The issue of lap dancing is becoming an issue. I am getting letters about the provisions in the Policing and Crime Bill for licensing lap dancing clubs. The Bill introduces new and tighter provisions for the licensing of such clubs, but some bodies are pressing for the provisions to go further.
At the moment, lap dancing clubs are subject to the same licensing rules as restaturants and pubs. Under the Bill, these clubs can be licensed in the same way as sex shops and sex cinemas: they will be classed as ‘sex encounter venues’. This is to reflect the fact that lap dancing clubs are part of the commercial sex industry, often with very poor and degrading working conditions.
However, there is a campaign to ensure that the licensing regime will be uniform. Under the Bill, the licensing scheme will be optional for councils. This, it is argued, will lead to a patchwork quilt of regulation, with some local communities not getting a say in licensing. The Bill also exempts venues that hold lap dancing less than once a month and will exclude a large number of pubs and bars that hold ‘lap dancing nights’, catered for by lap dancing agencies. Campaigners want to remove this exemption.
This is an issue – like some other issues I have raised recently (such as drugs and divorce), or will be raising (prostitution) – where I have no interest to declare at all. I would be interested to hear readers’ views. Should the provision be uniform, and with no exemptions? Or is there a case for letting local councils decide for themselves whether to avail themselves of the provision?
PS And that includes lapdancing clubs.
Bedd Gelert:
I am telling the truth. The liars from Object/Fawcett/Eaves/Lilith will be found out.
How you justify the millions of pounds of taxpayers money poured into the fake charities spreading lies.
Listern to the Metropolitan Police:
“It is true to say there is no evidence they cause any crime and disorder, or very rarely, because they tend to be fairly well-run, they tend to have a fairly high staff ratio to customers, the people who tend to go there tend to be a bit older, so they don’t tend to drink so excessively and cause… problems outside.”
I know it’s difficult for you but the truth is the truth. Stop spreading your lies.
WELL, I’ve made my views known.
I personally would simply ban these sorts of clubs, simply out of respect for women. They do make women, as Louise, feel uncomfortable, and do tend to train men to see women as nothing but objects that exist soley o fulfill their longings and desires, not as Human beings.
However, the law as it is now permits such establishments.
While I’d be in favour of new legeslation limiting their existance, or even outlawing it, if the matter before us is what to do in existing law, I say it must be left tot he local counsils, since they ultimatley must be free to choose their own varients base don their own views.
That is, until we can eliminate them.
Rosalynd, S Murray and tracy earnshaw are from the Object organisation. Their comments must be treated with extreme caution. Object is a well-funded campaign lobbying to ban all sorts of things they don’t approve of.
I am not a member of the Object Organisation. When I speak I speak as an individual. Not a member of a group. I am aware of Object but I would like to state that I am not a member. My understanding is that Object are a human rights organisation.
Please, please, please close the loopholes in this legislation. Allowing certain councils to opt out and the frequency based exemption will make this legislation toothless.
Council tax payers have the right to live in areas where they know that issues of gender equality and women’s safety will be taken seriously.
Over the last ten years, lap dancing clubs have increased in numbers exponentially and their presence has created an atmosphere of animosity, aggression and threat to many women who live and work around and in these clubs. Object has done some stirling work uncovering and collating evidence through news and police reports that show that many of these clubs are a front for prostitution, human trafficking and have even on occasion employed underage girls as pole and lap dancers – I remember one example of a 14 year old.
Lap dancing clubs need greater regulation. This legislation needs to be strengthened. Even the lap dancing association agrees with that.
Clare:
“have increased in numbers exponentially” lets have some actual numbers behind your unsubstantiated claim.
The truth is, the actual number venues offering striptease has reduced over the last 10 years. Just look at the London’s main strip area around Shoreditch. Ten years ago there were more than ten venues including: Crown & Cushion, Norfolk Village, White Horse, Sports Bar, Spread Eagle, Brown’s, Ye Olde Axe Ten Bells and Lord Nelson; now only four are remaining: White Horse, Sports Bar, Brown’s and Ye Olde Axe.
“front for prostitution, human trafficking” again, lets have some documented evidence.
The lap dancing association represents the existing large clubs and wants to “create barriers to entry” for new operators lake any good cartel.
Of course women should be safe to walk about.
What that needs is enforcement of existing laws, not new laws that will be ignored, just like the current ones.
If we take the human trafficking issue, the claims for that scale of that that has been demolished.
This 14 year old. Don’t you think existing laws haven’t been broken? What have you done? Have you reported it?
This report by Nick ‘Flat Earth News’ Davies is causing some consternation.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/oct/20/government-trafficking-enquiry-fails
I am not saying I agree or disagree with this – it clearly needs more debate, investigation and clarification. But Davies never likes to ‘swallow the line’ and ‘just the facts’ is his way of doing things, lest he be swept up in the hype from a media which relies on ‘bad news’ to shift papers.
Clearly other commentators will be responding with differing views and challenge this – but an interesting addition to the debate generally.
I do not believe a case has been made to licence these premises in any new way or make it in any way more difficult for them to be established and to trade.
There are no or next to no prostiution busts of these clubs or disorder complaints. I challenge the veracity of the sectarian ‘feminist’ mantra – repeated above – that the presence of such premises leads to abuse of women in the streets etc. There is no credible evidence of any such phenomenon and indeed no such incidents at all verified by anyone other than another sectarian ‘feminist’.
Sectarian ‘feminists’ object to lapdancing clubs for political reasons and the call for (a) a more difficult licensing regime and (b) for that regime to be compulsory desite the view of the local authority, is motivated by the intention to bring political pressure to bear through the licensing regime to extinguish these businesees where possible. I do not believe that is a legitimate aim of public policy or of the planning process.
If it is the case, as suggested by the sectarian ‘feminist’ lobby, that the women who self-employ in lap-dancing clubs are at risk of prostituting themselves; then it follows that depriving them of the means to earn a decent amount of money by merely dancing would push them over the edge into prostitution.
If this legislation is prompted by concern about prostitution then it would have the opposite effect to that intended.
But it is not. It is prompted by a group of women with extreme doctrines who for reasons of personal social maladjustment find it hard to co-exist alongside manifestations of ordinary male sexuality.
Male sexuality cannot alter in a less than evolutionary timescale and it is therefore an ineradicable fact that free men will pay to look at naked women. It is the personal phobias of the sectarian ‘feminists’ that should be treated as a social problem. That phobias externalisation as a political issue should not be treated at face value and should not be allowed to influence legislation affecting sexuality.
