I read this as "Thursday Morning Outage" and read on for salacious details.
Boy was I disappointed.
"In another related study in the journal, researchers from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore looked at 100 women with newly diagnosed cancers of the back of the throat. The researchers found HPV in nearly three-quarters of the tumors. They found a strong association between the infections and oral sex."
Blair announced the date he'll be leaving today. His future will involve highly paid speaking gigs and luxury rather than criminal prosecution and imprisonment.
His future will involve highly paid speaking gigs and luxury
Or "a major international or United Nations job."
re: 5
I suppose Kurt Waldheim set a precedent for that sort of thing, so we shouldn't be surprised.
If I was a woman, lesbianism would be looking really attractive right about now.
Assuming that most of you didn't stick around to the end of yesterday's Manny thread, I offer again the story of good old-fashioned patriotism, Yankee-style.
Only the Yankees continue to play "God Bless America" at every home game. They are also the only ones to use chains to prevent fans from moving during both songs
The House Democrats won't be attaching habeas restoration to the Defense Authorization or appropriations bill. There are enough Democratic votes to get a bill with habeas reform out of committee, but Ike Skelton, the chair of the armed services committee, did not include it in his version. The House leadership also probably has the votes to attach a habeas-restoring amendment to the bill on the floor, but they're afraid of Republican criticism so they're probably not going to do it either. Carl Levin, the Senate Armed Services committee chair, also says he doesn't have the votes and in his case that may be true: there's an equal # of Democrats and Republicans on his committee with Joe Lieberman as the tiebreaker, and one of the Democrats is Ben Nelson.
Skelton has explained that he's not putting habeas in the authorization bill because he cares so much about it and it's so important that it should be its own bill. This is complete crap. A standalone bill is certain to be vetoed, so if the Democrats don't attach habeas restoration to a must-pass bill like a Defense Authorization/
Appropriations bill (there are other potential vehicles as well, and hopefully other committees, but I remember hearing that the House Defense Authorization was one of the best & most logical places) it's basically not going to pass before inauguration day 2009.
I suppose there could still be a floor amendment, but I'm not optimistic.
Some among us might be outraged at apo's neglect of the subjunctive.
Along the lines of 4, George Tenet got a $4 million advance for his book (as well as a Presidential medal of freedom).
The foxes have been in charge of the regulatory henhice since January 2001. Gale Norton? Steven Griles? The fact that no journalist has ever thought people would be interested in that fact -- after all, it is sort of bizarre once you think about it for more than 0 seconds, timber and mining industry lobbyists put in charge of the government's management of timber and mining; what kind of people would put these assholes in charge? -- made me lose all hope for people's chances of being informed of things by the mainstream media. I had already lost hope in the idea of people being informed of the difference between political candidates, but not in the idea of people being informed of anything at all. Not even things people would find interesting; that's always trumped by the interests of advertisers.
12. Yes, as in "If I were a prescriptive grammarian..."
I'll give you some fucking outrage. Yesterday I was sent off on my merry way to finish school and have my 25th birthday with a request that I bring back stories. So here's a story.
Last night, I drunkenly (circa 1:30 am) decided that my birthday would be a good time for me to have my first visit to a strip club. I also had been talking about going with one girlfriend of mine, and realized that last night was my final chance (she's leaving town). So the lot of us trekked out to a very nice all-nude (and thus no alcohol) club on the west side that I was assured wasn't sleazy. It wasn't, not in terms of the décor, anyway.
I've never had such a violent empathetic response to another human being as the one I had to the lovely young woman who gave me a lap dance. At four o'clock in the morning I was still crying and feeling like punching someone in the face for this horrifying display of women's utter worthlessness. These girls, probably even younger than me, have succeeded in acheiving the modern ideal of beauty; they are the apple of the male gaze. They are tall, and slim, with perky breasts, immaculately groomed, nice-smelling, with beautiful hair and carefully shaved legs and vaginas, and they are practiced in the art of making men feel like they actually care. And they are still worthless, maybe even more worthless than before, begging for the scraps from the table of men, getting a measly $10 for gyrating and brushing across another person's body, scampering about like faux-playbunnies looking to see if another person will pay them for the chance to be close to their body and then walk away. They are discarded and disposable, pathetic and blank.
I don't know how I am supposed to live in a world where I'm striving to lead a life where I'm treated like a human being when places like this exist. Even if I could succeed, and really fashion a world for little old me where my ideas and my self and my humanity actually mattered, it would be such a small overall difference.
I was pretty blasé about strip clubs before, disapproving and disgusted but mildly accepting, kind of like my attitude toward porn, of which I am a consumer. So I did not expect to be so shell-shocked. Instead I am saddened and horrified, angry and seething with outrage.
Why aren't we, in fact, chimpeaching the chimperor? The u.s. attorney scandal ought to be enough. In many ways it sounds worse, to me, than watergate.
Great evocation, m. leblanc.
That's how I felt on my trip to a strip club. Except not as visceral, because A) the strippers had not actually achieved significant hotness, and B) I didn't try to interact with them.
But I was looking around at my friends who were all being quite inquisitive and excited at the idea of a lap dance, and thinking "What's wrong with you? How did I never notice this before? You're all assholes! Everyone in here is an asshole! And all those pop culture figures who glorify strip clubs are assholes too! This is an enormous industry catering entirely, 100% of the clientele, to not just assholes but misogynist assholes! The scales have fallen from my eyes, man. No longer will I wonder why Republicans win elections."
16: I'm sorry. You're not wrong, you reacted in a wholly justified way. A manifestation of evil to be sure.
Oh, it's definitely worse than Watergate. In Watergate the only people victimized were Democratic Party operatives, not random public servants whose offices are being politicized for the first time since the Boss Tweed era.
It's not a manifestation of "evil", I don't think--that simplifies it far too much (plus, also, I don't really believe in evil). Strip clubs are perfectly consistent with the rest of our culture, the way women's bodies are objectified and commodified, that women are the sex class, that our bodies mean sex.
