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?
142 Comments
You’ve missed the third option. Do nothing.
Why should it be a choice of A or B and not something else such as doing nothing?
Nick
I agree with the OBJECT campaign that there SHOULD be proper licensing of these, if only to ensure that residents get the proper right to complain if one wants to locate near where they live. They just don’t have enough say at the present time.
The fatuous suggestions that these are not in any way exploitative just does not bear close scrutiny. However on the wider point of prostitution I’m not sure the current law on criminalising punters helps much either – it leads to ‘kerb crawling’ which is surely far more dangerous for the women concerned than being able to work in legal establishments.
To some extent the law already allows for this in turning a blind eye where two women are operating together. But the whole issue is fraught with danger, unintended consequences and putting women at more risk.
Lap dancing is not sex.
To class it as a ’sexual encounter’ seems to me to miss the whole point of it, I think it is sufficently far away from most types of sex work to be outside of these rules.
I don’t see whats so special about sex that it requires licencing anyway, do away with the whole damn thing, I say. To me is reeks of being part of our inability to come to terms with sexuality.
Any concern that might arise about working conditions needs to be delt with through work-based laws, not sex laws.
I don’t agree with Object, it seems to seek to paint all sex-based work as debasing. In fact sex work should be treated as just another job. Once that happens, only then, will the participants be safe from moralising nit-wits.
Well it seems you completely miss the point, this isnt about moralising, its about protecting vulnerable individuals, doing something to counteract the growing trend of seeing women as sex objects and allowing local people to have a say about their neighbourhood.
I suggest you do some more research.
Quite. It’s all part of the problem with a small section of society that wants to control and tell other people what to do.
There are plenty of laws that deal with the harm issue. Noise abatement, working hours, sexual assault. There is no need to control lap dancing clubs.
Any law should be for a general principle, and then it should be down to the courts.
What we have in most cases, and this is one of them is politicians trying to do something to show they are doing something. To justify their inflated salaries and expenses.
In this case its coming about because of a failure to implement existing laws, not because there is a need for new laws.
I can only think of two issues in recent time that required new laws. Firstly there are laws controlling things like IVF. Secondly laws on the computer generation of child porn. It’s very rare for there to actually need to be a new law. It is very common that the law isn’t enforced.
Politicians are not the solution, they are the problem
Nick
Lord Norton,
In our press we use the term NIMBY to describe the attitude of many people to such enterprises. “Not In My Back Yard” is the acronym’s meaning and some have said the attitude may be shifting to BANANAS meaning it is OK — But Absolutely Not Anywhere Near Anything Seen. Of course many city billboards give the lie to this. I think that the UK is potentialy on the right track with limiting these kinds of activities to sexualy licensed venues and persons.
I think that it is painfully naive to assert that sexual relations do not occur in places where lap dancing is the stock in trade. I think thatChristianity is often used as the cause for total prohibition of commercial sex. So I would like to point out that while it was prohibited by Old Testament law in Israel it tolerated and certainly not in the original meaning of the prohibiton of adultery. Jesus was often accused of being a friend specificaly of wine drinkers, prostitutes and tax collectors and never really disowned any of these three types of sinners as his associates. So I would not say it is the most urgent Christian priority to abolish prostitution.
I think that modern societies have fallen into three categories in their approach to prostitution (the UK being a bit above the curve perhaps):
1.Prohibit by law and police trouble caused. Which is what we do in the USA.
2.Dehumanize prostitutes and their offspring and ensure at any cost that they are outside the body politic. This is what the Third Reich did with the bordellos in Death Camps.
3.Severely underlegislate the issue and allow a competition between the amoral and those who have such distaste for the sex trade that they cannot consider its social implications.
I think that lap dancing is rather on the low end of human sexual expression traded or otherwise. But surely the state has an interest in preserving public health, prventing rampant violence, fraud and terrorization of those engaged in this business.
Beyond that I think that the UK is one of the last polities that could possibly craft a truly comprehensive, sane and humane policy as regards all of this. That would require more than a law related to lap dancing alone.
Lastly, I must wonder if you have video links to “the bodies pressing for provisions to go further” and is that just something you do not include at this site?
Troika,
You are magnificently consistent. I feel alive when I read your comments…
The key reason for licensing a business, regardless of the actual trade, is to ensure that minimum standards are maintained. It is hoped that the remit is exceeded, mainly to the benefit of the customer.
This will jar with nearby residents if the licence is for lap dancing. However, there is a nuisance factor associated with all licensed trades. As part of the licensing process, statutory nuisance is assumed to be assessed, though this is not always the case and may not preclude further assessment after a complaint. This is an area that needs to be strengthened, for the sake of all concerned.
I am strongly against LAs creating extra hurdles for a licensed trade as this leads to so much variation that national legislation becomes lost. If a trade is worth licencing then parliament must set the agenda, rather than some part-time official.
Troika, in another post you also indicated that your view of sexuality comes from readign literature form the New Atheists, who hold a Secular Humanist stance on the matter, and you also indicated a tiotal lack of readign any other literature, including psycological or bilogical reports, or those of anyone elses beleif system.
You may think casul sex is good, but its actually harmful. Prostitution, for example, renders it difficult for women to form proper, long term bonds with men, even in palces wereits leglly established, because sex isnt just some fun thing we can just do, but a pwoerful, bonding act which, if doen with many aprtners, looses its ability to bond us to a specific person. Thus promiscuity of any kind, including the paid kind, actulaly ahrms our ability t form long lasting, endurant relaitonships. (DOnt hand me the tosh abotu the firts tome not beign romantic, it doesnt matter. Irf two virgins wait till marirage and the firts itme is all arms and legs flaying and very awkward, it doesnt mean all sex thereafte rin a relationship hat lasts decades will be bad. There is also a lot mroe to relationships than just sex.)
As a Libertarian, though, I find that Local Counsils shoudl have more say. After all, if is there community that is most affected by the preasence of such establishments.
One other hting, Torika, if you want to understand why people dont just fall in line with tour ideas abotu sex, please dont tell me to :Examine my beleifs” and procceed to put word sinto my mouth such as me thinking that sex can only be enjoyed by one person in the act, or that its only for p[rocreaion, or anythign else Ive not actually said but your told that religious nutters like me beelifs.
Try reading what others have actually said about it, who are not Secular Humanists, and I think you will learn to appriciate those ideas you now hold in ontempt, but don’t really understand.
Troika21 – You are entitled to your opinion, but would you really be happy if a knocking shop set up operation next door to YOU with punters, sometimes drunk, sometimes abusive, set up next door to you ?? And if you think that no lap dancing clubs ‘cross the line’ then you haven’t been reading the press about this.
They seem to exist in a legal limbo, and they are based right in the heart of our city centres. If they were based further away on some industrial estate where the hordes of drunken men were not causing a disturbance to other people I wouldn’t complain so much.
