My earlier post on the licensing of lap dancing clubs continues to receive comments and is the first post on the blog to attract responses running into three figures. There have been a good many comments from people who have not previously contributed to the blog and several readers have used the opportunity to engage in debate on the topic. The post was also reached by one reader who used the search question: ‘Is lap dancing normal?’ I thought it was quite an intriguing question.
The amendments relating to lap dancing will come up next week on Report stage of the Policing and Crime Bill. Between now and then I will be re-reading all the comments on the post as well as all the letters that I have received on the subject. I have found the comments on the post the most useful. The letters have not added much to my knowledge of the subject whereas I have learned a lot from the exchanges between readers. I plan to listen to the debate but I will do so far better informed than I was before I posted my request for readers’ comments.
The Bill also covers the issue of prostitution, the other contentious issue on which I promised to invite readers’ comments. A separate post will follow shortly.
Dear Lord Norton,
As you are now, and most probably were all along all too well aware, debates on the subjects of lap dancing and prostitution (or ’sex work’) tend to generate more heat than light in the present atmosphere.
Your posting here, to put us under “starter’s orders“ as it were for the main event, perhaps gives us time to all reflect and take a deep breath!
I cannot help but remark that we (I certainly include myself in this) who provide comments may have failed to live up to our mandate in your original posting on drugs.
Your words were, if I may be so bold as to quote them:
“Expressions of opinion are fine, but unlikely to be persuasive: it is the arguments I am interested in, especially any informed arguments not normally heard. I don’t have an interest to declare in any of the issues. My only interest is in determining what is in the public interest.”
I myself see you primarily as an academic. I think many of the arguments presented in the lap dancing debate may be very familiar to you. I shall refrain from commenting at this stage, as I have determined to go through the lap dancing debate with a fine tooth comb and reply to some of the points made fully on my own blog but add some context elements on the Lap dancing post in Lords of the Blog, subject of course to moderation.
I have so far reached only the halfway stage in my inspection of the many comments the lap dancing post has generated.
At this stage, I would submit two US papers I myself consider key to understanding the lap dancing comments, and that I anticipate as being key to understanding the forthcoming prostitution/ sex work series of comments.
The first is a paper by Sarah Bromberg on the subject of feminist approaches to prostitution.
I know little of the author, but this appears to be a well researched piece of work with many references.
Her paper examines the ’radical feminist’ perspective, which, in my submission, dominates many opponents’ thinking on the subject of lap dancing clubs, and which I anticipate dominating the prohibitionist perspective on prostitution/ sex work.
She compares this perspective with other valid forms of feminist thinking towards prostitution/ sex work, notably liberal feminism, which sees the matter entirely differently and which may be said to command the opposite side of the argument, perhaps more akin to the thinking of the Adam Smith Institute, whose Dr Eamonn Butler describes it as a “caring profession.“
Various other approaches such as socialist feminism and Marxist feminism appear. Some have likened these approaches to the view of the English Collective of Prostitutes (ECP), but please understand the ECP stance is their own and , as sex workers, they must be allowed to speak for themselves. Sex workers’ own views on their own area of expertise are often ignored and should be carefully considered more often than is commonly recognised.
Sarah Bromberg’s paper is at:
http://www.feministissues.com/index.html
My one criticism would be that I don’t quite understand why one has to be a feminist to adopt these positions, but that’s my personal view.
The second paper is the work of Ron Weitzer, and is entitled “Flawed Theory and Method in Studies of Prostitution.”
A critique of the methodology employed in the work of certain key academics influencing the prostitution/ sex work/ human trafficking/ lap dancing debate internationally, it questions much of the academic approaches which underpin the philosophy of key stakeholders in the US and globally, and which have been allowed to dominate, amongst others, the UK Government position, largely through the campaigning and lobbying work of the Eaves/Poppy NGO.
Ron Weitzer is Professor of Sociology at George Washington University.
http://www.gwu.edu/~soc/faculty/weitzer.cfm
His paper is entitled: “Flawed Theory and Method in Studies of Prostitution” and is downloadable or can be viewed here:
http://www.sexworkeurope.org/site/index.php?option=com_docman&task=doc_details&gid=28&Itemid=198
I feel slightly sad that these are each US academic papers. In fact, the UK boasts some of the finest academics the world has to offer on the subject of sex work research, certainly potentially from a multi-disciplinary perspective.