“Sectarian feminists” ??
I look forward to meeting one – perhaps I will only be able to identify them by the t-shirt saying ‘This is what a sectarian feminist looks like..’ !!
uummmmm topcliff….what a sad pathetic view you have of male sexuality, thats really tragic if its the case that men cannot evolve to have meaninful sexual relationships with women and not have them degrade themselves for money
Who are these sectarian feminists you keep going on about…they sound really evil. I am a feminist, i am also a young women who perhaps has more empathy and sympathy with the accounts posted hear of hollering men, verbal abuse and women NOT feeling safe in these areas. Why do you find these accounts not credible because as you claim they are from ….oooo sectarian feminists
my boyfriend would also call himself a feminist, it simply means a belief in equality which you clearly dont have! you also have a veyr primitive view of men!!
Object receive money from Eaves/Poppy. Which in turn has had money from government. Just go through accounts on Charities commission website. This is not a really a grassroots organisation, more an astroturf one.
So, Dr Brooks, when I write to my MP in support for Object’s campaign does that mean that my support is not ‘grassroots’ and is in some way ‘artificial’ ?
And when my MP replies to say that she is in support of this initiative no doubt you will say that she has been brainwashed by this campaign ?
Complete poppycock if you ask me.
No, let me explain what a grassroots organisation is. It is one which develops from those most directly affected by an issue. In this case it would be the lapdancers themselves. Unless you are a lapdancer, you are not a member of the grassroots on this. When big tranches of money from other sources are piled into a campaign which has little or no grassroots support.
It is interesting that you have ‘no doubt’ about what I would say. Lack of doubt is something scientists would be sceptical of. Certainly many MPs (with the exception of Evan Harris, Brian Iddon, and Sarah Teather) are scientifically illiterate and unable to critique a report scientifically. But I would have to know, meet and have some track record on your MP to make any sort of judgement. I hope that answers your question.
A fair point. I deplore the lack of scientific understanding in Parliament.
Be that as it may, my concern is that taking your point to its logical extension one might say that the only people affected by a new airport runway are the pilots and employees of the airport.
To resort to the jargon, the ‘stakeholders’ of any legislation are the people affected by it. And this might include members of the public in the vicinity of such clubs, in the same way as planning applications are copied to neighbours as ‘stakeholders’.
My point about my MP is that as she is both a woman and a feminist [not Harriet Harman] I feel that she is unlikely to have had a ‘Damascene conversion’ on this issue as a result of my writing to her.
I think you may surprised to find that this is not a US-style ‘Concerned Citizens for Truth’ campaign, but one which has acted as a focus for huge concerns which are already out there.
I would point out that I am not coming at this from a dogmatic point of view. I don’t want sex workers driven underground outside the law where they may be exposed to even more danger. Quite the reverse – I accept that we cannot wish away these clubs, but they must be subject to proper, stringent regulation if their more damaging effects on society are to be controlled and managed.
If only one could say the same thing about the damaging effects of Churches and tabloid newspapers.
communists were also often fairly middle class, should nobody try to do anything for anyone else if they are not directly affected by the issue?????lets ignore poverty then im ok!!!
These women are vulnerable and not in these induistries for a laugh!!
The question that needs to be asked relates to these damaging effects. Lets talk lap dancing.
The problems that have been talked about are.
1. They are prostitutes and they undertake that activity in the clubs.
2. Women are harrased by drunken men going in, coming out, or around the clubs.
All of these things are already illegal. There are laws to address these issues. The problem is they aren’t being enforced.
Then the only other complaint was someone who’s BF went to clubs and they didn’t like it.
Very simple solution. Dump the BF. Quite why we should have a law because someone has a BF they disagree with is beyond me.
That leaves why the law is being proposed.
1. We have to be seen to do something.
Real Solution – enforce the existing laws.
Their Solution – a new act, that won’t be enforced just as the current laws aren’t enforced.
2. Costs – not mentioned. People on the dole, lots of enforcement officers, (quite why they can’t enforce existing laws…)
…
More details on the evidence, on in this case the lack of it. It’s actually worse, it is the fabrication of evidence. The evidence presented for things like trafficking is so wrong that it has to be deliberate
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/10/22/gov_proposals/
PS The Lords get a mention.
Re: Check the facts
Shoreditch is too small a sample size to extrapolate your contention that lapdancing clubs are decreasing.
Most news sources disagree with you –
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/mar/08/sex-industry-lap-dancing
The people that are affected by lap dancing clubs are not just the lap dancers, many of whom have contacted Object off their own backs (so to speak) to get involved with the campaign, but the wider public, particularly women. We are all suffering the consequences of this conducive context for sexual violence and harrassment in wider society. The sex industries have never been normalised so much; the last 5-10 years sets the scene for what we are experiencing now, and it is no surprise that very little research/studies have been concluded to date in this context, but when you speak to individual, real life women who are bearing the brunt of this pornification, you suddenly open your eyes. Most young boys are referring to internet porn at the age of 11 for sex education, EVERY man is being expected to participate in this ritual degredation of women, so as not to be considered ‘a pussy’ by his mates, and the media is glamorising the sex industry and constantly pushing it in the faces of young women. At the same time, rape conviction rates are lower than ever, sexual violence is prevailant, and sexual harrassment is something most women experience on a daily basis, and are expected to brush off as a joke. It is time to join up the dots and take action.
What is truly interesting about Open Eyes’ comment is not so much the patently obvious fantasy world he/she inhabits but what has provoked the inner turmoil that has turned her into such an unbalanced and anti-social element.
That’s an unknowable, so let us to turn in substitution to this case, extremely weak and unconvincing though it is.
“lap dancers, many of whom have contacted Object off their own backs (so to speak)…”
Lap dancers are nor prostitutes. The great thing about lapdancing estabalishments is that they allow women to make money out of their bodies without prostituting themselves. This is actually a vile, abusive and prejudiced slur.
“…to get involved with the campaign”
So there are women who go to state-funded Object demos in the day outside lap-dancing clubs, calling for them to be closed down – them come back after dark to slip into them in their thongs to make their money? Yeah right. And Andrea Dworkin was raped. Completely incredible bull.
“EVERY man is being expected to participate in this ritual degredation of women, so as not to be considered ‘a pussy’ by his mates”
This is some sort of deluded victimisation fantasy. If lap dancing was degrading (and it isn’t) it’s only degrading to the women who find alternative employments even more degrading. It does not degrade any other women who is not there personally doing it herself. The fact is that lapdancing is a mutually beneficial trade. And many men, myself included, find the look but don’t touch rip-off a complete bore. It’s me that feels degraded in those places.