That's why it's so horrifying.
I'm sorry, m. leblanc. That's really, really difficult to have to witness, much less feel like a participant in. I wish I had better ideas for what to do about it.
16 is pretty incisive, and 18 too. but does anybody think that pron is actually better?
16: I've never been; partially because I've generally figured I'd have the same reaction.
I don't have a rationally thought out position on the sex industry generally other than 'harm reduction is good'; but the prospect of people getting sexual gratification from other people who aren't enjoying it, and don't want to be there, gives me the creeps in a huge way, and makes me angry and disgusted. (Yes, a job's a job, lots of people don't enjoy their jobs, what makes lap dancing any worse than anything else, it's freely chosen, all of that. This wasn't an argument for an ordinance banning nude dancing, just that it makes my skin crawl.)
his approval rating is in the 20s, and there is evidence of impeachable offenses, and democrats have a majority in both houses. shouldn't they actually start talking about impeachment?
See, I figured my reaction would be "wow, that's depressing." Not like jesus-fucking-christ-yelling-crying-and-throwing-shit.
Of course, I was drunk, so that heightened my emotions, but did not produce them.
23: It's not that pron doesn't bother me at all, but it bothers me a lot less. There's something particularly horrible about a one-on-one interaction where a man's getting sexual gratification from a woman while remaining completely indifferent to what, if anything, she thinks about the process.
21 -- but only an asshole can enjoy it in that obvious, distilled form.
If that means I'm calling out someone here, then okay. If you like paying $10 for a lap dance from some dead-eyed disembrained body, then you're an asshole.
dead-eyed disembrained body
You know, you're agreeing with me so I shouldn't jump on you for this, but the dancer is still in there. You may not know what she's thinking, but she's there.
there's a Chekhov story that's more or less applicable to 26.
29: If you realize that, then you start realizing that she's thinking something, and then you wonder what she's thinking, and you lose your erection.
Only $10 for a lap dance?
In my very limited experience, having paid for one exactly once a few years back, the going rate was $40.
shouldn't they actually start talking about impeachment?
No. It would completely tie up Congress for the rest of the term, and wouldn't really accomplish anything. Any purpose it might have would be better accomplished by holding hearings and doing investigations.
Hm. How (besides the obvious ways) does being a prostitute or lap-danseuse differ from being an actor performing a role? How (besides the obvious ways) does receiving a lap-dance differ from enjoying an actor's performance and "empathizing" with the character portrayed?
Speaking of outrage, I totally got ripped off at the club last night. That lap dance sucked.
I think 31 is making some major assumptions that may not actually apply.
That lap dance sucked.
Actually, it sounds to me like you got more than you paid for.
Strip clubs make my blood boil in anger. I can totally relate to 16.
I totally got ripped off at the club last night. That lap dance sucked.
Dude had no moves?
33: But what are those hearings worth when the deponant can repeat "dunno" in various forms, knowing that congress won't ultimately do anything? That's basically what Gonzales has been doing.
I've never been to a strip club, never seen a stripper (except for a male stripper at someone's birthday party), and never had a lap-dance but the overwhelming impression I've picked up from friends who do go is that they are indeed assholes. Or at least, assholes when in the company of a particular asshole subset of their friends.
So yeah, it's a form of entertainment for wankers (literally and figuratively).
34: Well, the obvious ways are obvious. Then, an actor is (babbling here, not an actor myself) creating an image to be observed, not performing a relationship -- the line between the two is a fuzzy one, but there's something to it. An erotic theatrical or dance performance doesn't bother me in nearly the same way, although I'm not clear where I draw the line.
But most of what bothers me is inside the head of the customer. I'm really disturbed by anyone who doesn't have the reaction Ned described in 31: sexually responding to someone despite the fact that their response to you could be anywhere along the spectrum from indifference to loathing freaks me out.
No, no, you people can't fucking otherize this shit. Just saying "men who go to strip clubs are assholes" doesn't do anything but make an attempt to just set people into different categories so you can't say you're not a part of it. We don't know what the paradigm lap-dance receiver is. Hell, last night I was receiving a lap dance. I know for a fact that people who are not assholes have patronized strip clubs, people that I love and respect.
It's not just a few bad apples. It's this culture, and what I said in 21. Sorry, but we're all complicit.
It's not just a few bad apples. It's this culture, and what I said in 21. Sorry, but we're all complicit.
Okay, then I give up. We all lose.
How (besides the obvious ways) does being a prostitute or lap-danseuse differ from being an actor performing a role? How (besides the obvious ways) does receiving a lap-dance differ from enjoying an actor's performance and "empathizing" with the character portrayed?
I don't know. I'm too inarticulate to answer this. I'll try anyway. (without hitting refresh yet to see all the other answers.)
Strip clubs are a side affect of our society which profits off selling girls-as-receptacles. Young girls often internalize this belief, and rot from the inside out.
It would not be very different if you had Twisty going through the motions of a lap dance. But you don't. It's some girl in there who's totally caught up in the patriarchy.
Re: strip clubs, the classic Steven Den Beste post on the subject.
Sorry, but we're all complicit.
Don't buy that at all, unless you mean it in the sense that we're complicit in anything that goes on in this country. People who enjoy strippers and lap dances have a genuinely frightening lack of empathy that many people don't share. And stripping might be one the continuum of selling sex, but it's different in important ways from other things on that line.
It's some girl in there who's totally caught up in the patriarchy.
Or is just doing her job and hates the patrons.
You fuckers ARE all complicit, because we ALL make offhand comments reducing women to their appearance all the fucking time. So, sorry.
How (besides the obvious ways) does being a prostitute or lap-danseuse differ from being an actor performing a role?
Are you serious? When you're an actor you're being chosen because of your ability to portray a character, seen as a talent for which you garner respect. Prostitute and strippers aren't chosen by anyone, they are convinced by circumstance or whathaveyou to give up their bodies for the gratification of another person, for which they are regarded as worthless and disposable and cheap, and for which whatever respect they previously had is taken away from them, now a certified member of the slut class.
