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?

Hey it is from the Western University study that suggested men who watch porn could make good allies and all I am suggesting is that the theory could be extended. Of course many people operate on a belief system which is fine. You have your beliefs and I will have mine, just when people try to quote facts about a dancer suffering PTSD self diagnoised and anecdotal I would suggest I have at least the same level of information on psychiatry. So the dancers I have meet seem happy, the research by Leeds University suggests that most dancers feel the same way about their job. Therefore i would postulate that dancers in general are happy and it is a tiny minority that is the exception. Given that there are an estimated 8,000 dancers working and that most work between 3 and 5 years there would be a massive turnover of dancers yet i can only think of 2 who have made claims about the industry. And even the one that co-wrote a book with Object said that closing clubs wasn't the answer.

I have read much of the research from both sides and having seen the idiocy behind keeping disproven claims going I tend to get over excited. I will try to on respond to those who make claims where there is research that shows the opposite. And the 3% is in the Kent paper which makes me happy. So sorry please carry on.

Italiangreyhound - I am divorced and he's single. But until last year he was living with someone.

Sausage - I think there is plenty of evidence that the type of misogynistic porn available these days is doing a lot of damage to the sexuality of young people. Anal sex is nice something teenagers are pressured into. When I was 20 nobody felt compelled to be completely hairless and perform deep throating. I've had some awful experiences in latter years, which I believe were inspired by porn.

Anal sex is now something, not nice something - should preview

I'm thinking that maybe sausage bacon visits strip clubs and therefore feels the need to justify them

How did you get to "only 3% of people think there is no place for clubs" from

"Fifty-five per cent of all respondents in the research felt lap dancing clubs are appropriate in town and city centres.

However, the majority of people felt lap dancing clubs are inappropriate near to schools (83 per cent) or religious buildings (65 per cent). Very few (three per cent) felt clubs are suitable in residential areas, even though those living closer to them were no more likely than those living further away to report any nuisance being generated by lap dancing clubs."

The only mention of 3% is in the context that 97% of people think clubs aren't appropriate in residential areas.

sausageeggbacon111 wrote - "when people try to quote facts about a dancer suffering PTSD self diagnoised and anecdotal I would suggest I have at least the same level of information on psychiatry."

Apart from you, sausageeggbacon111, I think the only person on this thread to mention PTSD is WombOfOnesOwn, who wrote about her friend "she's got PTSD" with no mention of self-diagnosis. Where is your evidence that the PTSD of WombOfOnesOwn's friend is self-diagnosed? I think you assume and mention self-diagnosis to give the impression that a dancer having PTSD is untrue or a rare exception and therefore something that can be ignored.

I only know one person who had worked in the sex industry, doing the rota and other organising in a strip club. She said it was tough sometimes getting enough people to dance, as she often had to send several home who had turned up too drunk or drugged to work. I don't believe that all or even the majority of strippers are strong minded super empowered types who could have their pick of other jobs.

Anyway, back to the OP. I would just say "I've made my opinion quite clear and made my decision not to go. I find it interesting that you think you know my own mind better than I do, since you're trying to change it" and leave it at that.

If he starts pulling the "you can't comment till you've seen it/try it you might like it" thing then ask if what he would do if he advised you of a really nice place to buy foie gras, or wanted you to go foxhunting, and you happened to decline on ethical grounds.

I apologise to Wombat if a doctor diagnosed PTSD, as far as I knew PTSD has only been diagnosed for combat veterans. If a dancer has been diagnosed the doctor could make a big impact in the Lancet but I must have missed that one.

Interesting discussion via e-mail recently about why feminism is weakening the position of dancers and make club owners richer. The suggestion is that as long as loud voices shout out about closing venues, even though it is a tiny number, causes claims of risk to losing venues and the club owners need to make their money quickly thus making the industry more exploitative. I think that is one of the messages the festival in October will try and convey.

Finally about the claims of empowerment etc. All I can suggest is you read the 2009 research by Hardy and Saunders from Leeds University. Apparently 87% of the 200 dancers interviewed had some form of higher education which suggests they are not weak willed or idiots but have decided the earnings from working are worth it. There is a lot more in that research that affects my view. While the industry needs to change the protests to try and shut clubs has put more of the power in the club owners hands and weakened the position of the dancers.