It is a ‘free country’ and I don’t want to be ‘moralising’. But to pretend that these clubs don’t have an impact on surrounding areas, and set a climate of fear for many women in their vicinity, seems to me to be extraordinarily ignorant of the issues.
But then the Houses Of Parliament have very few women, and their woeful under-representation means that this much-needed legislation will be ‘a missed opportunity’.
Lord Norton, was that a double entendre, “some bodies are pressing for the provisions to go further”?
Lap dancing clubs are an interesting development from striptease clubs, they can be as Bedd Gelert says, an irritant to local people, largely because these places are often show cases for women available for prostitution, some of whom are actively being exploited by pimps. On the other hand as Troika says, sexual activity between consenting adults is probably none of the government’s business and lap dancing itself is pretty harmless. There is an excellent research paper at http://www.scribd.com/doc/6461796/Encouraging-sexual-exploitation-The-licensing-of-lap-dancing-clubs-in-the-UK by Phil Hubbard, Professor of Urban Social Geography at Loughborough which explores the licensing and regulation dilemmas and some of the myths about these places. He comes down rather firmly for regulation of activities within the clubs although he doesn’t explore the cost of such a policy.
The idea of allowing more say for residents on the licensing of lap dancing clubs seems perfectly reasonable. The proposed exemptions sound equally sensible – such at least as are described by Lord Norton. The idea of bringing any pub or club – even presumably in private function rooms where say a stag night might be held – sounds a bureaucratic nightmare best avoided. I can’t help but think of the Licensing Act 2003 which seemed to use a sledgehammer to crack a nut in forcing small venues with infrequent live music to go though the unnecessary hoops and associated costs/time with no doubt the council/police having to waste a matching amount enforcing/monitoring the same. When pubs are already closing at an astonishing rate loading another cost on them doesn’t seem wise.
I have very little time for the ‘morals’ argument. It’s legal as an activity and I can’t see what relevance exploitation, real or perceived, has to the licensing. It would be an argument on banning or regulating the activity itself not the licensing of venues. The argument to let councils decide how to handle it might make sense if the distribution of such clubs is largely in certain areas?
Interesting when all the parties are talking about local democracy, at the moment, that regulate from the centre still seems to be a natural response from some quarters.
Lady Murphy should remember what they say about people who see double entendres
I had a slight smile when I saw this topic as I had seen a story in the press reporting that lap dancing clubs had been lobbying and entertaining some Tory and Labour peers in the hope of influencing them on this bill. I did hope they were in good health (!) and were going to be brave enough to put that in their declaration of interests.
Yes, I do feel I’m a lone voice when discussing more powers for local government. I attribute this to living in the (recently subsumed) LA with the highest rate of council tax for years on end. Plus, my business is licensed.
The relevant Act that was set up to license my trade has not changed in decades yet, under this government, LACORS effectively re-wrote the law by reversing key aspects that defined the original Act.
Having looked at many LAs, there is random charging for a licence, varying some 500%, and each one cherry-picking from others to produce a local licence with little understanding from those that are empowered.
There are some doozies out there.
I would say that anyone who says lapdancing is harmless is not using much imagination. It is pretty obvious to anyone who thinks and as general respect for all human beings that it is degrading and open to exploitation.
That said of course you cant stop them completely or prostitution completely, but there should be laws that protect the individuals working in this trade which IS a sex trade whether its dancing or prostitution. There should also be laws that allow local people to have a say about the character of their neighbourhood.
I would also like all those who think this legislation is nonsense and moralising to think a bit deeper about the implications ans whether those women you go and watch genuinely love their profession and making you drivel??????
Baroness Murphy:
Phil Hubbard has recently advertised a PhD post for a student aimed at taking further his work in this area, attempting to answer difficult questions such as where, hypothetically, would brothels or other adult venues such as lapdance clubs best be placed within wider planning and social considerations.
This work may possibly include estimates of cost elements for government, you would have to contact Phil directly on that. Normally the costs of processing planning applications are met by the developer, I believe, though spurious attempts by local authorities to prevent developments by rejecting them on non-planning grounds can result in major costs to the authority and hence its services to council taxpayers or increases in council tax.
The Royal Colege of Nursing, as you may be aware, has approved decriminalisation of brothels repeatedly at its conferences on health grounds. However, this post is on lap dancing, which I consider an artistic form of erotic dance and therefore a separate subject to brothels, though others would clearly differ.
largely because these places are often show cases for women available for prostitution, some of whom are actively being exploited by pimps.
And there are existing laws in place to deal with this. Enforce them.
There is no need for new laws.
It’s just politicians grandstanding.
Nick
Troika21 – You are entitled to your opinion, but would you really be happy if a knocking shop set up operation next door to YOU with punters, sometimes drunk, sometimes abusive, set up next door to you ?? And if you think that no lap dancing clubs ‘cross the line’ then you haven’t been reading the press about this.
And do you need a new law to deal with drunks, abusive people, prostitution?
No. Such laws already exists.
The problem isn’t a lack of law. The problem is the lack of will to enforce current laws.
Introducing a new law doesn’t mean it will be enforced. The evidence being that they aren’t enforcing current laws.
It’s part of the general problem of the Commons. MPs need to be seen to be doing something. Enforcing laws is the job of the police, so its had for an MP to take any credit. However, if the MP introduces a new law, they triumph the law as the success. Interestingly its very rare for them to triumph solving a problem, because laws don’t by and large solve anything.
ie. It is an attempt at solving a ‘problem’ which isn’t a problem at all.
Look at the problems that people have raised. Drunken louts. Associated solely with lap dancing clubs? Nope. In reality they won’t get in, and if they cause trouble they are kicked out. They aren’t profitable. On the street there are established laws on being drunk and disorderly.
Prostitution. Could be. Does it happen elsewhere? Yes. Are they existing laws? Certainly. More than 2 women? Yes. It’s illegal. Prosecute
etc
Does having a uniform licensing regime imply less say by the local community in decisions that affect the area they live in? I believe this was the idea behind the liberalisation of 24 hour drinking, that even though more was possible the local councils had more say/control over licensed premises that proved to be problematic.
I have some sympathy for Troika21’s view about the separation of licensing for “sex” related activities from general licensing. If local residents have problems with noisy punters causing nuisance on the streets on leaving a venue it really doesn’t matter what sort of venue it is, only that the local council can compel the venue to doe something about it or risk loosing their license.
As far as protecting the employees from workplace bullying, intimidation and poor working conditions I don’t see why this isn’t handled by normal employment law. The way these things are dealt with shouldn’t depend on your chosen trade.
So in summary I think I’m arguing for unified and uniform licensing laws but with the important proviso that under such a scheme decisions are devolved to the local level.