“At the same time, rape conviction rates are lower than ever”
Maybe there are less rapes. That would be the assumption from declining conviction figures in any other area. Who knows, perhaps the crying wolf hysteria of people like Open Eyes – in which people tell bare-faced and totally unbelievable lies about such things as being harassed in the street outside lapdancing clubs – has led to a general inclination to disbelieve women accusing men. A total disaster for real rape victims that is the fault of deranged anti-male/anti-sex extremist females.
“sexual violence is prevailant”
Violence against women and indeed violence against everyone – men, children, animals etc – is at the lowest ebb in the whole of human history in these islands. I said it before: these feminazis are deranged.
“and sexual harrassment is something most women experience on a daily basis, and are expected to brush off as a joke”
Again, there is less sexism than ever in this country. People like Open Eyes are absolutely deterined to feel hard-done-by. There is a psychological explanation.
“It is time to join up the dots and take action.”
Seriously, it is time to go to the doctor and get your phobia aboun men and male sexuality straightened out. You’re never going to change men, they have arrived at where they are through evolution and it ain’t gonna change in the next eon or two. They are like that in order that the species continues. Well-adjusted women learn to take advantage of it even if it bugs them sometimes – remember some things about women bug us too.
Seriously, see a doctor. You’d be much happier.
no surprise that very little research/studies have been concluded to date in this context
Yes there has. It’s just been show that the ‘research on trafficking’ is a major work of fiction.
At the same time, rape conviction rates are lower than ever
Down to the existing laws not being prosecuted. Introduce a new law and that won’t be prosecuted too.
sexual harrassment is something most women experience on a daily basis, and are expected to brush off as a joke. It is time to join up the dots and take action.
Of course it is. Report the harrassment. It’s already illegal. It’s just not being prosecuted.
A new law won’t change it. It’s already illegal. It’s just not being prosecuted.
A new law is just a sop. It’s designed to fool you, to pull the wool over your eyes. It’s a con.
It means politicians can stand up and say they have done something. They have passed yet another law. They won’t bother making it work, because they can’t be bothered. They have done their bit.
Report it to the police. Get a crime reference number. The after a while ring up and quote just the reference number and your name and ask them what progress is being made. If they ask you what its about, get suspicious. You’ve reported it and they should have recorded it. When they ask you what its about, one reason is that they have put it against a fake reporting number. Photocopier repair is a good one. Hence no increase in crime stats, no warning bells, no allocation of resources to deal with the law breaking.
Clare:
Here’s a tip:
If you are going to refer to and link to an article make sure its telling to truth.
The Guardian’s admits that claims in this article are not true, as has been pointed out in its very own Corrections and clarifications column:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2009/jan/12/corrections
This is one of a number of articles in the Guardian churning out the same anecdotal stories and unsubstantiated claims (there has been one about every 2-3 months for the last 18 months).
Interestingly it does link Object to the Fawcett Society which is in turn substantially funded by the poor old tax-payer.
It also quotes from a statement issued by the Association of Chief Police Officers which said “…their clientele generally does not cause “public disorder”…”.
As for the number of venues, let’s have some actual figures behind your unsubstantiated claims.
Shoreditch is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to former strip pubs. There are over 200 former strip pubs in London alone.
Some are listed here:
http://londonstrip.co.uk/articles/index.php?article=16#former_pub
Clare: Please, please, please can we some facts, facts, facts.
Also, if you are going to quote from a source, is it possible for to have one that is telling the truth?
I accept that you are gong to find this very difficult.
Wolfgang you say “dump the boyfriend “if you don’t like him visiting lap dancing clubs.It’s not that simple-up until a few years ago there were no such thing as lap dancing clubs but now they are everywhere and women are supposed to tolerate their boyfriends or husbands cheating on them in this way,for that is exactly what it is.Any man,whether married or in a relationship who purchases a womans naked body for his sexual entertainment is cheating,just because he’s paying for it in aclub doesn’t make it any less of an offence.The proliferation of lap dancing clubs has normalised infidelity and devalues the intimacy between a couple .
It’s only normal if you accept it.
If you don’t like it, dump him.
It’s a choice. If you object to his choices, there is nothing stopping you exercising your choice.
The sex industry reflects the human desire for eroticism in representation of the sexual act,of the human naked body or the actual sexual act through buying a sexual service from a prostitute. The idea that the sex industry objectifies women is based on a moral and political ideology that re invents itself regularly and nearly always as it has now with a strongly moralistic flavour.
What ever discriminatory laws are forced upon society then society will find ways of circumventing those laws. The problem then however is that discriminatory laws that punish people for being sexual in ways that are proscribed by some who insist on imposing their moral and political ideology on others is that further abuses will occur with in a criminalised and stigmatised industry. Sex workers will suffer.
I am a gay male sex worker and I sell a sexual service not my body. I work with female sex workers who likewise sell a service and not their bodies or their soul and the suggestion that a sex worker does anything other than sell a service is insulting. Like wise it is insulting when some insist that our work objectifies others or that our clients are somehow monsters who view the same sex or the opposite sex as victims to be abused simply because they enjoy viewing the naked body or purchasing sexual intimacy with another consenting adult.
With reference to Lap dancing the overwhelming evidence suggests that there is little crime or anti social behaviour surrounding the industry. The attacks on lap dancing venues are like the attacks on prostitution based on ideological beliefs rather than rational and evidence based understanding of the industry. Laws should be based on rational and evidence and not moral crusades that hyper emotionalise the debate and that encourages bad laws to supplement already bad laws that then lead to more isolation, stigma and danger for sex workers.
The whole policing and crime bill with regard to lap dancing and prostitution should be thrown out and a real evidence based enquiry began where the workers in those industries are consulted. That has not been the case so far.
Douglas
What if you are married and have young children?Shouldn’t a father and husband put his families’ needs before his own pleasures? It’s what women do all the time.
This would never have been an issue afew years ago as lap dancing clubs didn’t exist.
The very existence of these clubs has made male cheating seem normal.
In a word, no. There’s nothing incompatible about being a loving husband and father and spending a small amount of whatever time a man has to himself and his friends oggling naked women. Sure it would be unhealthy (and expensive) if taken to obsessive extremes – as anything would. But I know of no stories of men addicted to lap-dancing.
You’re also wrong to say this is new. Sure this form of entertainment is new but the use of dancing giels to entertain men in thoiusands of years old – as is the use of prostitutes, the likely alternative foe men if you denied tham lapdancing clubs.