'87% of the 200 dancers interviewed had some form of higher education' - it suggests to me that the graduate recruitment market was truly appalling in 2008-9. I also doubt that club owners need a reason to pay their casual employees as little as possible, since this is the case in any form of casual labour. Blaming it on feminism is hilarious [stonyfaced]

sausageeggbacon111 wrote - "as far as I knew PTSD has only been diagnosed for combat veterans. If a dancer has been diagnosed the doctor could make a big impact in the Lancet but I must have missed that one."

I regard your post as a repeat/continuation of your earlier attempt to imply that PTSD can't/doesn't affect strippers. PTSD has been diagnosed in people who are not combat veterans. Your lack of awareness of this fact does not negate its reality for other people. The NHS website for PTSD lists numerous situations that lead to PTSD, including e.g. sexual assault.

Studies of PTSD in strippers/exotic dancers have already been published in medical journals, e.g. in Innovations in Clinical Neuroscience in 2012: Psychotherapy with Women Who Have Worked in the 'Sex Industry'.

sausageeggbacon111 wrote - "While the industry needs to change the protests to try and shut clubs has put more of the power in the club owners hands and weakened the position of the dancers."

Do you believe that stripping used to be wonderful for strippers before feminists allegedly forced club owners to start treating strippers badly?

In all the clubs that feminists (along with local residents and businesses etc) have closed down or prevented opening, there are fewer miserable and exploited strippers ie zero.

That seems like a win, sausage.

Still waiting to understand the 3% from you.

And so what if the women have higher education? Women from all walks of life are harassed, someone isn't strong willed because they have a degree and weak willed because they don't, FFS.

bodenbiscuit rather than asking if he would mind his daughter going to s strip club ask how he would feel about his daughter being a stripper! All those girls and women are someone's daughter, someone special.

WombOfOnesOwn bloody hell, I had not even thought the women may be subjected to digital penetration!

sausageeggbacon111 well just as far as the research on the point of whether people mind living near a strip club. Men who go to clubs, and potentially see women as sexually available objects, do not stay in the immediate vicinity of the club! They go back to their communities and any ideas they have formed about women go with them. And regarding And the recent study by Western University on porn and how it affects men's views on women would suggest that a lot of guys who go to strip clubs could be superb allies to feminist battles. In what way allies? Really, I am intrigued what you could possibly mean by that statement.

Plus should we have autonomy to do anything? You know some people are so desperate for money, perhaps to buy drugs or to feed their families they may do anything. Is that OK? It's not empowering to risk abuse, and it is not empowering to potentially put other women in harms way too.

This articel is about lap dancing clubs, which are maybe a tiny different from strip clubs in some ways but also not at all different in other ways, as the article mentions pole dancing. It is a very old article (2008) but I thnk it is very relevant the number of rapes and indecent assaults increased in the London borough of Camden after four lap dancing venues opened

That article contains a very telling quote - "I thought, well, I'm a sex object anyway, I might as well have it out on the table. It was as though I felt I couldn't do anything else. Everywhere I look I'm being told that my main source of power is my sexual power, my body is the best thing I have to offer and so to use those things in your job is empowering. But sexual power isn't power. It's meaningless in the real world."

Amelia great points. ALass yes, indeed, I bet those chickens love those factory owners! AnyFucker vesuvia and YonicScrewdriver well done for rightly calling out the comments of sausageeggbacon111 about PTSD and higher education.

sausageeggbacon111 I am very curious and you can answer this if you like, but you seem to be thinking that strip clubs are empowering for the individual women who work there. Is that correct? I disagree but aside from that can you understand how women in general being seen as sexually available objects in this way is dis-empowering for other women? Are you male or female? Personally, I feel strip clubs also have a negative impact on men's lives too? This little patch of drivel is what one man thinks of them, I don't agree but I find it really sad that men can't find a better way to 'be' together as men without involving naked female bodies. www.menshealth.com/sex-women/strip-clubs

tokyobananas wrote - "I think that a strip club is the only place where women of body types that are well outside the 'thin white blonde' norm are regarded as properly sexy, in the sense of 'sexy' that we expect from actresses/pop stars/ all females presented in all media. There's no niche here, no othering of the chubby, the black, the bespectacled. If you can work a pole, you're 'sexy' - despite it being only in that shameful 'male gaze has value' way - but honestly watching strippers has made me personally feel better about my body. I NEVER see my own body in bodies on show that are regarded as 'sexy'. Except at strip clubs."