I feel that I’m coming across like judgemental Mr Moraliser which is not really my aim. I’m not able to speak from experience on these points in any case, which is always dangerous.
I do attend my local ‘arthouse’ cinema a lot and despair of people wanting to ‘ban things’ which they may not have seen, but I do understand that they have the ‘free speech’ right to do so even if I disagree with them about the harm that films like ‘Oldboy’ can cause. [It was quoted as being a factor in the Virginia Tech shooting]
My pitch is merely this. I don’t want women to be put at risk and at danger by the sex industry in whatever form. If that means that ‘tolerance zones’ are created so that ’street-walkers’ are moved from where kerb crawling takes place into a neighbourhood where they are less likely to be attacked, then so be it.
There are differing views on whether ‘turning a blind eye’ to activities in sauna / massage parlours helps or hinders safety of ’sex workers’. But one guesses that at least the police are aware of where they may need to look for out and out criminality in the form of trafficking and exploitation.
Of course “Gentlemen’s Clubs” as they insist on calling themselves are far lower down the pyramid of harm but with a wider customer base. I don’t necessarily take the view that they should be banned. But to say that these establishments need no further regulation & control than cafe/bars seems to ignore their reputation. If Lap Dancing clubs really were only about ‘look but don’t touch’, then my view is that they would have nothing at all to fear from legislation. They would welcome the fact that police could threaten removal of that licence as it would keep businesses looking to break the law, and provide what they would see as ‘unfair competition’, at bay.
Many people will say ‘Yes, but what happens at a lap-dancing club is not really all that different, in terms of people outside, to being in the vicinity of a nightclub’.
Fair point – but whilst we maybe old enough not to see what there is to get excited about in these clubs, one has to remember that a group of young people, predominantly male, having been into one of these clubs and probably having been drinking, may not be ones we want to share street space with.
The point about ‘arthouse’ cinema has some crossover here as local councils still retain the right to vary from the film classification set by the British Board of Film Classification. This does/has resulted in films being banned in one town but not its neighbours. (The Life of Brian was banned in a number of places on release.) I have problems with what have seemed at times deeply reactionary local decisions but they were at least local decisions with local democratic accountability something that cannot be said for the BBFC as a national body. There were attempts to force democratic confirmation upon the leadership of the BBFC – via a private members bill – but that was talked out in parliament so the present system continues.
I am 100% with you bedd Gelert, nice to hear a man talking like that for a change, with insight and compassion into the extra risks of exploitation lap dancing venues, gentlmens clubs etc pose for workers!!
I think whatever the rights and wrongs of the legislation the same rules have to apply across the country (subject to devolution constraints in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales).
@Bedd:
It is not impossible that the problems you discribe can be dealt with through regulation or policing, but they (drunkeness, violence etc.) are also associated with clubs and pubs in city centres as it is.
I don’t know, perhaps its something they’re drinking?
Thats it really, its not the lap-dancing that most people object to, its the problems of drunken violence coming from the alcohol that the establishment sells.
You ask would I like one in my back yard? Well, where I am is fairly rural, and I have no idea where one would go ’round here, but I’m getting of the point. Which is this; what is it about the lap-dancing part that should be troubling?
If you think that the women are under the control of pimps or exploited in some way, then that can be dealt with under sex-work laws, anyway.
I do not accept that lap-dancing, or sex work in general, worsens the treatment of women, nor do I accept that it can make an area unsafe.
Lots of places can be unsafe for women, and have no lap-dancing clubs in sight.
“I do not accept that lap-dancing, or sex work in general, worsens the treatment of women, nor do I accept that it can make an area unsafe. Lots of places can be unsafe for women, and have no lap-dancing clubs in sight.”
Again a fair point,but there are considerations which I will end this blog with.
1/ You may think that the presence of such a club does not make a place less safe, but I’m sure you would not object to a licence process which would allow others who don’t share your views to express their concerns before it opens ? That might not be a veto, but would work like ‘planning consent’ where public consultation occurs beforehand.
2/ I might agree with you that addition of a single club might not result in the world coming to an end or a huge increase in the problems being discussed here. The point is that with licensing it might ONLY be ONE club. When there is a lax licensing regime the clubs are multiplying like topsy. Their preponderance in London might be accepted by dint of the fact that they might be located in ‘louche’ areas. But in smaller cities and larger towns they are to be found cheek-by-jowl with cinemas and theatres and cafes.
It may be just my age and I wish that they could all be turned into funky jazz cafes with live music and that nightclubs could be turned into ballrooms, but financial pressures make that somewhat unlikely [sigh..]
Personally, I find pubs and clubs distasteful too, I don’t understand how people can enjoy themselves there. And as for lap-dancing itself, I can think of much better ways to be sexualy frustrated.
True, about your point on planning, residents need their say. However I do think that most will not want them near them, and that, funnily enough, is the problem.
Because it is not the lap-dancing itself that it the problem, that takes place within the building and its not public. But viewing what might happen outside the establishment and thinking that it is caused by the activities inside – like you implied before, with the comment on drunkenness. To me it seems like the women inside will be blamed, not the over-consumption of alcohol.
well thats just total ignorance troika…ive heard other stories about they effect these places can have for all women in the area in terms of safety
I think lap dancing clubs degrade women and encourage the belief that women can be bought and sold. I’m dismayed that so many of them exist in my city and would be pleased to see them closed down. I don’t think it is acceptable to turn a blind eye to lapdancing or prostitution and I don’t see either as a ‘necessary evil’, we need to work together towards a society where niether exist. I also think that lap dancing is a sexual service and a type of prostution. Women are selling their bodies for the use of men, whether that is visually or physically is niether here nor there.
People sometimes argue that women are happy to be lapdancers but the anacdotes of former lapdancers suggests that this is not so. The lapdancers I have met did it because they were lowskilled workers and didn’t earn enough in their jobs to support themselves. They often struggle to earn sufficient money even in the lapdancing clubs due to the overhead charges and fees the clubs force them to pay before they can even start work.
@Troika21 I don’t see the prohibition of lapdancing as a failure to come to terms with our sexuality, rather as dominance of the desire of some men. I stress the word some because many men I’ve spoken to confess that they find lapdancing rather repulisive and not sexy at all. Lapdancing completely ignores the sexuality of women. Where in lapdancing is the physical and emotional pleasure of women considered? In the lap dancing set up women dance for mens visual pleasure, its not a recipriocal arrangement. Some argue that lapdancers enjoy it, my arguement is if this is true, why don’t more of them do it for free. You could fit in a full time job and dance in the evenings if you wanted it as a pleasurable hobby. It is also a very narrow view of what is sexy to all genders. We are given one view of what is sexy and sold it as a package.
