City Another Take on the Strip-Club Referendum
posted by on November 14 at 12:14 PM
Which I’m going to reproduce almost in its entirety, because I think it’s an interesting, provocative alternative take (alternative, that is, to the position of this paper.). Via Twisty at I Blame the Patriarchy:
The portion of the Referendum 1 to which the good townsfolk most strenuously objected was a restriction called the “4-Foot Rule”. This regulation would have kept strippers from coming within groping distance of their clients (although the knuckledraggers, with their longer arms, might still have had a shot), thus putting the kibosh on, as one journalist so wistfully put it, “strippers overflowing from their lingerie … [leading] men by the hand to dark booths for a dance.” [..] According to the referendum’s vociferous opponents, the lap dance is no mere gentlemen’s entertainment. No. The lap dance is the physical expression of Jeffersonian political idealism. It is what our boys are fighting for. It is woven into the very fabric of Old Glory.The Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports that the aforementioned vociferous opponents were in fact a contingent of Seattle strip club owners/organized crime enthusiasts i.e. men who sell women for a living who spent almost a million smackeroos**** on their campaign. Their tireless efforts successfully persuaded voters (not that the average enflanneled yay-hoo needs much persuasion to view strip clubs as elemental to American dudeship) that a male groin without 24-hour access to abused, degraded, naked women constitutes a travesty so egregious that it must be construed as nothing less than an infringement on the right to free speech.
The awesomeness of strip clubs is a topic irresistible to the sort of male blogger who uses the word “awesome.” Thus there ensued some lame hipster bloviating by Dan Savage fanboy James at Seattlest […] Quoth James, using the Royal We that we find so tiresome in our corporate proto-journalisto bloggers, “We’re voting no on Ref. 1 because we want the occasional lap dance. They’re sexy! They’re fun! […]
Not surprisingly, James appears not to have considered that strippers are sentient beings. But then a stripper wrote in to Seattlest to complain about James’ dudely entitled idea of sexyfun, and James posted it.
“Strippers,” she wrote, “really hate the rise in lapdances and private room experiences that johns like you are increasingly demanding from us to have your `fun’. If imposing a four-foot rule keeps me from having one more asshole lick me, bite me, jam his fingers into me, rip my costume or otherwise act like an entitled fuckface, then four-foot rule it is. Asking you little boys nicely to stop hasn’t been working, and the last time I complained the manager laughed in my face and said, `You don’t have to work here, lots of girls will be happy to take a finger up the ass for what you’re getting paid.’”
James lost no time in conducting an email interview with his anonymous penpal in which she failed, alas, to effuse sufficient enthusiasm for her work. The resulting comments are unanimously venomous and fall into two categories:
• Shut-The-Fuck- Up -You-Stupid-Whore: “You make 100 to 300 bucks an hour? I think you should shut the fuck up and ride the dick like a good girl, or quit the business and go legit making far less. Either way, shut the fuck up” (a sub-category is Who-Cares-If-You-Were- Abused -As-A-Child-Shut-The-Fuck-Up).
• She-Is-Obviously-Not - A-Real-Stripper-Because - Real-Strippers-Love-Being-Groped: “So, the consensus on Fark (fark.com) is that this interview has never taken place, the interviewee (lol) is not a stripper but a man-hating feminist.”
In other words, men are entitled to abuse and degrade women as long as they pay them, and any sex worker who says different is a stinking feminist impostor.
“Strippers,” she wrote, “really hate the rise in lapdances...
That's probably what I would hate about lapdances, too.
I think the real truth lies somewhere between the objectified victim stripper and the crazed nympho slut stripper. But this chick doesn't realize that either.
Bring on the boobies. Neo puritans go home.
I've known far too many strippers to think this woman is representative. There are shitty parts to damn near any job, but almost all the strippers I knew viewed it as a job that paid well, had decent hours, and wasn't too demanding.
I'm not buying it. The blogger tries to paint the pro-strip club rules camp as "abused strippers who are getting molested by 'johns'", while the anti-strip club rules camp as "shut up bitch and take it". Certainly both camps have both those elements, but I think they are an extremely small minority. As the blogger says, strippers are sentient beings and can use their brains to either (a) get the groping patron tossed (I'd bet most clubs would toss the guy) or (b) quit the job she detests. And while there are assholes who go to strip clubs, most are normal guys paying to see a naked woman and get turned on. The blogger isn't provocative, but simplistic, imo.