I agree with 52.
As for 51, that's not true just of women.
Or is just doing her job and hates the patrons.
Yeah fucking right. She may hate her patrons all right, but don't rationalize the fucking business with this pat bullshit.
8 - I read on Feministing that you can get throat cancer from both kinds of oral sex, if the partner has HPV.
re: 42
Bollocks. People who aren't assholes in every aspect of their lives can still do asshole-ish things, and be assholes in some particular domain or other.
Lapdance patrons are being assholes. That doesn't necessarily carry over to other aspects of their lives, but fuck the 'don't otherize this shit' line.
Saying 'it's the culture' totally lets off people who patronise these clubs off the hook. We aren't all equally complicit -- or at least, we are complicity in different ways and if there's a continuum of complicity not everyone is in the same place on that continuum.
I'd probably put it a little bit differently. Yes, we're all complicit, in that if we didn't have a culture that glorified sex and women as commodities generally, we probably wouldn't have the phenomenon of strip clubs. And any change that tries to get rid of the latter without changing the former is unlikely to succeed.
But no, that doesn't make everyone just as bad, or every woman just as exploited. Things I am not going to have to do today: rub myself on someone I hate so he can give me $10. It may just be a matter of degree, but degrees matter.
As for 51, that's not true just of women.
True. We also treat gay people and minorities like shit.
I have never understood the appeal of strip clubs, or strippers period; I can hardly think of something less sexy. I never thought of why this would be true beyond "I guess I'm just weird," but actually I think LB gets right to it in 42.
53: Maybe I'm too pissed off to be starting this thread right now, but perhaps you should recall that saying "dude has nice abs" and "chick has nice tits" are not fucking equivalent statements because the former does not occur in the context of a culture where men are beaten and raped, kept in sexual slavery, convinced that their worth lies in their ability to have sex and then, their ability to gestate babies, poorer, unable to move freely about because of fear for their lives and their bodily integrity, and work in strip clubs and are prostitutes.
And if you say "some men do", my head will explode.
59: Strip clubs are much improved by going in groups of 150, and wearing Santa costumes.
regarded as worthless and disposable and cheap
Who is doing this regarding?
Things I am not going to have to do today: rub myself on someone I hate so he can give me $10
Cala, I get the sense we have totally different approaches to teaching.
FL really works for those positive evaluations.
We aren't all equally complicit
We're in agreement there; I never asserted to the contrary. My point is that saying "these dudes are assholes" just makes it sound like it's some bizarre group of miscreants that are mysteriously funding the whole thing. What I mean is that in our culture they're actually not assholes; it's regarded as pretty normal. Witness, e.g., bachelor parties. I'm not saying we shouldn't call people out for their patronage of strip clubs; of course we should. But that's not my point.
Prostitute and strippers aren't chosen by anyone, they are convinced by circumstance or whathaveyou to give up their bodies for the gratification of another person, for which they are regarded as worthless and disposable and cheap,
Who is doing this regarding?
You're fucking kidding me.
Look, heebie-geebie, I am not complicit in "the culture" reducing women to their bodies. "The culture" is manifested as the media and advertising. The media reduces women to their bodies. This is different from the phenomenon in which "we ALL make offhand comments reducing women to their appearance". We, as individuals, including me, do this for both men and women. The media and advertisers do it only for women, because they are seeking to draw attention from the subliterate aspects of our brains that see women as sex.
Also, I don't understand 54. If she hates her patrons, that is incompatible with having been persuaded by the patriarchy that selling her body is an awesome womanly thing to do. She hates doing it, believes that men are idiots, and wants to stop someday.
61: You know, I can see how that would be the case.
63: If I were the kind of person who said things like "LOL," I'd be saying "LOFL" here.
re: 65
"What I mean is that in our culture they're actually not assholes; it's regarded as pretty normal."
There's a difference between who our wider culture regards as assholes and who *I* regard as assholes. I will continue to view regular patrons of these establishments as wankers.
Also, I'm not sure if that's true more generally, at least in the UK. There has been an increasing normalisation of lapdance culture, and it's becoming more accepted (Americanised, maybe?) but it's still seen as a pretty suspect thing.
Anyway, I didn't mean to imply that all of the gender problems in our society can be solved by just reforming some subgroup of freakish miscreants.
I've only been to a strip club once, and Leblanc gets it exactly right. I recall through my very drunken haze thinking it was odd that I didn't even get an erection with a beautiful naked woman grinding away at me. And wondering whether the dancer was disappointed about that, whether she thought it was because she wasn't doing a "good job" or I didn't think she was attractive, or if she just thought I was perhaps too drunk, or if she didn't care at all and maybe didn't even notice. She seemed so friendly; all I really wanted to do was talk to her, to hear what led her to that job, whether she liked it, what other interests she had. And I remember feeling like trying to do any talking like that would be completely inappropriate, like I was supposed to just treat her as a piece of meat and not a woman there in front of me. As if doing anything else would violate some unwritten code, would somehow make her uncomfortable about the situation, about herself. Not to mention that she undoubtedly didn't give a shit about me, and had no interest in talking to me about anything at all. And yet there she was, naked, squirming around in my lap. It was so all very sad.
Sometime that night a friend bought me a private shower dance, though, which I confess was markedly more erotic.
What I don't get about strip clubs is what exactly is the point? It is not as if your lapdance leads to orgasm (AFAIK), so one leaves more sexually frustrated than when one arrives. Prostitution and pron imply the release, whereas the gentleman's club is an excercise in erecting only. So that leaves the misogony, as previously stated.
New outrage: According to TPM, in today's hearing Alberto Gonzalez actually answered a question with "I think I may be aware of that." That just about sums up the amount of truth we get from these people in these hearings.
Ned, you are complicit. I know you're not in marketing and not profitting off this whole mess.
But your second paragraph puts you squarely in Group B. Group B is a problem.
It is not as if your lapdance leads to orgasm (AFAIK)
Some guys can squeeze one off under those circumstances.