I think seeing one's own body type represented by strippers in a strip club is not positive - it just highlights that there is a lack of representation of various types of women in other parts of society.

The idea that strip clubs should be praised for not discriminating against e.g. fat women, reminds me of people who claim that illegal drug trafficking is an equal opportunity employer because the drug pushers on the street corners of Los Angeles include black teenagers instead of white middle-aged men with doctorates from Ivy League universities. Just because one of the first "Mr Big"s of the American illegal drugs trade was a black man (Frank Lucas) and not a white man, doesn't make illegal drug dealing a good thing.

Strip clubs not excluding fat women from taking their clothes off in front of men does not make strip clubs good for women.

(to avoid doubt: although I have compared stripping to an illegal activity, I am aware that strip clubs are legal, but their legal status is not my point in this post.)

Vesuvia, I think Tokyo acknowledges that she's changed her view to one that clubs are harmful.

Yes, I know that tokyobananas may have/has changed her view. I included a quote from her post to try to provide context for my point.

Sorry!

Italy so glad you brought up the Lilith report which was researched by Eaves. Perhaps you might want to get check if Eaves still have it on their website. The pro strip blog disproved it with figures from the Met Police and used the available figures on population (which Lilith didn't do) over a 12 year period with a control borough of roughly the same size in Wandsworth. Wandsworth had Striptease in 1996 but the venue closed so it was a qualified comparison. With a 12 year review and a control borough there was a 30% drop in rape over the 12 years from 1996 whilst there was an increase of around 30% in Wandsworth where the striptease had closed. Turns out the years Lilith quoted were cherry picked. If the report was valid it would still be available from Eaves. People have written to the Guardian to remove the story about rape increasing but seems the paper wants lies. If you want to check it he got the figures from 1996 to the last fully available year broken down by sex so nothing that happened to men could be included and downloaded the spreadsheets for populations from 1990 to 2010 so he could get the population for each year so his figures were per 1,000. The figures were available a couple of years ago and were sent to Leeds and also Kent University.

I have talked to several guys who have gone to strip venues and I have gone myself. I have also talked to several dancers and strip venues will have arseholes but then so do pubs, clubs, restaurants etc. The men I have talked to who go to clubs in general seem friendly, intelligent and can get their heads round the difference between fantasy and the real world. May be at 18 they can't but I have talked to the guy who researches for the stripping blog and he says if you look at night clubs and the sexual assaults associated with those you will see the real culprit for a lot of the VAW.

If you truly want to understand how dancers feel speak to the East London Strippers Collective. Ask yourself if all your views are right how did this group come into existence. Surely there can't be that many brain washed women? There are an estimated 10,000 dancers in the UK, why has there only been two that have come forward against clubs? And one of those had a book deal co supported by Object which would bring into question it's objectivity.

Finally there is a dancer reading a letter from a customer as a voice over while she dances [[https://www.nowness.com/story/pole-dancing-strip-clubs-and-fan-mail-dear-delicious]]. There is no nudity but it is erotic so consider yourself warned but it explores the psyche of customers in a way worth considering.

A former stripper who did research on stripping says you're utterly wrong, sausageeggbacon111. Your position as a consumer of sexual submissiveness in women biases you as much as Holsopple's former stripper position biases her, however that doesn't mean credibility is the same for both of you.

www.object.org.uk/files/Strip_club_study%20Holsopple.pdf

You would consider Holsopple valid considering it is over 30 years old and based on american striptease? It is total different to the current UK scene but of course that is you option. And speaking of object why is there no front page on their website?