I think whether or not such clubs make an area unsafe is also not the most important arguement against them, it is what goes on in the clubs that is the major problem.
There is nothing wrong with someone selling their body. I don not understand why people think that should be the case. People sell their labour and thoughts to others, why not their bodies?
I accept that lap-dancers are likely low-skilled workers, but they are still earning money for themselves. Thats a good thing. Pointing out that clubs sometimes use unscrupulious business pratices, and claiming that this is enough to all of shut them down, I think, its indicative of our inability to come to terms with sexuality.
We must accept that some people (women are no less sexual creatures; history could have been different, even if biology isn’t) want sexual encounters and are unable to have them without paying someone. What would you have them do?
A much better way of dealing with the sex-based industry is to grow-up and regulate it properly. I don’t think that it is a ‘necessary evil’ – I think that it should be a job like any other, one where workers can move in, and out, of.
I’ve never understood why lap-dancing is popular anyway. I think that ‘repulsive’ is your word, but I can appreciate the sentiment. But then I’m not a club go-er either, the whole atmosphere surrounding clubs is not something I enjoy.
“Where in lapdancing is the physical and emotional pleasure of women considered?”, is a bit of a strange question. They might not be getting pleasure out of it, but they are getting paid. You know, the whole ‘exchange money for goods and services’ thing that economies are based on?
I grant you that this is a very narrow view, something that might only be sexy to some people (I’m not sure if that’s true, though), but if bars want to do it, I don’t see why they should be stopped.
Lap dancing is clearly a sexual activity. Peep shows, which do not go as far as lap dances, are already licensed as sex venues, quite rightly. The loophole occurs because lap dancing clubs sell alcohol, and so only need a premises license. It is a complete no-brainer that these clubs need to be licensed as sex encounter venues. The premises license can only be turned down in relation to 4 limited factors (to do with children, public nuisance etc). Buying a lap dance has a very different social impact to buying a coffee. Not least, the wider and greater impact that it’s normalisation is having on gender equality. The public should be able to raise these concerns about lap dancing. Local Authorities will have to take responsibility for their Gender Equality Duties. The licensing of this activity will therefore have to be considered as part of this. It is now a matter of urgency that these new measures are put in place, and if anything, they should be strengthened to close the frequency exemption and optional status loopholes that the industry will exploit.
Charlie Posted October 16, 2009 at 4:56 pm
“Local Authorities will have to take responsibility for their Gender Equality Duties.”
It you follow this, then every gay bar in the land will be closed down since they would certainly fail under “Gender Equality Duties”.
Dear Lord Norton,
A change in the law to re-classify strip clubs as SEVs would dramatically enhance the safety of women in my area (Leamington Spa). In April 2008 a strip club opened in what is not only a residential area, but in the vicinity of a Hindu place of worship and three local nurseries. It is also beside a bus stop. For years I and my colleagues commuted using this bus stop and until the club opened, we never had any instances of verbal abuse or threats of sexual assault. Since it opened I have been subjected to multiple instances of abusive behaviour by men who purchase the sexual services inside the club, often threatening and always degrading. I have often had men addressing me, a female member of the public, as if I am a prostitute when it is clear by mu business attire and lap top that I am city professional. When I complained to the council about the neglect to conduct a Gender Equality Duty Assessment, they informed me that strip clubs were not allowed to be singled out from other establishments for the purposes of an assessment so none were ever conducted. Now myself and other professional female commuters have to pay the price with our greatly diminished safety. This is clearly wrong. Strip clubs are a form of commercial misogyny – we do not have racist or homophobic ‘entertainment’ but the degradation of women for money has led to innocent members of the public suffering as a result by undermining any prospect of gender equality.
Upon contacting the police I was advised that the area was no longer safe for women given that the strip club had opened and to find another way home before I was a victim of a serious sexual assault.
Right now only the change in the law can help us reclaim what used to be, and should be, a public bus stop in a residential area with nurseries nearby that is safe for everyone including women and families. A patchwork ‘optional’ reform will result in our experiences being repeated across the country where a post code lottery exists.
The residents’ associations here are also afraid that the costs incurred to the council for SEV licensing will make them reluctant to adopt the changes, which fails the people in the community. Please help.
Yours Sincerely
Dr. Cook
What’s a “Gender Equality Duty Assessment”?
Dr. Cook:
There are plenty of laws to deal with bad behaviour outside pubs and clubs.
Worse can happen outside football grounds. Are you suggesting that all football grounds should be closed down and playing football should be made illegal? Of course this would be ridiculous.
What you are really objecting to is what happens INSIDE the strip pub/club. Something that you want to stop for your own moral reasons.
If the only places that could host strip-tease acts would be ’sex encounter establishments’, then what about acts like The Chippendales, or independent burleque artist who don’t want to work in lap dancing clubs ? Would this new legislation mean that they would be banned from public venues in the UK ? If so, surely there should be some kind of exemption for these kinds of acts ?
On the issue of lap dancing in general, surely we should be more concerned with the drunken anti-social behaviour caused by alcohol consumption in thousands of pubs across the country, rather than the supposed problems associated with a few hundred lap dancing clubs ?
What I think is there common argument that we must defend a victim, the question is whether we’re self-categorising victimhood and thus commodifying it in order to present a pretty little picture for someone foreign’s delight of the process of objectification in a major urban setting??
a bit, or
helping Mary? (Liberal Democrat)
Personally, I’d choose helping Mary, phone Professor Phil Hubbard at Loughborough University.
I think the issue of isolation plays very big with Lincolnshire on this one. I’ve spent nine years on Lincoln City Councils committees etc, and the practical question is whether Lincoln should or shouln’t be fed into the Great Harman all-singing all-dancing musical meat-eating act.
For Lincoln, at stake is its city’s freedom to decide whether adopt a set of regulations. Not accepting them therefor INCREASES
Oh Lord! Troika21 is always on the Cif Guardian website giving his specious opinions about lap-dancing. Seriously mate, do you sit constantly trawling the internet for aricles on lap-daning to comment on? Sad.
Those who claim that people against lap-daning havn’t come to terms with sexuality quite mistake the matter. Men who go to strip-clubs are scared of real female sexuality. They want it modified, comodified and portioned out into neat little £10 portions which they can control.
They kid themselves the women enjoy it and earn good money so they don’t have to feel like the exploitative inadequets they are.
Whoever said above that these places are comercialised misogyny is spot-on. Can anyone imagine a place where you could pay black people dressed as Golliwogs £10 to talk in a funny ‘Yessum’ accent for hateful racists to laugh at? No, it would be truly disgusting, would degrade all black people and would, rightfully, never be allowed. But no doubt people would do the job if the money was right and there would be a market if you look at all the BNP idiots out there. And strip-clubs are set up in the exact same way-the women must play out offensive stereotypes and degrade one gender with regards to another in the name of market-forces.