(Scroll down to the second section for Group B.)
"The culture" is manifested as the media and advertising.
That's one of the ways it's manifested, sure, but, uh, a culture is made of a people. So it's manifested in people, the way they behave and think, and the way they find it fit to treat each other.
I don't know why there's such a rejection of complicity (well, I guess I do, but it's baffling). I think every woman here would agree to being complicit; it's not about "girls rule boys drool." I do, say, and think things every day that are perfectly consistent with my regarding women as an inferior sex class
67: Bullshit. Unless you are very, very unusual, you participate in and support the cultural treatment of women as the 'sex class'. The culture is not something outside of and distinct from the men and women who participate in it.
I seriously don't want to have to clean up after any head explosions, but I can't help but comment that this:
the context of a culture where men are beaten and raped, kept in sexual slavery, convinced that their worth lies in their ability to have sex
DOES actually apply to a segment of the gay population, particularly where age & class differences exaggerate power differentials, and I point this out only to argue that talking about what's wrong with strip clubs purely in terms of gender politics (which I agree are a major part of the picture) will probably lead you to miss important dimensions of the issue.
in our culture they're actually not assholes; it's regarded as pretty normal.
This isn't entirely true; people who are strip club regulars are pretty widely considered creepy and weird.
I'm not sure where people who only go once or twice fit in to the picture. It's the transgressive novelty value that's drawing those folks, I think, rather than the chance to see Live! Nudes!
This
is the Chekhov story. Maybe M. LeBlanc's point is that the patrons are assholes, and a major force, in ways we don't necessarily see clearly. Like coming to realize, I live among dickweeds, dickweeds everywhere, or something.
Anyway, the story is good and sort of on point.
I'm surprised by the anti-strip club vehemence here. I would grant that most strippers are fucked up emotionally, but I find it hard to determine which way causality flows between fucked-upedness and fucked-up job. But I have always sort of felt like the men are the suckers in that particular equation.
The nasty places, the Market St. in SF places? Those are horrible, exploitative places, and should go if you ask me.
Well, anyway, these complaints about out culture apply to every culture that has ever existed, so once again I give up. At least I'm aware of the problems.
You're fucking kidding me
Hm. Not sure where this line of thought is leading. I wasn't, exactly. But it also doesn't seem like a particularly productive thread.
re: 77
I wouldn't reject complicity completely. I am sure I personally say, do, and think things that I really shouldn't and where the doing, saying, and thinking of those things contributes to some degree or another to various bad things about our culture including vis a vis gender.
I'd just want to argue that there's quite a large degree of difference between being a participant in a wider culture of, for example, the objectification of women and being an active participant in a particularly pointed and pernicious part of that culture of obectification.
(Unless the objective is to annoy Heeb, in which case it seems like a good path.)
I know women who have worked at a strip club for a while and then moved on to no obvious lasting effect, although I get the sense it was a somewhat distasteful job.
83 makes me so angry that all I can think of is horrible analogies to race and minstrel shows, which don't even work very well. But most people would find anger over minstrel shows appropriate.
felt like the men are the suckers
Oh, the poor widdle babies. Forced to shell out so much cash for someone rubbing their naked body all over you and pretending that they care about you and your arousal and just want to make you happy!
Gosh, it's a hard life.
The SdB piece linked in 48 is one of the most astonishly and misogynistically idiotic things I've ever read, and yet SdB himself is famous and even revered in certain quarters. A Unified Theory of Asshole Culture would neatly account for both SdB and the normalization of the lap dance.
I'm not sure where people who only go once or twice fit in to the picture. It's the transgressive novelty value that's drawing those folks, I think, rather than the chance to see Live! Nudes!
Not buying it. "Once" or "twice" probably implies "bachelor party" which has all the fun connotations of "last night as a free man who can look at women by paying for them." A little more than novelty value there.
I don't really know what to tell you. I'm not intentionally trying to be controversial, and I've only been to a strip club twice, in a large group, dressed like Santa, but I pretty much don't have a problem with them, assuming that they're run professionally and the women who work there are treated right, so, e.g., I was very much in favor of the drive to unionize sex workers in SF.
93:
strip club.....treated right
Therein lies the problem.
And yeah, I think that sex work should be decriminalized too. So? Doesn't mean it doesn't still suck.
the men truly are suckers, though. sifu is right on that.
bachelor party
The only bachelor party I've been to did not have strippers, it was dinner and drinks; but the organizer of the party (best man at the wedding) tried strenuously to convince the rest of the group that it would be totally great to progress to a nudie bar after. (I don't think I really had a "bachelor party" as such though I guess I went out for a drink with a couple of friends the night before my wedding.)
83, 89, 90: Although, I'm surprised too. I was hesitant and caveat-ridden about posting 24, because I expected a lot more people to react like Tweety. This is an issue where I expect people I don't otherwise think of as particularly assholes to think of strip clubs as harmless.
Here's what you can tell me. Tell me how you think that the men are "the suckers" in that situation.
You know what I hate about these conversations? Here are the categories:
1. Why is everyone getting so upset over trivial things like etiquette?
Answer: we're just a little upset.
2. Why is everyone getting so upset over things like strip clubs?
Answer: IT'S NOT THE ISOLATED STRIP CLUBS. It's the strip clubs combined with the trivial things combined with a relentless barrage of messages challenging your very humanity.
You never hear, "They're getting so upset so often because there's something real and substantial and deeply damaging going on."
It's my understanding that for many strip-joint regulars, the appeal is not a brainless body or an animated sex-corpse for unhindered delectation, but an avenue for some shred of human contact, even if paid for, in which the stripper as a person(a) and not just a body actually does play a role.
I would say that the psychology behind this is different than the crawl-for-that-dollar-bitch behavior which makes low-rent strip clubs so nasty, or the thousand-dollar-session goddess pedestalizing at higher-class joints. But maybe I'm naive.
