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?

I wasn't trying to show off when I said I've studied feminism for 30 years. The only reason I mentioned it was because someone told me to "go do some reading".

You've studied feminism for 30 years yet you ignore one of its principal tenets: men do not get to tell women how to do feminism. We listen and learn, and if you're a decent human being we take notice and call out asshatery when we see it.

I still have you to thank for the name Flora, it was the 1st time I'd seen it, proof that I don't read enough of her stuff. She replied to me on Twitter once and I was made up.

Why have you studied feminism for 30 years, Johnny?

In reply to TheTesticlesOfObjectivity (brilliant name by the way): Studying feminism and being a decent human being doesn't mean you have to agree with everything feminists say all of the time.

Maybe he only studied straw feminists Buffy? A lot of people seem to study those. For 30 years my arse

I get it from both sides. I get slagged off by feminists for challenging their particular brand of feminism, and I get slagged off by anti-feminist men for defending feminism.

feminist educational tool is genius, thanks. I will forever think of mansplainers as this.

joh advocating for women being commercially available to the male gaze does not make make for being a decent human being..

HTH

Joh, I am in no way "slagging you off" I am laughing at you. I am laughing at you because you are just another in a long line of men who has decided that they're going to school the silly women on this part of the forum in feminism by stating that women should make themselves available to the male gaze at all times.

You're not even original. We know that men think women are the sex class. We know that a fair few women believe that women's only value is to be decorative. For whatever reason, lots of men like you come here in order to tell women that they believe women are the sex class, albeit indirectly as you are doing.

You aren't being slagged off for challenging a "brand of feminism" there is no one brand of feminism here, this isn't no matter how much people want to make it so a hive mind. You are being pointed and laughed at because, like so many men, you are clothing your need to get your dick tingles in the pseudoempowerment of women.

I'm on page 5 so far. Interesting reading.

A quick search will prove I'm not new and not a troll. I'm usually mouthing off about dog breeding in the doghouse.

When I was 19 I was slim and long haired and oh so empowered. I danced in a club in Preston called Tokyo Joe's. Us dancers were lowered from the ceiling in cages. We didn't strip but our job was to tittilate. We had to wear hot pants that were basically thong style knickers, a push up bra and furry boots. We had to be sexy. The mantra was "make 'em wanna fuck you". Girls who failed were fired that night with no pay for the hours they'd worked. I was regularly groped, verbally abused, followed home, slapped and grabbed at the bar after I'd finished. Do I consider that period of my life a victory of female empowerment? No. I was young, needy of cash and very very naive. Did those men view me as a daughter a sister a mother a anything? No. I was an available slapper in a cage. Please do not tell me that women in that position are there through choice. Through an active, well reasoned mature choice. They're not. The ones that are? The percentage must be negligible.

Oh eck, TooOld, I remember Tokyo Joe's!! (I mainly remember it being sticky). You have my deepest sympathy.

TooOld then it's the working conditions and the men's behaviour at strip clubs that needs to be addressed. Doesn't mean strip clubs are inherently wrong.

And it's not patriarchy that 'causes' women to be valued for their bodies. It's biology. Heterosexual men (especially young ones) will always find an attractive female body sexually compelling, no matter how much anyone tries to make a political issue out of it.

Oh yeah, biology. That's why there are all those clubs full of nubile young men women can go and sniff (cos pheromones tell us about suitable mates, right?) and choose to impregnate and possibly provide for them. Cos it's all about the biology and not, say, a society built around men's needs, desires and power and the servicing of them by women at the expense of their own needs, desires and power. I'm sure there's a word for that. Might begin with a P.

Then quit whingeing and start a strip club full of nubile young men.

The point? It's over there.

I think it's possible to find women sexually attractive, and yet simultaneously to treat them as fully autonomous fellow human biengs.

Sex (and all the things surrounding it!) are essentially pleasurable. If we're in a situation where only 50% are deriving pleasure from it we are in the purest sense missing something.

If there wasn't something wrong with strip clubs they wouldn't cost money to frequent. There would be free strip clubs all over the place where people would engage in the practice and both derive pleasure from it.

Oh gawd... do I need to try and find my bingo dabber again?

Been so long since we had one toddle along.

Dervel, here's to free strip clubs for all genders then!

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