100 to 300 an hour?
I guess guys who've been drinking and are paying that much are gonna be pushing the asshole envelope a bit...
She could always go three stooges on em if it bugs her that much.
Ah, Twisty's rants. Anytime I start thinking I'm an independent person with free will and choices to make, I just go read one of Twisty's rants and she reminds me that I! Am! A! Victim! Of the Man!
I wasn't crazy about being a stripper, either. But I certainly didn't feel like I was being raped or assaulted, just really irritated. And since no one was holding a gun to my head to make me be one, I quit and got a better job.
anyone who thinks that men are the empowered ones at a strip club obviously haven't ever been in one. a fool and his money...
If someone doesn’t want to be a stripper or do lap dances, then don’t. It’s that simple.
What people are objecting to through their vote are the prudish, anti-sex police demanding the right to control the behavior of consenting adults.
Oh, lord, Twisty. I'll second what Mistress Matisse said -- and if you really want a fun time, read her entry on blowjobs and all the comments that followed. Until I'd read all that, I had no idea that enjoying giving head just makes you a dumb, whoreish, brainwashed tool of the patriarchy.
Bear in mind that Twisty's argument is based on her assertion that "sexual repression doesn’t fucking exist."
In addition to strip clubs, she has also come out against blowjobs, breast cancer awareness campaigns and "reproduction." Her FAQ also points out that she is a "fictional character."
So, you know, grain of salt and all that.
Its funny that this blogger focused on the four foot aspect of the proposed legislation; my beef was actually with the lighting requirements. Nothing says sexy like cafeteria lighting and seeing every pimple on a stripper's ass.
Under those rules, it's almost optimal to stay four feet away.
Whoopty-doo. As mentioned, this is the same woman who declared fellatio an evil tool of the Patriarchy (TM), and apparently won't be happy until every woman out there is having sex the way she knows they're supposed to. And how about this lovely comment from that entry ...
Women should picket these places, the way wingers picket abortion clinics, harassing the “customers” as they go in. If that fails, protesters may have to resurrect Carrie Nation and get busy smashing things.
Ah, those fun-lovin' radfems.
PC bullshit at its finest.
Not that strip clubs are wholesome places run by honorable people, mind you, but this infantalizing of the economic choices grown woment make is just as infantalizing as anti-choice Jeebofascists trying to dictate what happens in other people's wombs.
I was going to call Twisty a blow hard, but I guess he doesn't go for such things.
thank you charles. The strip club is the best place to see EVERYONE being exploited. By their own choice. The bottom line is, if one thinks that a lap dance is bad/dangerous/immoral/etc, that person should by all means not patronize/work at a strip club.
What Matisse said. Also, I think the efforts of the campaigners weren't really what made the difference here. Voters weren't going for this, regardless of the money thrown at advertising, etc.
Her assertion is not that "blow jobs are an evil tool of the patriarchy," but that sex acts are not objectively empowering for women. Give all the head you want, gals, but PLEASE don't tell that is where your politics begin and end.
Her assertion is not that "blow jobs are an evil tool of the patriarchy," but that sex acts are not objectively empowering for women. Give all the head you want, gals, but PLEASE don't tell me that is where your politics begin and end.
Her assertion is not that "blow jobs are an evil tool of the patriarchy," but that sex acts are not objectively empowering for women. Give all the head you want, gals, but PLEASE don't tell me that is where your politics begin and end.
Stripping leads directly to abortion. While I am pro-choice and pro-womyn, I don't think our daughters should be exposed to stripping because of self-esteem issues.
I have never had much sensitivity in my vagina, and only recently discovered the cleansing purity of the female orgasm.
Some "economic choices" are only available to middle class people who can afford them.
so strippers are slaves now?
"but that sex acts are not objectively empowering for women."
Gee, musta missed that subtle point in the middle of all her derisive talk about how putting a "funk-filled bratwurst" in your mouth is "submissive sexbot drudgery". Thanks for telling us what we're supposed to enjoy, Twisty. Where would we all be without you?
@15 - word
I was against Ref.1 because it hurts the strippers themselves, and not the mob-bosses that run the clubs. I'm assuming that Ref.1 was a ham-handed attempt to get back at the mob for Strippergate. But since the girls have to pay the house for their "right" to dance (they're "independant contractors", you know), the house will always get paid. If the strippers get paid less due to stadium-lighting and a 4-foot-rule, then they are the ones who go home poorer, not the schmucks who run the clubs.