And the usual boring argument of what about the Chippendales/burlesque???????? These are not encounters. There is a heck of a lot of difference between taking ur clothes off with ur mates on a stage meters away from the audience and in a sweaty, drunk aggressive man’s hard-on bedecked lap isn’t there? I mean, really. It’s not such a difficult distinction to understand is it?
These caveats on the proposed reforms are just concessions to the business who they want to keep sweet. It’s spineless. And undemocratic. Make it law that these places are licenced as what they are. It is that simple.
Rosalynd, I’ve never commented on Cif.
Rosalynd – Now don’t pussy foot around, come out and say what you really mean ! Seriously though, you may be more influential if you try and avoid polarising the debate by trying to create a gravitational black hole to attract the debate your way. Perhaps understand that you may not get a perfect world in this regard and that finding common ground for compromise may be necessary.
But what do I know, I’m a bloke and might be influenced by the ‘okay if they are regulated’ argument a bit too much. Whereas the reality is that sex is available in many of these clubs, but the ‘management’ wash their hands of responsibility because it is ‘outsourced’ to the individuals plying their trade in the clubs. And old case shows this.
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-3668188-spearmint-rhino-could-be-shut.do
With a dodgy boss..
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/spearmint-rhino-lapdancing-clubs-boss-is-convicted-fraudster-661018.html
However, rather bizarrely they tried to ‘clean up their act’ by hiring an ex-copper.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/spearmint-rhino-hires-exdetective-to-clean-up-clubs-act-561608.html
Of course, the ‘boss’ probably insists on an ‘immunity’ as the poor sap’s ‘condition of employment’..
Still, we all like to mix with a ‘diverse’ group of people after work, just like those rather romantic mafia films where the ice cream salesmen and the hitmen enjoy pasta and wine and some lovely music to remind them of the old country..
There is no such thing as ‘fair trade’ prostitution. Most women in prostitution do not enter prostitution out or choice. a new law making it a crime to sleep with a woman who has a pimp would go some way towards protecting women and will criminalise the seeking of sexual services. We have become so accustomed to prostitution that we do not see it as a problem. a new law surrounding this issue might force some people to open their eyes to the reality of prostitution.
the lap dancing laws if left to councils to decide if they want to adopt the legislation will lead to areas of the country in which the community has no say, let alone control over where the clubs open and operate. The law needs to be compulsory. The loophole regarding no license requirements if operated less than once a month is a gross oversight. every club or pub that wants to get around applying for a new license and thus giving communities a say, will simply decide to put lap dancing less often. indeed some pubs and clubs may see this as a perfect opportunity to put lap dancing on when they did not before. there would also be nothing to stop individuals putting on live sex shows in their garage so long as it was not more than once a month.
it needs to be clear to the industry too that this is not a license to sell sex. the media are portraying this law change as a way to legally buy sex off the street. this is the definition in law, of a brothel, which is illegal. by referring to the new license as a sex establishment, implies that sex will be available. this certainly needs to be clarified.
the conditions issue on these new licenses needs to be very very clear. at the moment in newquay we have a club that is offering full body contact and this is an interpretation of one of their conditions on their license. despite an appeal at the magistrates court, the club are still offering full body contact as the condition on their license reads that there shall be no full body contact ‘during the performance’. so now the naked girls are giving full body contact (in whatever way they see fit, or the men request) BEFORE or after the performance of ‘dance’. standardised conditions throughout the industry which implicity state that no physical contact should take place at ALL in these clubs would mean that boundaries between sexual encounters and sex are not blurred or breached.
Another report on this topic.
http://www.childtrafficking.com/Docs/poppy_03_lap_dancing_0109.pdf
Clearly this has been written from a specific viewpoint rather than complete objectivity, but it does raise some important issues.
I think it’s important that local people everywhere get to have their say on licensing of lap dancing clubs. Of course the rules should be uniform. I live in an area with many such clubs and as I work in the evenings I generally have no choice but to walk home late past the guys stood outside smoking and be whistled at and remarks made to and on one occassion actually physically grabbed.
When these places started springing up I had no opportunity to have my say even when they were near to schools and community spaces like parks which have now become no-go areas for women after a certain time at night (and frighteningly during office lunch hour times too – who on earth goes to a strip club at lunchtime? and do they really go back to work afterwards and treat their female colleagues respectfully? I doubt it.).
I think it would be an excellent idea to make uniform provision for people affected by new applications to be entitled to their say. I also think that the proposal to make an exemption for venues that have stripping once a month or less is very dangerous and will lead to a string of businesses springing up offering monthly lapdancing nights which will then be advertised in hundreds of pubs and bars where women previously felt safe.
I also think based on my own experience that it would make enormous sense to insist that to be considered as a lap-dancing or strip venue it is necessary to have an outdoor smoking space – a back yard or roof terrace – which isn’t on a public thoroughfare. The rise of the industry coupled with the (I think otherwise very positive) smoking ban creates no-go areas for women and families in my area and all that is needed is for licenses to insist that owners show where smokers will go without spilling out onto public streets.
Dear Lord Norton,
This legislation can’t be implemented soon enough,but it must be applied universally and without exemptions as the lap dancing industry will be very adept at exploiting any loopholes.It is only fair and democratic that people can have a say over the number or siting of lap dancing clubs in their neighbourhood(which at the moment they cannot)so there is no point in introducing legislation that does not have to be adopted by councils.How long before the lap dancing industry is caught offering bribes to councillors so that they won’t utilise the new laws as has happened in some states in America.These clubs make our towns feel unsafe,devalue property,normalise women stripping and writhing around naked in return for money,normalise the degradation of women and normalise men cheating on their partners.There are so many strip clubs in my town centre now,that every time I go to the shops,the theatre,a restaurant,the library or work,I have to walk past one.I think this is totally unacceptable -I never expected to have to live,work and socialise in what is in effect now a red light district.
‘It would make enormous sense to insist that to be considered as a lap-dancing or strip venue it is necessary to have an outdoor smoking space – a back yard or roof terrace – which isn’t on a public thoroughfare.’
What a great idea.
And Ellie I couldn’t aggree more. It IS Cheating. But young women now (I’m 23, I hear it all the time) are told ‘you’re just being silly, it’s something men do so if ur boyfriend does just put up with it’. It’s an emotionally abusive attitude-I’ve seen so many of my friends in tears over this but feeling like they can’t speak up. So regular cheating (by the man) just gradually becomes a ‘normal’ part of their relationship.
So do not tell me these little sleaze pits don’t alienate and promote disrespect bewtween the genders. I’ve seen the evidence cheers.
