Why strip clubs are so wrong

[bodenbiscuit]

A male friend of mine is annoying me because he apparently wants me to go to a strip club with him.

I am very surprised at him because he's a cerebral and generally decent person. I thought better of him to be honest.

I said to him that strip clubs objectify women the same way that prostituion does and he said they are a form of art - I mean seriously what disingenuous bolleaux.

Now he is saying that I'm not being mature about it because I won't change my mind. Apparently the men are the ones being exploited (eye roll) oh that old chestnut.

So how do those of you more eloquent than I argue your point on this one?

sausage your belief in the Leeds research is a matter of faith on your part. You haven't engaged meaningfully in any discussion about the problems with the research. Just because some other research might be flawed, that doesn't mean the research you like is not flawed. Your claims to have come to your views based on facts and research is frankly laughable.

And sausage continues to avoid any consideration, regardless of crime statistics, of the influence the existence of strip clubs has on societal attitudes.

Just for the record, not all feminists are against stripping. In fact there is a thing called feminist stripping. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feminist_stripper

All feminist who can carry a cogent argument in a bucket and give a toss about women's lives are though.

So that's good.

Welcome to mumsnet JohnnyB123. I see you've been all over the Feminism board resurrecting zombie threads.

Yes I noticed that too Slug. Apparently he has studied innumerable types of feminism.

For 30 hours?

We'd better sit up and listen then, eh?

Tut, get it right. He's studied feminism for 30 YEARS. He must be an expert by now.

Just for the record, not all feminists are against stripping

Just for the record not everyone who is against stripping is a feminist or even female.

Look society attitudes are driven by morals which are primarily driven by religion. Religion has been a tool by the upper classes to control the behaviour of the majority, some obviously make sense like murder being wrong but the majority of moral pointers have not been a benefit to the majority. The fact that the church controlled marriage and any woman who did not get married was viewed on with suspicion. People here claim that they want to change society yet they do so by enforcing the stigmatisation of dancers? When you think that the strongest supporters of feminist who want to close clubs are the religious orders who have controlled our sexuality for thousands of years. Those societal attitudes people took about are in fact the attack on women exercising free choice which is strange as I read about a stripper who was doing a 9-5 but hated the lack of control she had in her life.

And yes I have read the article about the poor women who took her own life. I see the paper are playing up the lap dancer angle to sex the story up but considering it was the anniversary of her mother's suicide 6 years ago I wonder at what is to blame. No doubt there will be those who will make all sorts of claims but until the coroner makes his report I would be careful making judgements on what the root cause would be. And see I do read both sides of the story, my heart goes out to the poor woman's family.

My objection has nothing to do with religion. The pro commercial sex lobby are keen to peddle the line that if you are not in favour of commercial sex you are anti-sex and prudish.

I find that an odd argument, particularly as porn and stripping relies on sex being dirty, something that only bad girls do. To exist the commercial sex lobbyists need it to retain the element of grubbyiness and being illicit. The commercial sex lobby has no interest in women having sex just for the fun of it.

You keep trying to persuade us it's an art. I'm a big fan of contemporary dance and alternative circus. Occasionally performers of both sexes will perform wearing very few clothes. I doubt however such performances would be of interest to TonyN as they are not selling sex.

When I said "societal views" I meant what message is being given out- not what you have taken it to be. It's a question of human dignity really. It's the same ballpark as "hobo fights" really -paying someone to strip them (literally) of their dignity.

It might be nice, sausage, if you actually read what people are writing here and commented on that, rather than making stuff up and commenting. Everyone so far, apart from the obvious, is concerned with women's lives. Not religion. Which just happens to be about the 5th or 6th completely spurious argument you've brought up.

I get that you want women's bodies available at all times for the male gaze, but, if you're going to counter feminist's concerns about that, it might be helpful to actually address their points, rather than making things up.

In reply to PlaysWellWithOthers: Feminist strippers and pornographers have a different ethos to their mainstream counterparts. If they didn't care about women they wouldn't identify themselves as feminists.

Reply to random new troll type person Johnny: If they support men's abuse of women, they aren't feminists. Whatever they might call themselves.

I can call myself a lamp post, doesn't mean I am one.

I am a communist but I believe in private property so long as people chose it.

See how that works?

I'm not stigmatising the women who strip, I'm sure that I might come across as patronising occasionally, and I might judge the morals of those who advocate in what I consider to be a dishonest manner, but I have no issue with your standard, common or garden stripper, I don't consider them dirty, or morally corrupt - they're just people doing a job, and it's the fact that that job exists that I disapprove of.

I do have a problem with the men who go and pay for this though, I do judge them as having poor moral character, they should have the stigma attached. I think that's where society should be placing the onus to change.

In reply to PlaysWellWithOthers: How am I a troll? An internet troll is someone who hurls insults and calls people names. I'm not doing that. I have a right to disagree with people.

Have you actually looked into branches of feminism that take a different view of things like porn and stripping to the view you take? Even radical feminists in the 1960s and early 1970s didn't focus on porn/stripping. It was Andrea Dworkin who started doing that in the late 1970s and 1980s. She basically hijacked feminism, and the movement has never fully freed itself from her influence. www.theguardian.com/world/2005/apr/15/gender.politicsphilosophyandsociety

Andrea Dworkin was actually a very astute observer of society and years ahead in her thinking. You really should try actually reading some of her stuff, the actual stuff mind you, not the bits you get filtered through male writers in newspapers.

Try reading Pornography, Men Possessing WomenIt's not the hysterical "man-hating" polemic of imagination but a serious look at the way society comodifies the female body.

Johnny, you do appear to be on a wind up, in fairness. Are you employed? Do you have hobbies or interests? You must have better things to do than goad women

Have I looked into other branches of feminism?

Oh! My actual sides.

You do indeed have a right to disagree with people. You don't have a right to tell experts what to think. Do you want to go and find someone to explain the difference to you?

And bless you for never having actually read a single thing that Dworkin wrote and still thinking you're some kind of educational tool.

thedancingbear has some good suggestions for you, might I humbly cos I'm just a woman suggest you follow them? It will lead to a happier, more fulfilled life for you.