What shines through here is your discomfort with ordinary male sexuality. It’s your problem, not society’s.
It’s cheating to even look at another woman now? Jeez, the men you are talking about are married – not blind!
What is interesting about this perspective is that it reinforces the classic stereotype of women feeling that every other woman is in some way her competitor. This is a very disappointing pre-feminist perspective.
So here’s a more considered response.
Some women view men in relationships who visit lap dancing clubs as cheating. They don’t want to go out with men who cheat.
1. If men aren’t in a relationship, then you shouldn’t be legislating against them. It’s a free world.
2. There may well be women who don’t mind what they partners get up to. Again, by imposing legistlation, you are imposing.
3. The general response is quite sexist. By generalising that because some men go to lap dancing clubs all men are guilty is an objectionable attitude.
ie. If I write the same swap men for blacks, you will see why its objectionable and sexist.
Some black men kill people with guns so all black men need to be controlled.
It’s the same logic, and its objectionable when put in this way.
4. It’s an abdication of responsibility. If you don’t like your partner using a lap dancing club then you have the power to do something about it. Dump them. Instead what you want is someone else to control them to conform to your moral standards. If you want state control over morals, you have to be prepared that others will use the state to control you such that you conform to their moral standards. It’s a very risky route to take, particularly in this case because you have the solution in your own hands. You can dump them.
5. For things like harassment and drunken behaviour, there are plenty of existing laws that deal with the issue. Why do you need new laws?
6. The reason there is a demand for the new laws is that the existing laws aren’t being enforced. Why do you suppose the new laws will be enforced? They won’t.
Nick
So here’s a more considered response.
Some women view men in relationships who visit lap dancing clubs as cheating. They don’t want to go out with men who cheat.
1. If men aren’t in a relationship, then you shouldn’t be legislating against them. It’s a free world.
2. There may well be women who don’t mind what they partners get up to. Again, by imposing legistlation, you are imposing.
3. The general response is quite sexist. By generalising that because some men go to lap dancing clubs all men are guilty is an objectionable attitude.
ie. If I write the same swap men for blacks, you will see why its objectionable and sexist.
Some black men kill people with guns so all black men need to be controlled.
It’s the same logic, and its objectionable when put in this way.
4. It’s an abdication of responsibility. If you don’t like your partner using a lap dancing club then you have the power to do something about it. Dump them. Instead what you want is someone else to control them to conform to your moral standards. If you want state control over morals, you have to be prepared that others will use the state to control you such that you conform to their moral standards. It’s a very risky route to take, particularly in this case because you have the solution in your own hands. You can dump them.
5. For things like harassment and drunken behaviour, there are plenty of existing laws that deal with the issue. Why do you need new laws?
6. The reason there is a demand for the new laws is that the existing laws aren’t being enforced. Why do you suppose the new laws will be enforced? They won’t.
What if you are married and have young children?Shouldn’t a father and husband put his families’ needs before his own pleasures? It’s what women do all the time.
This would never have been an issue afew years ago as lap dancing clubs didn’t exist.
The very existence of these clubs has made male cheating seem normal.
Certainly. However that’s the man’s decision.
The woman has made a bad choice in their mate. It’s the woman’s decision as to what to do about that. Do they dump the mate?
It’s not societies job to force that choice on anyone or to restrict everyone else because of bad behaviour by a father.
Here is an example of why using the law is a bad idea.
Quite a few women have posted that they think lap dancing is bad because their partners have visited lap dancing clubs, and that takes resources from children.
Under discussion is a new law, when if you have children and aren’t married, the state will automatically marry you.
I wonder how these women feel now that half their assets could well end up going to a man who spends the cash in a club, courtesy of the law makers.
If your partner was to pick up a woman in a bar or club and take her back to his office or a hotel ,ask her to strip naked ,writhe around infront of him,sit on his lap and gyrate on his crotch whilst he touches her intimately,most women would regard that as an infidelity.Just because the man is paying for it in a club doesn’t make it any less so.
You miss the point. This is a matter between partners and their agreed relationship boundaries.
Some may consider it infidelity, others may not. It’s not for me or you to make that choice for them and certainly not for the state to try and impose the morals of a certain subset of the population by “banning this sort of thing”.
The states responsibilities extend to ensuring workers aren’t being exploited and the venue takes responsibility for the impact of it’s business on the local area.
I look forward to Lord Norton’s much anticipated post on prostitution although I suspect we will see much of the same ground being covered.
Again Ellie, I think you have missed the point.
Why do you want other’s to do your dirty work?
Why can’t the person who doesn’t like their partner going to the strip club give them a choice?
Strippers or me?
Why do you need someone else, the police to get involved?
(a) most women would not regard that as cheating because it isn’t having sex, doesn’t provide sexual satisfaction; isn’t a snog and isn’t intimate in the emotional sense.
(b) You can’t touch dancers in lapdancing clubs.
Ellie, are you suggesting that the law regulates infidelity or that because you regard lap dancing as infidelity that clubs should be regulated? Either of these would have consquences.
If the former, it would go nowhere. Wolfenden declared that that it is not the business of the law to regulate morality. (That is the place of the church, synagogue, counsellor etc.,
If the latter, what about:
a) people in open relationships for whom sexual fidelity is not the major issue?
b) couples who go to clubs together to enjoy it and stimulate their sex life?
c) people not married?
This would need a differential admission criteria for the clubs. Would that not be discriminatory? How could it be forced
meant enforced!
Regardless of your morals or lack of them,it is only fair and democratic that people can object to proposals to open strip clubs in their neighbourhood and thus have some say over the numbers and siting of such venues.As the law stands at the moment there is very little that can be done about this growing problem.The proposed changes in the law hope to remedy this but it will only be fair to all if the legislation is applied universally and without exemptions.
Just because someone’s morals may not be the same as yours does not mean they have none. There isn’t an absolute set that everyone agrees on. Please remember that.
Anyway I think there is a general consensus that local people should have a say in the process of licensing of these venues. There also seems to be broad support for operating the same set of rules universally over the country.
I think where we part ways is if the law should take a moralistic view of the activity being practised in these clubs.
Why should striptease venues be singled out from other venues?
Should locals have the same say in the opening of pubs, nightclubs, gay bars, shoe shops, cinemas … ?
Of course this is a moral opinion.
http://bristol.indymedia.org/article/690242
You can certainly object under the current laws. However, you can’t use moral objections and that is correct.
There is no need for a new law.
If you read down the report, there is a section about a massage parlour operating without permission. They didn’t even apply. What does the council do? Nothing.