As to Twisty, sure, there's certainly an element of strip-clubs reinforcing idiots' senses of sexual entitlement and normalizing bozo behaviour... but I don't really think that's what Ref.1 was about.
You want to improve conditions for strippers? Remove the strip club moratorium and allow more women-owned places like the Lusty Lady to open up. They at least treat their girls with more respect, AND the peep-show venue protects them from groping assholes.
Last Sunday morning on ABC's "This Week" George Will, Cokie Roberts and Sam Donaldson had a hearty round of belly laughs at Seattle's expense when someone brought up the strip club intiative - the PC nanny-state, Seattleite stereotype came to life for the country to see.
embrace the time-honored synergy of boobies and booze. Or schlongs and booze, for those that have an interest.
"funk-filled bratwurst"
Well, the stuff isn't exactly a creme brulee.
And while I wouldn't go so far as to call it drudgery, I am not so naive that I'd tell myself that giving my boyfriend an orgasm is an unprecedented feat of female empowerment that I would fully enjoy regardless of who the serviced wang was attached to.
still and all:
"a male groin without 24-hour access to abused, degraded, naked women constitutes a travesty so egregious that it must be construed as nothing less than an infringement on the right to free speech."
is a really smart point to make. obviously, lap dances shouldn't be illegal, but there's also more to say than whether this is about the holy terrain of free speech. the outrage isn't that people disagree; it's that the level of discussion requires you to be only for or only against.
though the scale is DEFINITELY NOT EQUAL, the abortion "debate" is the same way. pro-choice and pro-life are a false dichotomy.
"Ah, those fun-lovin' radfems."
Yes! I demand that the feminist revolution be the first to not hurt anyone's feelings or bum anyone's stone!
Some women can't handle/don't like stripping, some can and do (enjoy the money, at least). I've known lots of strippers, and most bitch about the job. But they keep it in perspective, and they get out when they can. None of the strippers I've known -- not one -- was enslaved. They made their choices, got on with it, and bitched up a storm to blow off steam.
Oh, and some of the strippers I've known -- including the ones giving lap dances -- were men.
LOL feminazis.
No paraphrasing of Rush Limbaugh, please. Let's keep the discourse somewhat elevated/coherent.
I don't know, if someone plays right into that drug-addled fat fuck's worldview, it's fair game to call it out (if only to ensure that progressives have plausible deniability when Rethugs try and paint us with the same PC broad brush).
Fair enough. But in that drug-addled fat fuck's world view, even the mildest feminist sentiment makes you a mean hairy lesbian (no offense to mean hairy lesbians intended. It's terrible that their ilk have been reduced to a shock jock shorthand pejorative). That said, Twisty is articulate and clearly well-educated. This is not to say that I agree with everything she says, but it's insulting to dismiss her as a caricature simply because her politics are "radical" (I use this term with extreme caution, since these days it seems radical for a female to call herself a feminist at all).
it's kind of hard for me to follow your logic OFTNO when she insults and characterizes an entire gender left and right in each post. insulting caricatures is her trademark, so you can hardly blame people for dismissing her out of hand. she's not having a dialogue; it's a monologue. ;)
That said, Twisty is articulate and clearly well-educated. This is not to say that I agree with everything she says, but it's insulting to dismiss her as a caricature simply because her politics are "radical"
I dismiss her as a caricature because the arguments she presents ARE a caricature. It's all hyperbole and overwrought effort to shoehorn every conceivable social phenomenon or event into proof of women's enslavement at the hands of men.
Twisty seems to come from the Andrea Dworkin/Catherine McKinnon/Donna Haraway school of radical feminist thought that requires reconfiguring the entire male/female dynamic. The difficulty with this is that their theories on sex and sexuality resist basic biological tenants of the male/female dynamic. Dworkin went so far as to suggest that all sex between men and women relies on an inequitable power-structure. New wave feminism looks closer at the economic infrastructure of capitalism and the over-arching drive to survive as motivation for personal choices like becoming a stripper - yeah, it's not the bets job in the world, but it's not the worst either.
You'd think sex workers were sex slaves. Some of them are, of course, but I'd prefer that the emphasis be on cracking down on any and all forced sex work, not legislating legit sex work out of business.
Women should picket these places, the way wingers picket abortion clinics, harassing the “customers” as they go in.
Ironically, many wingers would love to picket strip clubs too.
Men are oppressors. Women are victims. Sex is bad.