So why are you using a stereotype and generalisation. Just because some men go to lap dancing clubs you’re extending that to all men as people who visit ‘little sleaze piits’
If its cheating in your opinion, do what you would with any boyfriend who cheats. Come to a decision to either put up with it or leave him. You’re 23 and capable of making a decision.
What matters is not the existence of lap dancing clubs. What matters is illegal activities outside the club, or illegal activities inside the club.
So if people are being harrased outside the club, people are drunk and disorderly, people are sexually harrassing people, then they should be prosecuted, fined and ideally jailed. We have laws already in place to deal with that. Similarly if prostitution is going on in a club, its a brothel and there are laws there too. They would work in the case of a lap dancing club because of the number of people involved. You could even shut down some of the other brothels. Sheapard’s Market is an example where there are brothels in London openly operating.
Nick
I’m amazed this is even a question. Of course communities all over the country should have the chance to say what goes on in their areas. Of course a law shouldn’t leave loopholes. Either lap dancing needs recognising as a sexual encounter (which for me is a total no-brainer, it obviously is) or it doesn’t. It doesn’t need to be recognised as what it is a bit, but then it isn’t a bit. That is crazy. Why does something cease to be a sexual encounter because it only happens once a month?! That is totally nonsensical.
There’s parallels in the attempt to stop brewery monopolies in our city centres, which led directly to super-pub monopolies. Why leave a loop hole there ready to be exploited, so that the industry just changes to respond to this, therefore not really doing anything about it at all?
Either something is wrong or it isn’t.
Troika, I hope your a young man under the age of 25. This would explain a lot of why you don’t understand why :Lap Dancing and the entire sex industry degrades women.
The trouble is though that you seem to think that because you don’t udnerstand something, such as a moral objection to a lap dance club, then that means there is no logical, rational reason for such things to be opposed. You did the same to me when you ‘Tried to engage” in the whole age of consent thread by demanding I comply with you and claiming I had a view of sex I never said I had. You don’t understand what my view of sex is, or anyone else’s, except by what you’ve read in the works of blatantly immoral men like Richard Dawkins. ( Yes he is immoral.)
Zarove,
I think I’m on fairly safe ground saying Professor Dawkins has not put forward the view there should be more Lap Dancing clubs. I don’t think mentioning him brings anything to the argument.
To address the wider point about morals is the problem of absolutes. Everyone has their own set of moral values they live by and the best we can hope for is they share enough common values for society to trundle on harmoniously. As we don’t have a set of absolutes everyone can agree on all we have to allow for the fact that different people have differing opinions about what is or isn’t moral. While the law can play a part in shaping the shared beliefs we follow as a country we can’t expect to do too much.
In this case I think the law needs to concentrate on protecting the workers and allowing an accountable local voice to look after the interests of the residents. The arguments about the morality should be left to the campaigners who can influence public opinion as part of the normal social discourse of a liberal democracy.
I didnt mean to submit that early, so to finish.
You also think that people who disagree must see sex as only pleasurabe to one prson, or limit it to procreation, or as simethign dirty to be avoided. You read into other peopels statements these beelifs necause this is what you’ve been told pothers think, even though they haven’t, and hten spout off on how tyou dont need to respect other peples beleifs.
Well, you don’t even seem to understand those beleifs. You understand the attacks on those beleifs by those hostile to them.
You also seem oblivious to any rationale that they have and seem to think there is none, when in fact the arguments are well thought out.
The reason lap Dancing, and sex work in general, degrades women is because it lets men buy them and sell them as mere objects. They don’t thereafter see the woman, be it a lapdancer or a prostitute, as a human being wiht the same thoughts and asperations as they have whith whom they simply entered a consensual contract with, they see them as a mere thing that exists only to gratify them. No Troika, Im not sauying sex isnt fun or shoudlnt be fun, but I am sayingthat sex shudln’t be soley about gratifyong one persons lusts at the expence of another.
Numerous studies exist that show the dangers of hose in the sex trade. Emotional and physical health concerns alone mitigatr agaisn tht ehwole ” I dont see anythign wrong iwth it” and “Peopel sell their labout and houghts all the time” routine you employ here.
Women in the sex trade who sell their bodies also sell their souls. (No athiestic rantign about me adding mystesism here lad.)
They arent respected, they arent seen as people, they are, as I said baove, jhust seen as objects there to sate the lusts of whatever man pays them.
They arent treated with dignity and respect by those men, but as toys.
Do you really not undertsand how that is, in the end, unhealthy?
Also, men who frequent such Establishments, or who frequent prostitutes, or use pornography, dont tend to seperate those sorts of thipughts for hte woman they just bought form women in general, and will grow to objectify all women. They see htem all as existant to give them, personally, pelasure. No Troika, I am not sayign sex isnt fun or shoudlnt be, Im sayign that seeking the fun of sex in an exploitive way that treats the other party as an object that exists only to make you happy is wrong.
Perhaps ypu shpul rehtink your own positions a bit. Examine your beleifs.
‘And the usual boring argument of what about the Chippendales/burlesque???????? These are not encounters. There is a heck of a lot of difference between taking ur clothes off with ur mates on a stage meters away from the audience and in a sweaty, drunk aggressive man’s hard-on bedecked lap isn’t there? I mean, really. It’s not such a difficult distinction to understand is it?’
You seem to have completely failed to understand my point, which is that the new law, if applied across the board and without exceptions, probably WONT distinguish between lap dancing and things like burlesque acts and the Chippendales. For instance, Camden council has already told one venue which puts on burlesque nights that it will have to apply for a ’sex encounter’ license.
‘Can anyone imagine a place where you could pay black people dressed as Golliwogs £10 to talk in a funny ‘Yessum’ accent for hateful racists to laugh at? No, it would be truly disgusting, would degrade all black people and would, rightfully, never be allowed…….And strip-clubs are set up in the exact same way-the women must play out offensive stereotypes and degrade one gender with regards to another in the name of market-forces.’
This analogy fails because a) the fact that a woman is being paid to take her clothes off for a man does not necessarily send out any negative message about women, and b) it is simply a fact that men are naturally aroused by looking at women’s bodies, and this has nothing to do with misogyny or sexism.
‘Men who go to strip-clubs are scared of real female sexuality…..They kid themselves the women enjoy it and earn good money so they don’t have to feel like the exploitative inadequets they are.’
Are you trying to allude here to the fact that some of them visting lap dancing clubs may have difficulties in forming normal sexual relationships ? In that case, surely such men need to be given help to overcome those problems, not put down because of them ?
In fact, I’d argue that in the vast majority of cases where someone has serious difficulties in forming normal personal relationships, that that person should be regarded as having a social disability. And I hope that you’d agree that it’s as unacceptable to abuse or put someone down for having a social disability as it is to abuse/put someone down for having a physical or learning disability.