That’s the problem. It’s not the lack of laws, its the councils and the police not enforcing their current powers.
A new law just means another law that will be ignored and nothing will change
Nick
Oh FTP Topcliff if only these clubs were just about looking at other women but sadly its not that simplistic.Women have fought a long battle to be treated equally both in the workplace and in society in general and many women feel these clubs are a retrograde step for women as they portray females in a very sterotypical sexist way.Lap dancing is all about female subjugation and male dominance,it devalues and degrades women and perpetuates the myth that all women are sexually available for any man.I feel threatened at night walking through my town centre as it is virtually impossible to avoid strip clubs or the drunken,sexually aroused punters leaving them.
Not dumping a cheating boyfriend and relying on others to create a law that might stop them cheating.
Is that a feminist approach to the problem? Is it really the approach that you get other’s to do your work the correct approach to equality?
Do you think men would rely on other’s to deal with errant partners, or would they dump the GF?
If you want equality, then you have to accept personal responsibility and not delegate to someone else, who in this case, won’t do anything anyway.
It doesn’t contradict the rising status of women in society for those who want to be objectified – for however short a period and for whatever motive, including money – to have somewhere to go to meet objectifiers.
In fact that choice is a symbol of female freedom for 2 reasons.
It is not one they would be allowed to make for themselves under primitive patriarchal systems where their sexuality is owned by their male next of kin.
And it allows them to opt into objectification when they want it but opt out of it by leaving the club when they don’t.
So thanks partly to lapdancing clubs women don’t have to be either whores or madonnas. They can be either whenever they want to.
Bridget your comment about couples going to lap dancing clubs to enjoy it and stimulate their sex lives made me despair.Why oh why should women have to pander to the self-serving whims of men by going to stripclubs-there are far more imaginative ways of spicing up your love life(by the way,having read numerous reports and testimonies by former lap dancers,most do not like it when females accompany partners and most say they moderate their behaviour infront of other women).
There are nearly 350 lap dancing clubs in England and Wales so in this so called liberated age why aren’t there 350 male lap dancing clubs?Then if you wanted to spice things up Bridget you could take your boyfriend to one.How many blokes would be delighted to sit in club whilst their girlfriend or wife was getting a one on one fully nude lap dance from some young,fit,well endowed male hunk. I rather suspect that very few heterosexual male would relish it.
Alex Benne, no one made any mention of morals but seeing as you brought it up,anyone with a minimal education and sense of decency can understand morality and knows the difference between right and wrong and it doesn’t take much to see that this is very wrong. Lap dancing is basically all abot exploiting women for male sexual gratification,reinforcing sexual stereotypes and promoting mysogyny yet is masquerading as a “normal” mainstream form of entertainment. If any other group of people,say homosexuals or ethnic groups were being exploited like this,there would be a huge outcry but because it is only women then that’s o.k.
Erm, you wrote: “Regardless of your morals or lack of them” which is why I brought it up.
I’m in no way in favour of exploitation and have already made it clear that people working in the industry should be protected. However if the performer is a consenting adult (ergo not being exploited) then they should be free to perform whatever service they wish to for pay.
I’m not sure I’m comfortable with the thesis that any person using such a service automatically becomes a women hating misogynist unable to have a relationship with women on anything other than a superficial sexual basis. I’m sure there will be some customers that have that attitude which is to be challenged and deplored however I doubt it’s a universal certainty. I would posit it’s possible to for a customer to respect the performer and still enjoy the show.
As far as sexual stereotypes are concerned they cut both ways. The range of sexual practises undertaken by the human animal are so varied I don’t think the law should be trying to define what is “right” and what is “wrong”. As long as both parties are consenting adults what they get up to is none of my business.
As far as sexual stereotypes are concerned they cut both ways. The range of sexual practises undertaken by the human animal are so varied I don’t think the law should be trying to define what is “right” and what is “wrong”. As long as both parties are consenting adults what they get up to is none of my business.
Quite. But look at one of the major reasons being put forward for the control over lap dancing clubs.
Male goes to the lap dancing club. So far there is consent everywhere. Man consents, lap dancer consents.
Female partner of the male doesn’t consent. The Male isn’t conforming to her standards. Rather than issue an ultimatum, she wants other to enforce the control. She’s not prepared to do it herself.
Lap dancing in Canada ended up threating to kill govt. ministers.
Some British lap-dancing agencies were up to their ears in criminality & trafficking in Ireland.
The UKHTC fraud began when lap-dancing was placed off-limits, as was Jobcente, and Work Premits UK.
The police in Dublin could have provided any number of leads, the Brits didn’t want to do it.
Having said that the starting point for Object, Eaves/Poppy has to be to address what is true, and if they want to be spokespeople, they should speak.
The UKHTC was a regime of fraud.
Gregory Carlin
IATC, Belfast, Northern Ireland
This perception that lap dancing is objectification is an ideological view that deliberately emotionalises the debate on this and other areas of what is termed the sex industry. It is an easy distraction for lazy MPs who should be concentrating on creating evidence based laws. Laws regulating consensual interaction between adults should be about protecting both the worker and the purchaser and not imposing moral values on consensual activities between adults.
Men who visit these clubs are not villains or misogynists. They may behave childishly on occasion but that simply is a representation of our societies squeamishness about the human body and our sexual desires.
Women do enjoy the naked male body which is very evident from the number of male strippers who make a very good living from hen nights. Also many lap dancing clubs have gay/women nights where male lap dancers perform. In a society of some 65 million some 300 plus lap dancing clubs is hardly inundation.
I know a number of lap dancers and strippers and they take their work very seriously and are I would argue more in favour of womens rights than those who accuse them of objectifying all women as disposable sexual objects.They at least understand a human right of consent and of choice and reject the attempts by a very vocal minority to punish them for using their bodies to earn their living.
Those women who claim to be feminists and yet deny another womans voice are really not feminists. Demonising men is unhealthy and ignores the real issue which is understanding human sexuality and enjoying the diversity of its interpretations of which lap dancing is but one example.
Local choice yes but this proposed law is based on ignorance and appeasing the moral sensitivities of some and that is wrong when we should be talking about rights and positive legislation to monitor and control the working environments for lap dancers and all workers in the erotic/sex industry.
It is an easy distraction for lazy MPs who should be concentrating on creating evidence based laws.
Whilst admiral, why don’t the MP set about enforcing existing laws?
The demand for laws on Lap dancing clubs are mostly driven by a demand for a cure to problems such as harrashment, drunken behaviour, etc, and there are plenty of existing laws, not being enforced.