No, that sound isn't nails on a chalkboard, it's just Erica grinding her puritanical axe again.
@40 - Erica didn't write the quoted text - she's presenting it as an alternative viewpoint to the one pushed by The Stranger.
@Everyone else - Twisty's blog is called "I Blame The Patriarchy." I think that's all the background info that you need.
Paying for female attention is for losers.
Not everyone is as beautiful as you, Lucas.
The debate about strip clubs and the referendum have been so strange. First, many of the people commenting have never been in one. So much of the discussion is based on what people imagine goes on inside. I think a majority of people who had not been in a Seattle strip club would be surprised to find just how boring, unsexy, and pathetic they are. I can't tell you how many people I talked to that believed that lap dances were done nude. Or am I ignorant? Are there nude lap dances?
2nd, the objective of the people who wanted the new rules wasn't to protect female workers in the clubs - the objective was to make clubs unprofitable so maybe no new ones would open with the moratorium lifted and so hopefully some of the existing clubs would go out of business.
I talked to one voter who told me she would have voted for the rules it if she had known that the objective was to prevent new clubs from opening. She didn't really care what people did in them, but felt strongly that she didn't want more of them, especially if they were going to be foisted off on less politically powerful neighborhoods.
I suspect that the sex worker quoted by Twisty is a fake. The lap dance allows more dancers to work at a given location at one time. Getting rid of the lap dance will reduce the number of jobs and the individual incomes.
Lucas, good thing you´re young, relatively successful and attractive. If you had some compassion you´d be a hell of a catch.
This strident rant serves best to remind us that the Puritan right and Puritan feminists (a tiny minority, Goddess Bless) are heads of the same hydra. Shaming men about their natural desires only works on men who CAN be shamed, that is, conscientious men who are not (also) chauvinists (def. of chauvinist: someone who sees the world from a narrow, gender-specific view).
As for sexual assault mid-lap dance, that is as punishable as any kind and so is a boss who lets it happen. In a strip joint, as anywhere, things are best negotiated by everyone with kindness and tolerance. If you think that such virtues die at the door such venues, your world is more debased than the bottom of the sleaziest john´s heart. Referendum 1 deserved to lose.
HI, BETTINA.
Bettina, funny that the other night you called Erica the Only Reasonable Feminist at The Stranger, and then this claim is strengthened when she links to I Blame the Patriarchy. How refreshing!
BTW, I hate crème brulée.
Lots o’ steam here guys n’ gals. Matisse has a point that I share, if you don’t like the work, find another job. These strippers have not been kidnapped from their families and forced into slavery. It’s called consent!!
I have known a lot of sex workers, none who ever complained about being assaulted on the job. I, myself have stripped. It was in New York State and they took pretty good care of us. Any customer complained about, went out. We were not lap dancing, but we were within groping distance.
So,..
1) Everyone complains about their job. Even people who love their jobs have a bad day.
2) The idea that sex is disempowering for women is a Christian myth. Women have a lot of sexual energy. It is one of our strengths. (Yes, all people are different. And not every man is a slavering sex hound either.) Our culture pushes women to look sexy but not feel it. If you don’t look sexy, you are a prude but if you feel sexy, you are a slut. If sex doesn’t make both people feel empowered, maybe your not doing it right (whatever “right” is for you).
3) If sex were not empowering to women why would the Christian right spend so much time, energy and money putting it down?
4) Having been a stripper, I can say that the customers I remember were not the “empowered” ones in the club. A lot of them were intimidated by the women. It was rare to have someone come in who felt good about themselves and was just out to have a good time. Most of the customers were depressed and looking for this brief, if false intimacy to lift their low spirits. (In our culture, money is power, so the strippers should be getting em-powered).
5) As a bartender, I was hit on more and more crudely than I was ever hit on as a stripper. The management also stood behind me better, as a stripper.
6) If a club management doesn’t stand behind their employees, they get a bad reputation quickly and the “hot” strippers won’t touch them. So it’s in the clubs best interest to “protect” the “girls”.
I quit a long time ago but I doubt it’s changed that much.
It's past time we take responsibility for our sexuality and let consenting adults do what they do. Something may have originated with the patriarchy or with Christianity or in someone’s fevered brain. It's up to us now to participate in life.
I’m all for consent, empowerment and sex!
“Strippers,” she wrote, “really hate the rise in lapdances... I disagree go to http://www.apartments.waw.pl/
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