Finally, if someone does have a disability which is stopping them from forming normal sexual relationships, then it’s especially important that that person should be able to satisfy their sexual desires in other ways, such as by being able to buy sexual services, visit establishments such as lap dancing clubs, and having access to pornography.
Dear Lord Norton,
I believe that the rights of local people should be uniform across the country, in order that they can have an influence on the community in which they live, rather than an opt-out clause, which would leave them effectively powerless.
As a parent, hoping to encourage my child to seek and enjoy healthy and supportive relationships around which to express her sexuality during adulthood, it is very alarming when those who seek to exploit sexuality (a very lucrative venture because of the addictive nature of the sex industry for a significant percentage of the population), by treating ’sex’ as something separate from the people who are performing it or a commodity in its own right – are now spamming Twitter, Facebook, Email, are advertising on freeview TV, etc and also want the freedom to set up venues for a much more intimate ’service’ of the lap-dance -, in communities where ever they want.
We can simply avoid having a computer or television at home if we don’t want exposure to most of this, but we can’t avoid a lap-dancing club, or lap-dancing ‘night’ that sets up in our communities, unless we are given the legal powers to do so.
I am not prudish, old-fashioned or anti-sex, but I am strongly opposed to the current trend for giving license to minority of those who want to force an empty, shallow, sexually unequal, exploitative and untruthful caricature of human sexuality upon the majority… so they can make MONEY MONEY MONEY.
Please give us little people the power to shape our own lives.
After all, what’s the harm in the tiny minority of people who want to own, work in or frequent these places, having to travel out of the communities that don’t want the premises, in order to visit them? Surely if there’s some control over where and how many are set up, everyone’s a winner?
In other words, we need cornershops on our doorsteps, but, come on, lap-dancing is not a daily essential that we need on or doorstep too!
Alex, I was making a reference to another post. Troika’s arguments about how peopel who oppose lap dancing or sex work ties to his beleif that peopel who oppose ocnraception are “Wicked, Ignorant, or stupid” and how he thinks the moral argum,ents agaisnt such thinngs are rooted in our inability to come to terms wiht out sexuality, another thing he gleaned from Dawkins, and the New Atheists in general.
Troika also seems not to have read any other poitn fo view and treats htem with contemot, even if he doesnt udnerstand htem. In the same threrad he pushe donto me beelifs I didnt actulaly hold simly because tis hwat he has been taught peoole think like.
I brign Dawkisn up simply because Troika does, though he doenst mntion him by name.
The Policing and Crime Bill proposals have two very serious flaws and they are:
The proposed new method of licensing lap dancing clubs will be optional for local authorities which means this system will not be mandatory for all local authorities. The Sex Industry which of course has lap dancing clubs as a central part of promoting men’s sexual exploitation of women as well as ‘normalising’ male demand for women’s bodies – ergo prostitution.
Local communities will not be allowed a mandatory say in whether or not yet more lap dancing clubs should open in their area. Women working as ‘lap dancers’ will continue to be subjected to male exploitation and abuse, because owners of these clubs will move their businesses to other areas wherein local authorities will not enforce the (if passed) voluntary licensing method.
The proposals also exempt so-called ‘entertainment venues’ which only hold lap dancing less than once a month. This will enable pubs and bars to hold ‘lap dancing for male sexual entertainment safe in the knowledge they will not be subject to having to hold a licence. The result will be yet more lap dancing clubs opening all catering to men’s sexual entertainment and further normalising the now commonly held view, that women are in fact men’s dehumanised sexualised commodities.
I therefore strongly urge you to speak in favour of the amendments which will ensure reforms are applied universally and do not contain any ‘frequency-based exemption.’
Baroness Joyce Gould will be tabling these amendments during Report Stage of the Policing and Crime Bill on 3rd and 4th Novembeer, 2009.
Unless these amendments are passed Clause 26 of the Policing and Crime Bill will contain significant loopholes, thereby missing a crucial opportunity to challenge and tackle the widespread issue of male commercial sexual exploitation and widespread male sexual abuse of women and girls. Reducing women to men’s sexualised commodities is not about ‘individual choice’ but is in fact about enforcing pseudo male sex right to women and girls.
I would be very grateful to see lapdancing clubs or lapdancing nights in bars being fully recognised as sexual encounters. Payment by men for sexual pleasure demands closer regulation than bars or restaurants; this would provide further protection to the women working in the venues as well as to women living and passing by the venues at night – including myself – who often feel highly intimidated by these venues and the men who visit them.
I also agree that lap dancing clubs and any situation where a woman’s body can be bought or viewed for cash are degrading and potentially dangerous, as this encourages some men to view women as objects for sexual gratification only. I do not think this of all men, but I believe it is a real issue – shown by the statistic that one in four women in the UK will be sexually assaulted during their lifetimes. This has already happened to me in the UK.
However, this is not a moral debate over whether these clubs should be closed or whether women want or do not want to work in this area. The focus should be on uniform legislation to make sure an area of potential abuse and exploitation is well-regulated. To let local authorities decide not to do this – potentially with financial incentives to let these venues carry on without closer, costly monitoring – would potentially put more women at risk of abuse.
The proposed licensing process should not be optional. All citizens should have equal right to have a say in the opening or not of these places in their hometowns. All venues, no matter what the frequency of lap-dancing events should be included. Either lap dancing is a sex encounter activity or it isn’t and from what I hear from the men at work who go to such places, they definitely are sex encounter establishments.
The provision should be uniform. Lap dancing clubs normalise the sexual objectification of women. Men and women deserve to be able to protest the opening of lap-dancing club in their area and not be subjected to a postcode lottery in order to do so.
HAHA!
Perfectly Cromulent, you kill me.
Yeah, if someone is having trouble forming a sexual relationship with a real woman then going in a strip club to buy women pretending to like them is really gonna ‘help’ them with this isn’t it?
If these places didn’t exist, these men wouldn’t have pathetic ideas about how women ’should’ act and would perhaps be given more of a push to talk to women they know they can’t buy, so yes, strip clubs dissapearing would help these sad sacks too.
As for those with physical disabilities, this is a difficult one for me as I can see your point, but I just don’t believe that anyone has the right to buy/coerce the consent of another human. I know a lot of serverely disabled people (inc my dad) who are in perfectly loving relationships that don’t involve coercion, so again I don’t think it would be justified.
Oh and btw, no one has a RIGHT to sex actually, it’s a priveledge. Classic male entitlment being shown there-you’re giving yourself away.
This analogy fails because a) the fact that a woman is being paid to take her clothes off for a man does not necessarily send out any negative message about women, and b) it is simply a fact that men are naturally aroused by looking at women’s bodies, and this has nothing to do with misogyny or sexism.
So sending out the message that women are just a commodity to be bought has nothing to do with misogyny and doesn’t send out negative messages about women?