That’s woy controls here are just a sop. They won’t be enforced either.
That leaves the moral issue. Should we allow people to use the law to impose their will on others, even those not involved? I think not. Start down that route, and you run the risk a future politician will do the sam eto you.
TUC EQUITY UNION MOTION CARRIED AT TUC CONGRESS, 2009.
MOTION 73
WORKERS IN ADULT EWNTERTAINMENT
All workers have a right to earn a living and to access trade union membership, representation and support. Congress reaffirms its commitment to representing all workers, regardless of workplace or industry, including those in the adult entertainment sector.
Under the proposed Policing and Crime Bill, a large number of venues will be reclassified as ‘sex encounter establishments’ and will require Sex Encounter Establishment Licences in addition to the existing premises licence. This could cost up to £30,000 per venue.
Congress believes that this legislation will reduce the number of workplaces available to workers such as dancers. Already there have been instances where local councils have introduced additional licensing requirements. Consequently, burlesque and other dance events have been cancelled and performers have lost work.
Congress further believes that use of the terms ‘sex encounter’ and ‘sex establishment’ gives the wrong expectation of the work dancers do in this field of entertainment.
Entertainment venues that currently employ professional dancers are sufficiently covered by the Licensing Act 2003. Congress therefore calls for the removal of Section 26* of the Policing and Crime Bill.
Source: See motion 73 here: http://www.tuc.org.uk/congress/tuc-17093-f0.cfm
[The motion was seconded by the GMB, whose members in its London Adult branch include sex workers who undertake all forms of sex work, including that known to some people as “prostitution,” in line with the spirit of the opening sentences of motion 73. I cannot remember speakers against the motion at the Congress when I saw it passed on TV, in all honesty I may have forgotten.]
See also Nos 12-14 of the 2006 TUC document Tackling Trafficking through Workers Rights here:
http://www.tuc.org.uk/international/tuc-11911-f0.cfm
Regarding the last comment by Stephen paterson,many of the women who work in these clubs have had no formal dance training whatsoever but by being inappropriately called dancers they are misleading the public into thinking they are respectable.Indeed many true dancers I know feel very angry that the lap dancing industry is allowed to call these strippers “dancers”.I have even seen adverts for lap dancing jobs stating quite clearly that you don’t have to be a trained dancer as full training is given.Slithering up and down a pole, removing your clothes and gyrating on some blokes lap is not dancing it is sexual entertainment therefore it is appropriate to call the club a sex encounter establishment because that is what it is.The women who work there are strippers not dancers and it is insulting to true professional dancers when strippers can be called “dancers”.
Ellie – the last ‘comment’ was not by me. The last comment was the TUC policy on the subject from the 2009 conference.
As for what “true professional dancers” think about the situation, I suggest you contact Equity, which proposed the motion to the TUC and which represents true professional dancers. Oh, and has always represented strippers, too, by the way. As well as burlesque artistes.
Call me naive but I’m not sure what really goes on inside a lap dancing club or a pole dancing club for that matter. I guess like many commenters on this site we think we know what goes on, we read the descriptions, but it remains a mystery. Stephenpaterson, are you really sure it’s simply ‘a form of a erotic dancing’? Like belly dancing? Surely not? But I think before further comment we should have a Lords of the Blog outing to find out! (on second thoughts, count me out)
baronnessmurphy – You’re in danger of missing out! One of the reasons these clubs are so popular is that the Lapdancing Association has a monopoly on the only known cure for Cellists’ Scrotum! Never has the cello known such popularity – they can’t make them fast enough!
But seriously, obviously nobody, even its management, can know what goes on in every nook and cranny of a lapdancing club on a 24/7 basis, CCTV or not, besides which it’s surely up to the staff what they do in their own time elsewhere.
From what I hear, though, I’d be more concerned over the average pay of the bar staff than the dancers.
There is obviously a demand for these places, both by customers and dancers. A pole dance can be a very skilled performance on the vertical bar, whilst a ‘lap dance’ can be anything, but it certainly requires at least an attempt at erotic dance.
With your Alzheimer’s hat on, you may be interested to see this link to a Daily Mail article on a trip to a lap dance club for four men who suffered not from Alzheimers but from Huntington’s Disease:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1044610/Nurses-caring-men-rare-brain-illness-treat-night-lapdancing-club.html
It’s legal. You can go and see.
Otherwise isn’t it a bit like the pope giving advice on sex?
Dear Baroness Murphy,
Lap dancing clubs are basically strip clubs but they try to sound respectable by calling themselves “gentlemens clubs”, the customers “gentlemen” and the strippers “dancers”.
Since 2005 these clubs have insidiously expanded on the High Street thanks to the introduction of Labour’s lax 2003 Licensing Act.Inside the clubs,the so called “gentlemen” sit drinking and watching semi clothed women “dancing” either at or on the table where they are seated. The “gentleman” can purchase a woman and receive a “one on one” private lap dance either in a curtained off booth or a private room. Tha “dancer” removes all of her clothes,writhes around naked infront of the “gentleman” giving a very “up close and personal” intimate “dance”. The reason it is called a lap dance is that for part of the “dance” she sits on the “gentlmans” lap and rubs herself against him.He gives her money for doing this.
These unsavoury,seedy clubs for sad,inadequate men are now everywhere in market towns, spa towns,cities and seaside resorts and have made women stripping and rubbing themselves seem a normal mainstream form of entertainment.
Prior to 2005 any club hosting nude entertainment required a special sex entertainment venue license(as sex shops and sex cinemas still do) but with the introduction of the new law only a premises license is required.As a result it has been very difficult for local people to object to such clubs opening which is why the Government is proposing changing the law so that local people can have some say over the numbers and siting of such clubs.Many are in very prominent and inappropriate locations and if the proposed law is to work it must be applied universally and without exemptions so that people in all areas can have some say over the number and siting of strip clubs in their neighbourhood.
Ellie – you really do overstate your argument. To state that “The ‘gentleman’ can purchase a woman” when all he is doing is hiring her to perform a private lap dance for him for 20 minutes or whatever is surely grossly irresponsible in the current climate of human trafficking, however unjustified that climate is.
On what basis do you know that, in all the private booths and curtained-off areas in all the lap dance clubs in Britain and on all occasions: “The ‘dancer’ removes all of her clothes, [and] writhes around naked in front of the ‘gentleman’ giving a very ‘up close and personal’ intimate ‘dance’”?
And if this is the case, what on earth has it got to do with anyone else?