My gf once told me a pretty affecting story about a time in college when her and her girlfriends all went to a strip club on Spring Break on a lark, and how each of them had their own Leblanc moment either that night or in the next few weeks. Being presented with the reality was a big shock, especially as fancy sky's-the-limit college girls vacationing in a no-exit Florida town.
Look, yes, it's a crappy job, for a lot of reasons, but you can make a ton of money. Lots of people take crappy jobs where they make tons of money, and some of them even find a way to make it tolerable for themselves.
90: See, I do actually feel some compassion for both sides of that transaction; it seems pretty pathetic to be getting sexual gratification that way.
99 -- you forgot, Why is everyone getting so upset about grammatical errors and misspellings?
I would say that the psychology behind this is different than the crawl-for-that-dollar-bitch behavior which makes low-rent strip clubs so nasty,
Yeah, it's sicker. Someone who's so indifferent to women as real people that paying someone to get naked and fake fondness for him is emotionally satisfying is really screwy. See SdB.
70 -- does "shower dance" have a similar meaning to "golden showers"?
98: certainly the strippers are in a worse position, but consider someone who fools himself into enjoying a lap dance: how much harder has he just made it to actually love a woman, or find a woman to love him? I'm being serious here. The only non-sucker is the owner of the strip club, and he's probably a sucker in some other way.
Damn you, LeBlanc, I was going to make a jokey response to Apo's 2 and you had to make this thread all serious.
I've only been to a strip club twice, in a large group, dressed like Santa
But for the Santa part, this statement is true for me as well, both times over a decade ago.
It's the transgressive novelty value that's drawing those folks
This was absolutely true in my case, whether Cala buys it or not. Both times it was as part a group made up of couples, probably not unlike leblanc's trip last night. The two times I've seen strippers in a non-club setting (once at a frat house the first week I was at UNC and once at a bachelor party), I felt profoundly uncomfortable, like something bad was going to happen and I didn't want to be there for it, and left early both times. So far as I know, nothing bad did happen, but it was a qualitatively different experience than the very controlled atmosphere in the clubs.
"Once" or "twice" probably implies "bachelor party"
I was thinking more the group of college students who go out to a strip club some random weekend because they haven't been before and want to see what the whole fuss is about. But there's a similar force at work in both situations, that hiring a stripper for a bachelor party or going to a strip club once you turn 18 (or 21, or however old you have to be) is done because that's the expected, if clichéd, thing to do, not because they simply enjoy it a lot. And this is where fucked-up culture comes in, that these things are seen as normal rites of passage. However, people that do more than go a handful of times (because they actually enjoy the whole experience) are usually seen as assholes and creeps, so that's something, at least.
Sorry, Bitch. Now can you please take over for me; I have to go pick up my dad from the airport; kthxbye.
Actually, I'm not leaving yet. And 109 and 110 are right; that's in fact what happened last night except everyone I was with had been before. Various males of my acquaintance had tried to warn me that I would be horrified, but I guess I wanted to see for myself anyway.
98: Because they spend an inordinate amount of money to get all excited and then not have sex. That's stupid! If somebody is willing to give you money to do something that seems stupid to you, but doesn't otherwise affect you, why not?
Yes, obviously, it does otherwise affect people. I also understand that, in a larger cultural context, strip clubs are part of a larger culture that objectifies women. But if you can for a moment consider the central business idea behind a strip club, having a naked woman dance on your lap, if she's in shape and a good dancer, is fun, seemingly for men and women. It also is not inherently damaging for either party, from all the evidence I've seen. Yes, it usually is damaging, and that sucks, and the industry should be regulated and cleaned up. But if people want to make and spend their money that way I think they should be able to.
Sorry to rant. Really, I hate having this conversation here.
90 is stupid. 107 gets it right.
110: This is true -- I don't particularly think ill of anyone for having been to a strip club once or twice, given that in our fucked up culture it's a standard 'naughty' thing to do. Heck, Buck's been to strip clubs at friends' bachelor parties.
An actor is playing a person, not "sexually aroused" or "totally into you." Remember the "Oh Frank, you're the king!" scene in The Stepford Wives? That's essentially what strippers are paid to do.
(There is something pathetic about a guy who believes the act and/or doesn't but pays because it's the most gratifying thing he can get, but not in a way that makes it any better for the women.)
Porn is more gender-equal in a way--at least what's on the screen: both the man and the woman are being paid. I'd guess the industry is sexist and exploitative; I don't know if porn would bother me so much less if I watched the production process, but there is no real person in front of--actually touching--the consumer. (I've never actually been to a strip club but I assume I would have a strong negative reaction.)
I agree that you can't separate "the culture" from the people in it, whose complicity varies quite dramatically...there are contexts in which there's just nothing wrong at all with "nice boobs," though. But feeling entitled to, i.e., develop a system for rating the boobs of girls in your college dorm, is another thing.
The 'traditional' bachelor party really sort of grosses me out. And there's also this stereotype about the fiance who objects for certain reasons, that you don't want to get into either.
Buck's been to strip clubs at friends' bachelor parties
...that he's told you about...
But there's a similar force at work in both situations, that hiring a stripper for a bachelor party or going to a strip club once you turn 18 (or 21, or however old you have to be) is done because that's the expected, if clichéd, thing to do, not because they simply enjoy it a lot. And this is where fucked-up culture comes in, that these things are seen as normal rites of passage.
This is absolutely right. I've actually stopped reading the Bill Simmons sports column, not because of his astonishing ability to repeat himself, but because of the "Vegas, Baby" stuff. It just makes me feel weird to live in a culture where that's the sort of thing that the typical man ("typical man" being the man found in commercials during prime-time on network TV) is supposed to go after.
It's not just that I have no interest in it, like NASCAR; it's that it's perverse.
105: paying someone to get naked and fake fondness for him is emotionally satisfying is really screwy.
It probably isn't emotionally satisfying beyond a few minutes. It's just better than nothing.
This strikes me as more sad and harmless than sick, and are you really saying that they're worse than guys who are basically there to abuse the women, a la Pacman Jones?