This has to be the most naive statement ever.
Please please explain to me how this doesn’t send out negative messages about women-I’ve gotta hear this. Women are being effectively bought in these places for less than the price of a round of drinks-how is that not misogynistic?
Men go into these places specifically so they can treat women boorishly-the grubby tenners in their back-pockets apparently giving them the ‘right’ to do this. They like the power and the feeling of getting someone to do something they know they don’t really want to do. It’s an incredibly unhealthy desire being encouraged here.
It satifies no other ‘desire’ as you don’t get finished off, so to speak.
Millions of pounds of taxpayers money has been poured into the anti-lapdancing lobby: Eaves: 3.6 million pounds; Fawcett Society: 62,886 pounds last year alone.
Object’s anti lap dancing campaign has received substantial donations:
£18,000 from Esmee Fairbairn Foundation http://www.esmeefairbairn.org.uk/grants2009/main.html
£34,850 from The Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust http://www.jrrt.org.uk/index.php?page=grants-awarded
Object is a curious organisation. It describes itself as a “charitable organisation” and it solicits donations from the public, yet it does not appear to be a registered charity. They do not appear to publish any accounts. http://www.object.org.uk/index.php/about-us
Chief Inspector Adrian Studd, of the Metropolitan Police clubs and vice unit told the Commons culture committee in October 2008:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7670006.stm
clubs were usually “well-run” and had a “high staff ratio to customers”.
their customers are usually well-behaved
local residents often wanted officers to take action on “moral” grounds.
“Often people look for a moral decision, which is sometimes very difficult for police and local authorities to make,”
He added: “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.”
Oh dear, Reason, are you worried that you are ending up on the wrong side of the argument ??
I feel intimidated by the hollers and rude comments I hear from men outside lap dancing clubs. I dread walking in front of those establishments. I do not feel safe walking home at night. For that reason, I do not believe the Licencing Bill should be optional for councils, and support Object with their campaign.
The obvious question, why not report them to the police so they can use the existing laws to deal with the problem?
If you don’t there is only anecdotal evidence.
If you don’t you aren’t trying to solve the problem. It will move elsewhere.
Rosalynd, you have made two replies to my comments. I will respond to one of your replies at a future time. I will respond to your other comment here:
You said ‘So sending out the message that women are just a commodity to be bought has nothing to do with misogyny and doesn’t send out negative messages about women ?’
My reply: The fact that it’s possible to buy a sexual service from a woman (if one considers a lap-dance to be such) does not send out the message that ‘women are just a commodity to be bought’.
You said ‘Women are being effectively bought in these places for less than the price of a round of drinks-how is that not misogynistic ?’
My reply: Women are not bought in lap-dancing clubs. Rather, a service is being bought which the dancers are voluntarily providing.
You said ‘Men go into these places specifically so they can treat women boorishly……They like the power and the feeling of getting someone to do something they know they don’t really want to do. It’s an incredibly unhealthy desire being encouraged here…..It satifies no other ‘desire’ as you don’t get finished off, so to speak.’
My reply: It’s quite possible for a man to get sexual pleasure (even without being ‘finished off’!) just by looking at a woman’s body. This is, in my view, a perfectly healthy form of sexual behaviour. It has nothing to do with wanting ‘the feeling of getting someone to do something they know they don’t really want to do.’ Neither does it have anything to do with being sexist or misogynistic.
A further point. One of the reasons that’s been given for the new lap dancing legislation is that it’s needed because of the poor working conditions in lap dancing clubs. However:
1) This legislation doesn’t, as far as I’m aware, improve the working conditions of lap dancers at all.
2) If there was concern (for example) about the working conditions of people working in restaraunts, it’s unlikely that the government would respond with laws making it more difficult to open restaraunts !
3) If this new legislation achieves the goal of reducing the number of lap dancing clubs in operation, then this means that women who want to work as lap dancers will have fewer options as to where they can work. And this means that they may have to accept working in clubs with POORER working conditions !
And if the proposed legislation is tightened even further, so that there are even fewer places in which dancers can work, then this is going to make the problem even worse.
Personally, I think, for once, there is a case for the Houses of Parliament, built by Scott’s genius but ingeniously sold as a penguin’s masterpiece, to be rendered unto rubble and a great cosmic JCB in the sky to descendeth and sweep that resulting into the adjoining tributary of the English Channel.
When Harriet Harman ponces about her bloody London with her god almighty Poppy Project she is systematically setting about the destruction of any remaining hopes of Labour winning a fourth term until perhaps at least a millennium’s time anywhere else other than London.
Look, let’s get it straight, London. In the shape of the Palace of Westminster’s now in, I wouldn’t let London run my bath, let alone my country.
Did anyone notice what Labour’s Oh So Precious Sex Discrimination Act 1979 actually DID for women’s rights and safety?
Basically, nice things hypohetically mostly in office environments. On the ground, its actual effects for actual women were devastating. There were things on BR called shoppawaydays as I recall which allowed day returns for women to London from many places almost free, probably £10 or so from Liverpool but certainly set at a nominal amount.
OK, you had to get the right trains and times but it’s immediate effect was to deny most women in Britain a viable means of actually seeing their nation’s capital mostly in their lifetimes for D and E socioeconomic groupings and a goodly number of C2s.
A similar effect was the organised disappearance of ‘ladies rooms’ at stations. OK the terminology was twee, perhaps women’s areas today would do, but with them the women of 1979 felt, I think, a lot safer than they do on today’s railways. They aren’t there because cheap fares couldn’t be extended to men, neither could men’s rooms, under the SDA because BR couldn’t afford it and anyway there wasn’t the platform space which conveniently got used for other things.
Ultimately, HH has to face facts. The truth is, a woman has a right to do what she wants with her own body. If she chooses to sell it for money, or material to make men happy to see it, that’s her decision, not Government’s, and certainly not any Government that allows HH to get within one
continent either way of my country.
As things are it would do well for London to remember it is only the capital of a big country, which it has never, ever, done a decent job of representing in a Parliament, and the atom bombs lie, ultimately, in the provinces.
London has its proper place in Britain, which now has become out of Britain. He who own the country hath the right, sensibly speaking, to put a air blocade on London, Berlin style, and create the London Air Lift for Londoners, charging people to visit it and all proceeds to the south east.
The message is coming loud and clear from London that if it comes from London it’s clearly bad for Britain and should be drowned in the nearest available ship canal quickly. It’s only possible chance of survival is that it might be a genuine working class Londoner, in which case it you can always fish him out again afterwards because it’s the only thing worth saving London could possibly contain. Little bits might be ify, Tate Modern possibly, National Poetry Gallery definitely, in fact, generally any remaining infrastructure that survives Harman and her distinctly BNP-looking bloody women’s movement.
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.
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.