Sheffield strip club keeps licence despite opposition by feminist coalition

[stumbledin]

From the way the Guardian reports it (but does anyone think their reporting is unbiased) the undercover filming that campaigners organised has worked against them.

I think the licence will be reviewer again in a year. Have a horrible feeling that if it hadn't been "feminists" campaigning but "local" people the council would have acted differently. The patriarchy likes to be seen to slapping down uppity women.

They didn't even value the opinion of the local Rape Crisis Centre which works nearby.

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/sep/17/sheffield-strip-club-keeps-licence-despite-opposition-by-feminist-coalition

Cunt I wrote an essay saying exactly what you're saying 25 years ago. It was my general studies essay at the age of 18.

Such young reasoning.

28 years ago!

I know!!!! It does sound implausible, and it's exactly what I thought when I first started hearing/thinking about strip clubs. But honestly it's not!

And this is what I think people really struggle to get, if you haven't lived it it just seems utterly preposterous. But I've found being unapologetic, asking difficult questions has for whatever reason worked. Customers come back again and again and again. They could hire a prostitue for the night for a fraction of the price but they don't. I don't know why I wish I did.

I'm not ashamed of my body, I'm absolutely thrilled by it, enamoured, I adore it.

I couldn't find anything more delightful than my naked body.

Ok Cunt, we're obviously at odds here. I would ask you how old you are?

Because I'd get arrested Datun!!! And I wouldn't want to scare people

Plus I believe strongly in appropriate occasions. No one should have to see me naked. If they choose to go to a club for adults that's their perogative.

I hate all sexist advertising, I don't like billboards of women in underwear. It shouldn't be in the public sphere and children shouldn't see it.

But consenting adults should, I think, have the opportunity to visit clubs where they may see nudity if they so wish

I'm interested in women who are abused at work. The topic of the thread

So am I.
It needs tackling. Anyone being abused isn't OK.
Never will be OK.
So what's the solution then? Apart from banning strip clubs altogether and taking away choice for women?

It feels as though the only reason the power dynamics are skewed is because of the nudity and because there is a horrid idea within society that women who aren't ashamed of their bodies or of being naked are in some way lesser or because most people wouldn't want to get naked in front of a stranger that they must immediately be at a disadvantage
Agree with this.As a woman, if you (general you) want to undress and are comfortable with it you should be allowed to.
It's the clubs themselves that need regulating better, and it isn't the place of activists off the street with their own agendas to fit their own end to enforce it by taking nude photos to prove their point.

Ugh

ILikeYourHairyHands sorry, but what's age got to do with anything?
I know it wasn't addressed to me but I'm curious?

Hi Hairy, I'm 32

And yes of course I imagine and desire a world without objectification and mysogny and women being treated the way they are currently.

But I can't be 💯 sure that I wouldn't still want to twirl round the top of a pole hanging by my toe and spend hours dipping between ripping the shit out of people and trying to educate them about everything from the GRA, climate change and whatever else is in the agenda that day.

I'm not saying these places are perfect I'm saying change things for the better don't ban them.

Because more often than not We're NOT being paid to strip. But even if we are why should it be any different than paying someone to perform any other type of art

Do you really need someone to explain that? Do you think being a stripper is no different from being an actor or a musician or a (proper) dancer?

It feels as though the only reason the power dynamics are skewed is because of the nudity and because there is a horrid idea within society that women who aren't ashamed of their bodies or of being naked are in some way lesser or because most people wouldn't want to get naked in front of a stranger that they must immediately be at a disadvantage

But strippers are relying on that shame being perpetuated. Strippers need the attitude of mind that there is something dirty and furtive about sex or the human body. It's really amusing that opponents of the "sex trade" are called prudes when it is actually the promoters of the sex trade who need the shaming/dirty/ whore/madonna mindset to exist.

However for the majority of dancers and myself the nudity is irrelevant we've been trained in dance or theatre and using the body as a tool to convey meaning

The only meaning being portrayed by stripping is the debasing of a stripper to give a bloke a hard on. Stripping has no comparison with interpretative or narrative dance. The suggestion that being a stripper or the experience of being a strip club is no different from any other expressive art form is frankly laughable. Do you really think the men in the audience of The Royal Ballet or the Marinsky or Matthew Bourne or Rambert or Martha Graham are reacting to and critiquing their dancers in the same way punters do when you drop your knickers?