I'm sorry, but there's not much "fooling yourself" that goes into enjoying a lap dance. It's a shared fiction. The dude knows the chick's not actually into him, the chick knows that the dude knows that, it's a little charade they engage in where they pretend that she's doing it 'cause she wants to, and they both go their merry ways.
And this is where fucked-up culture comes in, that these things are seen as normal rites of passage.
That's what I mean by saying it's not just transgressive novelty value. That's probably a large part of it for the average non-creepy person, but come on, you're choosing a strip club for your transgressive, novel, rite of passage, not some other transgressive novel thing.
But if you can for a moment consider the central business idea behind a strip club, having a naked woman dance on your lap, if she's in shape and a good dancer, is fun, seemingly for men and women.
See, the fucked up bit is what makes it fun. In other contexts, getting your rocks off by means of someone who doesn't want you, or anything to do with you, is wildly wildly creepy.
119: I'm sticking with 'sick'. Training yourself to believe that your emotional needs are getting filled by denying the existence of anything actually going on in the head of the woman you're interacting with is sick.
Fewer personal insults please, people.
There are feminists defenses of stripping, aren't there?
re: 123
I don't know, I tried Blair being a war-criminal bastard.
That's probably a large part of it for the average non-creepy person, but come on, you're choosing a strip club for your transgressive, novel, rite of passage, not some other transgressive novel thing.
What this culture really needs is better transgressive novel rights of passage.
yeah, I tried habeas corpus and George Tenet.
Fewer personal insults please, people.
Feel the love, you sexist bastard.
123 -- Apparently more outrageous than the Bush administration by an order of magnitude.
I threw a combined bachelor/bachelorette party for my friends. We rented a big old limo bus, in Las Vegas, and cruised around for an hour with two strippers. The crowd was heterogenous in gender and sexual orientation, the two women were very nice professionals who did this as a second job, they kept their underwear on, some of the party guests got naked, everybody had a grand time, and the two women we hired made a bunch of money. Nobody was sexually gratified, or even really excited. It was just slightly transgressive fun.
So that's my picture of what stripping, and less directly strip clubs, entails. Maybe that's non-representative. But it jibes with everything else I've seen.
120. You have just described "fooling yourself."
re: 129
And now we are back to gay chicken ...
I am reminded of the very controversial study from several years ago that found that the long-term mental health outcomes for victims of childhood sexual molestation were quite variable, and were affected by the specific circumstances of the incident, and how they were perceived by the victims. If they didn't feel particularly frightened or shamed at the time of the incident, even if it was involuntary, they were less likely to have negative long term outcomes. In the context of strippers, it seems worthwhile to note that the details and what the women bring to the table to begin with partly determine the harm.
What frustrates me about these conversations is that "Stop objectifying women!," while a totally legitimate response, doesn't get very far toward fixing the problem. "Stop treating people shitty!" and "Stop only objectifying women!" are the flavors of outrage that might get you further along toward relieving the demeaning effects of this on both sides.
Strip clubs? That's the outrage?
Don't make me come over there, neil.
Went to a strip club once, with a friend after work, many years ago. I actually wasn't aware that was what it was until we got there. That particular friend came out as gay, writing me a letter a few months later after he had left the area.
In that context, I wish I could remember my friends reaction, whether he was watching me for my reaction, things like that, but nothing in that regard made much of an impression on me at the time.
No lap dancing, no full nudity, a kind of uninspired dance, more a kind of gyration. I was a young man, but it did nothing for me, which must have been obvious because I either left alone after a beer or we both did, I don't remember which.
"Who are you calling out?" s/b, "you looking at me? Cause I'll fuck you up".
126: Yup. All about women being empowered, making lots of money, making a buck off the patriarchy, etc. I mean--it's kind of an appealing option. I'd probably consider stripping if I had the body for it (and frankly, I could use the cash). But I don't think I could ever do it. I would probably even feel weird giving a stripper-style lap dance to someone I was actually having sex with.
you're choosing a strip club for your transgressive, novel, rite of passage, not some other transgressive novel thing.
True, and that's why I was saying I don't really know where those guys fit into the picture. They're just following the norms of the culture, but they're still patronizing a really messed up business. The whole establishment is really strange--it's normal, and sometimes even expected, for people to go see strippers, but it's frowned upon if you enjoy it too much. Not sure what to make of that.
83 - I read Those are horrible, exploitative places, and should go if you ask me. as Those are horrible, exploitative places, and you should ask me if you go.
126.2: There most certainly are. That's why I'm so surprised.
I've only been to a club twice and have pretty much the same reaction as M. Leblanc, though not nearly so visceral.
But isn't the rather extreme tone of "save the poor stripper who doesn't know better and/or have any options" sexist itself as well? I thought that whole "rescuing women" thing has been categorized that way here before.
Some women claim to be exhibitionists or whatever and actually enjoy stripping. And some people seem very confident in telling those women that they are just fooling themselves, which seems kind of paternalistic and condescending.
125: I think my point was that for a good fraction of 'regulars', what's going on in the woman's head is a big part of it, not just look-naked-mmmph. They're just delusional about how genuine it is. Like I said, fake emotional connection for someone who's really starved is better than no emotional connection at all.
Also, porn is getting one's rocks off via people who are indifferent to you. Is that sick?
to someone I was actually having sex with
Yeah, it would sort of interrupt the "having sex"
Okay, look.
1. I've been to a strip club and wasn't horrified, but then it wasn't one of those lap dance type clubs--just a stage. But what LeBlanc's saying totally resonates.
2. Mr. B. goes to strip clubs occasionally and likes 'em. I tell him to tip well. So I'm not buying the othering shit any more than LeBlanc does--he doesn't "have a genuinely frightening lack of empathy," he's a pretty good feminist guy, he's not nearly as much of an asshole as a lot of men who actively avoid stripclubs. It isn't as simple as "oh, those men are bad, worse than we are."