Do you accept that in the world of erotic dance, your comments would seem primitive at the very best? Do you dismiss all erotic dance as “writhing around”?
Do/will you dismiss superb performances on the vertical bar at the Olympics as “writhing around,” and, if not, will this not be to do with the sex, state of dress and context of the performer, rather than the performance?
“The reason it is called a lap dance is that for part of the ‘dance’ she sits on the ‘gentlman’s’ lap and rubs herself against him. He gives her money for doing this.”
Some dancers may do this, some may not. Again, some customers may tip, some may not. As they’re both over 18, why the panic?
“…unsavoury, seedy clubs for sad, inadequate men are now everywhere…”
Well, they’re popular, then. But from what I read, they seem quite expensive. And as for being “unsavoury, seedy” clubs, I have to say that some seem remarkably plush, and others no more unsavoury or seedy than entertainment areas in Pontins or Butlins holiday camps in their heyday. Why are their customers “sad” or “inadequate”? The prices would seem to exclude the unemployed.
Inadequate for what, exactly, other than your purposes?
“If the proposed law is to work it must be applied universally and without exemptions so that people in all areas can have some say over the number and siting of strip clubs in their neighbourhood.”
I think it is this area that needs most addressing. The question is whether the licensing regime proposed in the Bill should be mandatory across England, Wales and Northern Ireland or whether locally elected people should be allowed to decide whether to adopt it or not.
The Object position is that local councils should be forced to adopt it, and that the locally elected should have no say. This, argues Object, is the only way for local communities to be allowed their say.
Object also argues for the end of periodic ‘gentlemen’s evenings’ in non-lap dance dedicated venues.
I haven’t come across a political party within the Commons that supports Object’s position on these yet, which isn’t to say there isn’t one, merely that I haven’t found one – the situation appears dynamic.
My own experience, which includes serving on district council planning, economic development and environment committees for nearly a decade, is that local councils know their own areas and communities very well, and not only from a radical feminist standpoint.
They will be asking very many questions concerning the new law, each of them in their own, particular contexts.
Some, perhaps many, may welcome the new regime and embrace it immediately with open arms. Others, however, may consider it an expensive nuisance in the general order of things, causing unnecessary delay and expense, and driving much needed investment to other areas or, quite probably, abroad.
Some rural authorities may agree with Object, others may see it as the end of all hope of rescuing some local village pubs which have lasted centuries until the nationally imposed smoking ban and nationally imposed codes of conduct etc laid down centrally.
This, in turn, may encourage greater flows of young people in villages to the towns and cities in the evenings, with greater possibilities of drink driving problems and long-term implications for the continued viability of village shops and post offices in some parts of the UK due to late night shopping in towns and cities.
At the same time, a major problem on the planning front of most councils remains the viability of town centres following the centrally imposed go-ahead for out-of-town mega-stores in the 1980s.
Many councils regard a vibrant nightlife as crucial on both planning and economic development grounds. However, that this creates criminal justice problems is undoubted – Newquay would appear a good example of this, from what I have read, nevertheless Newquay’s economy appears quite buoyant.
The recession has been blamed for Woolworth’s demise, but the recession merely provided the last straw for the old lady, and many other high street names are struggling and have been forced to think laterally as a result of out of town shopping. M&S have turned to upmarket food retailing, for example.
As well as out of town shopping, High Street retailers have to increasingly compete with the internet, shops selling very cheap but often reasonable quality merchandise sourced from sweatshops in the Far East, etc.
Many small local shops no longer survive. To walk around my local area in North Wales one might lease them for a quarter for £1 a dozen, given the number of To Let signs.
At the same time, this recession is expected to see a huge increase in unemployment. Everybody is worried about their job. At a micro level, this includes actors, dancers and bar staff, all of whom are, at the end of the day, part of the entertainment and leisure industry and not exactly as vital to life as the food and food processing industries, for example, where permanent jobs may be relatively secure, though notoriously low-paid and often arduous in most cases.
So local councils will many things to consider.
Why should a business set up a lap dancing club in Wigan (or wherever), where it would take a year to get through a consultation process, as distinct from numerous other European countries where it wouldn’t, for example.
No man is an island. No woman is an island, either. In fact, no group of people are an island, and nobody has a greater reason to believe that than ourselves in Britain today.
There is precious little empirical evidence of increased sexual assaults on women either within or in the vicinity of lap dance clubs, though enormous conjecture about it.
For the famous example of the contribution of the so-called Lilith report, read through:
http://stephenpaterson.wordpress.com/2009/08/09/lilith_report/
Nor is there much talk of mass panic among the female population in the vicinity of such places. A minority has strong opinions frequently expressed, but I would suggest most women see them as part and parcel of the urban scene and would share concerns about those rendered unemployed by their passing.
I have yet the see an independent opinion poll on the subject carried out among both sexes among residents living within, say, a mile of half a dozen lap dancing clubs in varying locations across the country.
With properly framed questions and a breakdown of respondents by gender, age, socio-economic grouping, house type etc, we may learn something.
We might also learn something from the strategy documents of various departments in the local council offices.
Frankly, Ellie, it was successive central governments that got us into this mess. For God’s sake don’t expect central government to get us out of it. Central government in the UK couldn’t boil an egg.
What makes us men and women strong as a nation is that we can survive on a day to day basis for centuries DESPITE our central government, and other nations conclude, wisely, that if we can survive that, we can survive anything, and go away.
The population of London, both male and female, survived Hitler’s Blitz less than 70 years ago. I’m quite sure the women among them have the fortitude to withstand an occasional lap dancing club.
Good post stephenpaterson
Thank you for exposing the Lilith report and the Guardian’s inaccuracies.
The Guardian’s inaccurate articles have even been reproduced on this blog : “Clare” Posted on October 22 2009 at 3:00 pm a link to one of the Guardian’s articles.
Eaves/Poppy/Lilith got 3.6 million pounds of taxpayers money last year alone.
We need transparency and accurate documentation.
“Prior to 2005 any club hosting nude entertainment required a special sex entertainment venue license”
Where did you get this idea from?
No such law exists. Pubs and clubs have been putting on strip shows perfectly legally for years. Witness the Full Monty film (1997).
You may be referring to a “sex establishment” as defined in paragraph 2 Schedule 3 of Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1982 which this Policing and Crime Bill is attempting to amend.
This was specifically brought in to license (Soho) peep shows and sex cinemas, as they did not serve alcohol they were not otherwise licensed. Some councils were trying to license striptease under this act but this stopped when it was shown that they were not acting legally.