There was a thread recently with a quote from one of your sort of customers talking about how the important thing was getting to see a stripper's cunt. Does that sound like any other legitimate art form?

I don't feel a loss of power when a stranger sees me naked. I'd walk down the street naked, it just does not bother me in the slightest

If that were the norm strippers would be out of a job.

What's age got to do with it Roses?

And Cunt?

Age gives us wisdom. It enables us to see around a question.

It gives us time.

And experience.

And age allows us forgiveness to our younger selves.

Age allows us to understand.

Ohhh, so if you're old that automatically means you have to liberate women from their "bad" choices as you automatically know better.
Yeah.
OK.
Somebody obviously forgot to give me that memo.

No.

I'm not sure age is really that straight forward in terms of deciding how switched on or feminist a woman is

I'm one of the few people of my age group who doesn't buy the trans bullshit. Never did, have always seen the homophobia and gender stereotypes in the ideology and it was shocking to me that few others of my demographic see it.

I've found myself agreeing far more and being more comfortable in the company of women older than me.

Yet with strip clubs that obviously doesn't hold true. I'm definitely a minority with regards to my stance.

Waffling now, but just wanted to say I don't think age=wisdom or at least not in all cases

Plus if I'm honest all the forgiveness bit sounded mighty judgy. But here's to hoping I got the wrong end of the stick

It's really amusing that opponents of the "sex trade" are called prudes
Nobody on this thread has called anyone a prude though. (Haven't seen any, happy to be corrected)
Unless you're counting opponents of the sex trade referring to themselves as that? As there's been a fair few of those.
There's just been people putting their views and experience across.
I haven't seen anyone say prude for disagreeing.

ILikeyourHairyHands Fri 20-Sep-19 00:43:52

No

Who and what's that in reference to?

Urgh

To a randomly linked picture?
To do with women being able to think for themselves? About strip clubs?
What point are you making exactly?

I'm finding the consonant dissonance of this thread difficult. So. some posters are saying:

Sex work is work but people shouldn't film people at this type of work because they're naked, even though that's the uniform for this type of work.

Sex work is ok and empowering of women but only certain sorts of sex work ie not touching dicks etc but waving your boobs or fannies in a man's face for his sexual gratification is fine.

Even though there's loads of evidence that the sex trade is bad for women globally, because a few people have had good experiences that makes it ok. This is a bit like saying that in 2008 the banking system was rotten to the core but because a few bankers liked doing it that made it all ok then.

But it seems to me that the issue isn't with whether a a few regulations have been broken or not in Sheffield, although that is bad for the women concerned. The issue is about the commodiification of something that should not be commodified. Economists will tell you that commodification nearly always leads to devaluation. So where society places a high value on something, like bodily autonomy, then if it is commodified it will be devalued because economic rules and power dynamics come into play once an economic value starts to be put on it. Therefore in order to stop the commodification and therefore devaluing of womens ( and men"s) bodies and bodily autonomy:

Sex should not be seen as a commodity
Surrogacy should not be seen as a commodity
Organ and blood donorship should not be seen as a commodity

The issue is about the commodiification of something that should not be commodified

Summed up in 13 words. There can never be true equality of the sexes whilst the "sex trade" exists.

Stripping is not empowering. There may be a certain element of power that the stripper is taking money from a punter who has to pay to get a woman naked. But that "power" is cancelled out by the power the punter has - which mirrors the stripper's. She might not voluntarily get naked in front of him but show her some cash-then he has the power. And what will she do if he shows her some more cash?

It's not empowering for either. It's debasing of both.

This is a bit like saying that in 2008 the banking system was rotten to the core but because a few bankers liked doing it that made it all ok then

OK, see your point as they're both industries but it's not really the same scenario - seeing as the banking system is nothing to do with individual people on a a sex (male or female) level.
As both males and females work in banking.
Both men and women don't work in female lap dancing clubs.
One of those two scenarios takes away the choice for people to be able to make their own mind up.
That they need to be saved.