3. Let's combine 1 + 2. Conclusion? Yeah, I'm complicit. What would be the fucking point in denying it? Or in denying that I, like a lot of other women, pay a lot of money to, oh, say, "dress well" (whether "for men" or "for women" or "for me") and purchase unguents to keep myself looking as young as possible for as long as possible, or take pleasure in being reassured that I am, in fact, "hot."
So what's the point? Well, let's just start with being honest. Rather than pulling this "well, if everyone's a part of it than there's nothing we can do" silliness. "I know you are, but what am I" isn't a really intelligent remark, and you know, it isn't just about you and, as LeBlanc says, your widdle feelings.
All about women being empowered, making lots of money, making a buck off the patriarchy, etc. I mean--it's kind of an appealing option.
It used to be very, very easy for me to lapse to this motivational system. I hate who I am when I'm in that vein. I'm petty and vindictive and loathe myself for not being sufficiently skinny and perky and all things to all men.
To all of you who think it's harmless, haven't put much thought into it, and don't think there's an impact on seemingly-healthy women is real: fuck you.
McManlyPants and I know at least two women who stripped during college. Neither one was there because they had to be and neither one was being oppressed. Also, full-nude strip clubs don't even exist down here (not legally, anyhow), and I'd reckon there's a big difference between the two.
The feminist defenses of stripping always strike me as kind of misandristic -- the tone is "Given that we live in the society, we do, where men think of women as meat, why not make some money off the fact -- what they think can't do me any harm." And, yeah, sure, none of us is going to change the world singlehanded, there are probably going to be strip clubs and the women who work in them should be as well treated as possible.
That doesn't make the people who support and enjoy them less disgusting.
126: Indeed there are. There was a women-owned strip joint here that attracted the alternative crowd partly because they projected that image, and in general Portland is crawling with both strippers and sex-trade-positive progressives. That said, my closest stripper friend used to describe her job as empowering, and she was one of the most profoundly unhappy people I knew. She quit a while ago, and she's much happier, if poorer, now.
And with that, I can't exactly get into it b/c I have to go volunteer in PK's class.
121: That's what I mean by saying it's not just transgressive novelty value.
Actually, it tends much more into just transgressive novelty value these days, depending on the place. The time when strip clubs were mostly the preserve of bachelor parties and dirty old men is fading fast; it's now not unheard of for couples to go there, or lesbians.
"Strip club" as such is probably not that useful a category anymore. There's a spectrum of practices that ranges from neo-burlesque to the mainstream "strip club" or titty bar as such to weird, depressing, squicky holes in the wall. Some parts of the spectrum tie more-or-less directly in with the more vicious parts of the sex trade, some not so much. I don't find attempts to articulate all such objectification as of a piece with trafficking or a concept like "the slut class" very interesting. And of course, male strippers are a fairly major part of that spectrum, too, and would need to be factored in somehow.
122: See, the fucked up bit is what makes it fun.
And these discussion really lose me when they veer into "how can people find it fun to just look at beautiful naked bodies" territory. Which species are we talking about again?
148.2 accords with my experience of several other men, actually.
I'm quite willing to believe that some women enjoy it. Most? I doubt it. They do choose it, and I'm perfectly willing to believe that some just do a straight-up cost-benefit calculation & that's their best option. You don't have to assume they can't competently run that calculation for it to piss you off that it's their best option.
What this culture really needs is better transgressive novel rights of passage.
Funny, but also literally true.
Sure there are women who enjoy it. I enjoy getting attention, too. That doesn't mean that deep down the significance of the attention isn't ultimately fucked up.
"Rather than pulling this 'well, if everyone's a part of it than there's nothing we can do' silliness. 'I know you are, but what am I' isn't a really intelligent remark, and you know, it isn't just about you and, as LeBlanc says, your widdle feelings."
The widdle feelings was directed at me, but I'm fairly sure I did not say those things.
I certainly favor practical solutions (regulation, unionization) to the problems currently extant.
As far as your 3.: yes. In that sense we are all complicit in existing in the world we live in. That this should be cause for alarm is, I think, only sometimes true. I think you agree.
"To all of you who think it's harmless, haven't put much thought into it, and don't think there's an impact on seemingly-healthy women is real: fuck you."
Exactly!!! And shame on you disgusting people who viewed heebie's butt picture!!!!
As far as stripping, I've represented my fair share and been to a strip club a couple of times. Some of them did it voluntarily just to get some quick cash. Others did it less than voluntarily due to needing to take care of a habit. Regardless, the environment is a horribly dangerous one in a slippery slope way dealing with drugs and prostitution.
I thought the clubs were remarkably depressing places. The other men are depresssing. I found it depressing to watch the women.
What makes me get defensive here is the word "complicit". I've checked the dictionary, and it means what I thought it means; you're accused of being complicit in something bad if you contributed to it, or even if you did nothing to prevent it from happening. (e.g. Democrats were complicit in the gutting of habeas corpus because they could have filibustered, public opinion was on their side and they might have soon had a majority). You can't say that one random person is "complicit" in creating or perpetuating the sexist culture. That's an empty accusation that could be cast at anyone.
The human beings who are really complicit are:
A) the top-level people in media and advertising, rappers, actors. Some of them do what they can to oppose the sexist culture, but the ones who "answer to the shareholders" don't, so it doesn't change.
B) politicians. Right now the objectification of women continues to be a main concern of the family values lobby, and the business lobby doesn't care. Those two lobbies comprise the Republican Party, and the Democrats are afraid of being the female party.
The only thing I can do is live in a non-sexist way, show my contempt for sexist attitudes, argue with my friends, and donate to causes.
Sorry to make this all about my poor little sensitive male ego, but "complicit" is a loaded word, and it makes people defensive when it's being used to imply falsely that there is some way the person could avoid being complicit.
146: I think my point was that for a good fraction of 'regulars', what's going on in the woman's head is a big part of it, not just look-naked-mmmph. They're just delusional about how genuine it is.
Yeah, see, delusional isn't that far from 'sick', is it? And cultivating delusions that involve subsituting the customer's fantasies of the stripper's emotions and desires for what's really going on in her head is particularly sick.
