towards women promoted by laddancing is compared to how important personal choice of those participating in it is.

Re choice about things like sky diving, should we ban it because people could hurt themselves? Again, you have to decide on a scale of importance. We have chosen to ban smoking in pubs partly beause it is bad for the individual smokers but largely because it has an effect on the health and well-being of others and because we do not wish to promote the attitude that smoking is a good thing. Personally, I don't think skydiving is much of a risk to others and can't see that it has a detrimental effect on society's attitudes to personal safety as a whole, so I would not take that choice away. I do think that lapdancing, regardless of whether it causes harm to individual lapdancers or customers, promotes attitudes which do have a detrimental effect on society's attitudes to women as a whole so I would take that choice away.

Finally avaboosmummy your comment, Get a grip love is offensive. Would you address a man like that? It is a classic way to belittle a woman who is making remarks that you do not agree with. By all means disagree with me but do not imply that I am not making intelligent and reasoned points. Also, I have not blamed lapdancers or strippers for anything, I have merely discussed the effects that I think such activities have.

[FastLoris]

Interesting argument that sexual objectification, or allowing men to look and think about their fantasies of objectifying women, does not actually lead to them carrying out these fantasies so therefore we don't need to worry about it. I would argue that it would be better for sociey as a whole if men didn't have fantasies about objectifying women and that the idea that women should be there to serve such fanatasies of men is not helping to promote equality between the sexes.

FWIW it's not particularly my "argument" that allowing men to think about objectifying women doesn't lead them to commit actual sex crimes - it just seems like an inevitable logical conclusion about this particular issue, IF we accept the claim/evidence that sex crime where lapdancing clubs have opened has gone down.

There's still a problem though. Even here you don't appear to be saying that such thought-objectifying causes any harm in itself. You just seem to be saying that while it may not cause sex crimes, it DOES cause all kinds of other problems and should be stopped for that reason. The problem is that the example we've just been looking at - the supposed link between it and sex crimes - shows that one can't just assume such a link. It might seem perfectly reasonable to think such a link exists, when in reality it doesn't play out like that.

Your argument seems to be based on a number of assumptions about connections within peoples' minds/brains that aren't actually true.

Finally avaboosmummy your comment, "Get a grip love" is offensive.

LOL. And this isn't:

Where is this invasion of pricks coming from?