Now here’s one for the Lords and the Ladies and the Ellies and the Tracy Earnshaws and everyone else.
Did you know that lap dancing has enabled scientists to detect what is believed to be a human estrus? That is to say, a deep instinct by the human male towards the human female at the point in her cycle when she is most likely to become pregnant, hitherto thought to only survive outside the world of us humans..
The study examined tips given to lap dancers. Unfamiliar with lap-dancing, Geoffrey Miller and colleagues read up on the relevant sociological and feminist literature before getting eighteen dancers to record their earnings for two months. They found that earnings were greater when the dancers were ovulating: the male patrons expressed a preference for dancers who were currently fertile, even though not consciously aware of the difference.
Behold:
The full references are Geoffrey Miller, Joshua M. Tybur, Brent D. Jordan (2007) “Ovulatory Cycle Effects on Tip Earnings by Lap Dancers: Economic Evidence for Human Estrus?”
http://tiny.cc/pM1tX
Oh you sad little man Stephen Patterson-most women know and can feel and can sense the stage in their cycle when they are most alluring to men and when they are most able to conceive.We don’t need scientists and lap dancers to tell us this is so.This is probably a revelation to lap dancers as they portray a fake sexuality but most women who are in tune with their bodies, instinctively know.
ellie:
You have made 11 postings so far on this blog.
Not one of them refers to any documented evidence or research. Your postings are just anecdotal stories, unsubstantiated claims or personal attacks on other bloggers or others whose life choices don’t coincide with your own. This does nothing to further your cause.
In fact, it just exposes the anti-striptease lobby as based on pure waffle.
Please, can you provide some facts, documented evidence or research?
From “sad little man”.
Thanks in anticipation.
Why its sad? He’s posted a bit of research.
What to me is sad is a woman these days who complains about what men spend their money on because they aren’t spending it on them.
In this age of supposed female equality, wanting to have a man support you is a bit odd.
Ellie Re: http://lordsoftheblog.net/2009/10/14/lap-dancing/#comment-8345
This seems to be a revelation to an awful lot of non-lap dancing female scientists, you sure about this? (Careful, I might just come up half a dozen!)
I have seen a copy of a letter sent by a number of local authority representatives to members of the House Of Lords, urging them to abolish the exemption where-by venues holding burleque/strip-tease type events for less that 11 times a year wont have to apply for a ‘Sex Encounter Establishment’ license.
At one point in the letter, it says that ‘the safety of women performing at infrequent lap dancing events in pubs and clubs will likely be compromised by inadequate facilities. We as local authorities would be powerless to impose licensing conditions to protect against this.’
My response to this is to ask: What about those burlesque/strip-tease artist who WANT to work in venues like pubs but who DONT want to work in lap dancing clubs ?
Under the guise of protecting the safety of these women, these letter writers are trying to either stop them from earning a living (since regular pubs or clubs are likely to stop hosting occasional burlesque or strip-tease events rather than pay for the expensive new license), or are trying to force them to work in the kind of venues that they may not want to work in !
I would say to members of the House Of Lords that this exemption in the legislation should be retained (and preferably widened) in order to protect the right of burleque/strip-tease artist to be able to decide where they practice their chosen profession.
NigelW – I’m not arguing that unions are the answer to everything, but I would have thought that Equity and the GMB were at least worth listening to over the safety of their members at work.
It would be a fine thing if just a hundredth of the concern over health and safety shown to lap dancers was shown to people in, for example, the food processing or fishing industries. But then, I suppose, sex sells, and some people would argue that Westminster specialises in burying entrepreneurship in red tape & one way to kill off lap dancing would therefor be to proceed as normal, and just go softly with the Lord Mandelsons etc.
The exemption for venues holding events fewer that 11 times a year should be retained.
If this exemption were to be removed then the “Full Monty” would then become illegal!
Lord Norton:
Would you like to be known as the lord who made the “Full Monty” illegal?
Lapdancing is sex. Of course it is. Anyone who claims otherwise is, frankly, kidding themselves.
But what the hell is wrong with that?
I have no idea if the people who are so adamant that the sex trade is degrading to women have ever worked in the sex industry, but a number of my friends and my significant other of six years has, and one of the very tiresome things they all put up with, be they making queer porn or sleeping with people for money, is the vast swathe of people who meddle in their affairs “for their own good”.
Sex is a thing that people do. They do it in all manner of ways, albeit for mostly the same reasons. Some bits of the sex industry are vile and seedy and exploitative, but then, so are some parts of the magazine industry. We could potentially improve women’s lot in life by banning lapdancing, but we could probably do a lot better by punching Paul Dacre in the face every time his rag published something obscene criticising a woman for having cellulite on her thighs.
There are some parts of the sex industry that have poor working conditions, but then, there are parts of every industry that have poor working conditions. The sex industry, by and large, compensates its workers fairly well for the poor working conditions. This distinguishes it favourably from, say, teaching, or working in a call centre, or standing on the street with a sign advertising pizza hut in the rain, or doing one of those dire “commission only” sales jobs that young people can find themselves broke and worn out from. Anecdote is not the plural of data, of course, but many people of my acquaintance hate their job, and while some of them are in the sex industry, none of the people I know who work all the hours god sends and still end up with no money to do anything but drink themselves into a stupor work in the sex industry. Most of them make pretty reasonable middle class incomes for rather less than your average 37 hours a week.
It is sex work. And the thing about sex work is, it’s work. It’s no more exploitative than any other form of work. It’s perfectly arguable that paying minimum wage to the person who scrubs the faeces from your toilet bowl is exploitative, but I doubt people would pay much attention if you tried to ban cleaning companies.
As with everything, the sex sells the legislation. If the work involved wasn’t women getting their tatas out, nobody would give a flying rat’s ass how they were treated. As it is, I honestly doubt people care how they’re treated anyway. This might seem harsh, but since I pay attention to SWA groups and know working girls who think most of y’all are talking crap, i.e. I listen to what people who are lapdancers say about the working conditions of being a lapdancer, and it’s evident that the people complaining about the poor mistreated women have never had a conversation with a sex worker in their lives, I think it’s pretty fair. People don’t care about the working conditions in strip clubs. They care about their visceral reaction to the proximity of sex, which makes them feel squicky and uncomfortable.
Sorry about that. But that’s liberalism for you. Luckily, you all get to write earnest screeds in the guardian or moralising screeds in the telegraph, whichever your poison should be, telling people they shouldn’t have sex or express their sexuality in ways you find personally distasteful, and the world will continue to spin on its axis.