I hope very much that I and others can persuade them to participate in the forthcoming Lords of the Blog post.
At this stage, I would just like to choose a wonderful schoolboy howler picked from our lap dancing comments which I hope can leave the fiercest of opponents on these issues with something to smile about.
I think it best not to mention the author at this stage, but assure everyone it’s genuine.
It reads:
“Numerous studies exist that show the dangers of hose in the sex trade.”
Ah now. The Lords of the Blog has many things, but can it find a good cartoonist?
What a relief to read a (mostly) balanced, unsensationalised discussion regarding exotic dancing. I want to add a dancer’s voice.
I have been working as an exotic dancer (‘stripper’, ‘pole dancer’, ‘burlesque artiste’, ‘lap dancer’ – done them all) for the past seven years in strip pubs and clubs in and around London. I am a member of performers’ union Equity, am self-employed, paying tax, and have worked hard to build myself as a business.
The entertainment I provide is that of erotic fantasy. Whilst clearly in the adult sphere of entertainment, it is not a ‘sex encounter’ and I don’t wish to be labelled as a ‘sex worker’. I, AND MY DANCE COLLEAGUES, ARE NOT ‘SEX ENCOUNTER WORKERS’. Use of the terms ‘sex encounter’ and ‘sex encounter establishment’ gives the wrong expectation of the work we do and the service we provide. Just as if an actress performs a sex scene in a film that does not make her a ‘sex worker’, we dancers are not sex workers.
I am adding to this discussion as Tuesday’s debate draws near to plead with you not to make our currently safe, legal and enjoyable work unsafe, legally shady and unenjoyable.
This is what will happen if the clauses in Section 26 of the Bill 2009 are passed. These provisions will lead to many good, well-run strip venues closing down (councils may decide to set as zero the number of licenses to grant, and the costs will be prohibitively high); and I have no doubt that many underground, less well-run alternatives will open under the radar.
The venues which currently employ us are sufficiently covered by the Licensing Act 2003, the provisions of which should be stringently applied. When this entire ‘lap dancing’ debate began, with MP Roberta Blackman-Woods’ Ten Minute Rule Bill, she herself acknowledged any inadequacies in the current system: “might partly be a lack of confidence among local authorities about how to use the Act, including over-cautious legal guidance” (http://www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=2008-06-18d.947.0).
Please, apply exisiting legislative powers and associated laws more stringently, and pull back from pushing the industry and its workers towards a shadier area of which it is not part.
Should it be decided extra legislation MUST be applied, ‘sex encounter’ is an inappropriate and dangerous term to use. I understand ‘Adult Entertainment’ – Equity’s choice – has been rejected as being vague, as it could apply to entertainment with a violent or horrific bent. ‘Erotic Entertainment’ could surely be an option? This describes what we provide.
Economically, times are difficult, for all of us – both in my industry and nation-wide. Dancers, striptease agency owners, venue managers and staff, are all clinging on and working hard to make a living despite the current challenges; in a legal industry which has never been proven to do any harm. Please do not make the situation even harder for us.
I and my fellow dancers will await the House’s decision nervously but hopefully this week.
I don’t think there is such a clear bright dividing line between “erotic” and “sexual” as you might like.
Nonetheless, I appreciate the concerns. At present dancers are not pushed into the seedy half-legal twilight that plagues much of prostitution. This bill does indeed threaten to do that, exposing dancers to more threats of coercion and abuse and doing nothing to help them whatsoever.
The solution, I believe, is however not to abandon the prostitutes and save the lapdancers, but to acknowledge that Sex Work is Work. Other people’s moralising, controlling objections to it and attempts to “save” women from their own fecklessness were wrong in the 19th century and are still wrong now.
what do you think of the lap dancing teachers that got fired?
http://www.failpick.com/2010/2/the-cool-teacher-dance/
Other than that it has nothing to do with the employment and rights of actual working dancers in the UK, you mean?