I knew a girl who stripped in college. She didn't need the money & it wasn't at all coerced. OTOH, this was around the same time she was considering going off the pill. She thought it would be cool to have another person love her that much, but wasn't sure she was ready, so she'd just have sex and leave it to fate whether she got pregnant. So I hope I'm not being too paternalistic to wonder about her judgment with the stripping thing too.
re: 148
I don't understand how 2 makes any kind of point vis a vis the asshole claim. Other than 'someone I like does X therefore not all X-ers are assholes'. Which isn't much of an argument, frankly.
Lots of us can do things that are pretty asshole-ish -- the fact that we are otherwise decent people doesn't make the doing of that thing any less asshole-ish.
156: Okay. Then there should be job training for strippers who want it. Make a special college grant program for currently working exotic dancers, so they can take classes free at community college.
The women I met in Las Vegas had good 9 to 5 jobs. They were extremely enthusiastic about their second jobs, and seemed to genuinely have a good time with us. Obviously we were one of the tamer groups to hire them, but even still, looking back, it's hard to see the harm. So should stripping be more like that, and less like it is now? Yes. So by going to strip clubs in that context, or hiring strippers in that context, am I making the problem worse or better?
I won't claim that the one or two strippers I know are representative of the experience of sex workers everywhere, but I think Sifu's right in 101. It's a horribly misogynist job, but it's a safe and legal way for a young woman without a college education to make a great deal of money; I'm not at all comfortable with tossing around phrases like "dead-eyed disembrained body".
So should stripping be more like that, and less like it is now? Yes. So by going to strip clubs in that context, or hiring strippers in that context, am I making the problem worse or better?
AAAAAHHHHHHH PARADOXES UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES
IT'S ALL TOO MUCH TO CALCULATE
"I thought the clubs were remarkably depressing places. The other men are depresssing. I found it depressing to watch the women."
This is undoubtedly mostly true. But if we are to shun things that are depressing, I fear the fate of unfogged suicide threads.
You can't say that one random person is "complicit" in creating or perpetuating the sexist culture. That's an empty accusation that could be cast at anyone.
You're right that it can be cast at pretty much anyone, but wrong that that makes it meaningless. The point of calling any given person complicit is to draw attention to the ways in which they do support this sort of thing, and to make them think about how they can act differently. By claiming not to be complicit, you're claiming that your life and actions are completely unsexist -- that you're not at all part of the problem but only part of the solution. Maybe that's true for you, but I doubt it -- it's certainly not true for me.
I wasn't insulting the women, snarkout, I was insulting the customer's perception of the women.
It may be helpful to look at pornography, prostitution, and stripping from another perspective. Studies have shown that at least 50% of prostitutes have been sexually abused as children. To survive the physical or sexual abuse, children have a tendency to engage in dissociation, a natural defense mechanism that separates the pain of the experience from one's emotional response. Dissociation can take many forms ranging from depersonalization and de-realization to outright amnesia. Dissociation is not merely a defense mechanism, it is a survival strategy depending on the severity of the abuse.
With respect to the duration of abuse during childhood, it averages 4.2 years for prostitutes and 4.3 years for strippers, while the average number of abusers is 0.7 for prostitutes and 0.6 for strippers.
There is an obvious implication. Given a history of sexual abuse during childhood, sex workers are also victims, and I think it is instructive to see them in this context.
I guess I'm going to exit this thread. Everything I start to type is repetitive and emotional.
See, I don't know how to pick sides on this one. On the one hand, I'm profoundly squicked out by stripping and have actually refused to participate in bachelor-party type contexts where the easier thing would have been to be a good sport and go along. But I can't find anything like personalized anger, or even outrage, in my reaction. Even in the worst case of drooling objectification, the fact that it's sick evokes not disgust but a wish that I knew what to do to fix it, a la watching flies crawl on the faces of famine victims.
I refuse to anything OPINIONATED GRANDMA types that doesn't end in an exclamation point or contain all-caps.
I have several opinions and all of them are shared by myself.
In my experience, some women fool themselves into being excited by this job. Or they're pretending to others that they find the job exciting.
163: There's a difference between judging people you know based on what you know about their situation and just making blanket judgements about people you do not know.
That's where the paternal/condescending thing comes in, I think.
158: But that's making a judgement about the culture, not the individual women. The latter is what I was referring to.
They aren't assholes, just misguided. It's a time-waster.
To all of you who think it's harmless, haven't put much thought into it, and don't think there's an impact on seemingly-healthy women is real: fuck you.
translation: Please stop listening to me.
I think Ned's complaint hits what bothers me about a lot of these discussions. How would he act differently? Aside from casting down his eyes and frowning piously: the "we are all complicit" way of thinking doesn't seem likely to change behavior. Mr. B's complicit, but B is cool with it. I'm complicit, and I've never been to a strip club. So, yes, we're all complicit, but what comes after the symbolic rending of garments?
Ned's feeling -- and I'm sympathetic to this if I'm reading him right -- is that calling him complicit is a rebuke to his behavior, meaning he should change what he's doing, not just reflect on it and go about his way.
translation: Please stop listening to me.
OH FUCK YOU. I already said I was exiting the thread because I was getting too emotional - can you spare me the fucking pot shots?
The other memorable part of my strip club experience: being pulled up on stage (it was my bachelor party), tied to the center pole, and then having a procession of strippers slap me in the face, suprisingly hard, with their naked breasts. It wasn't fun at all, and I really wasn't quite sure how to react. I remember just sort of forcing an awkward smile through the whole thing, because, again, I didn't want to ruin the show or make the women feel like they were doing something wrong or not "good enough" by looking sullen and dejected.
I also before leaving that night gave all the cash I had (quite a lot) to one of the girls who'd given me a lap dance. I remember later feeling conflicted: was that a nice thing to do, or did it somehow worsen my complicity?
GRAM, that is certainly possible.
I really feel bad that I'm causing such strong emotional reactions; I understand that stripping is what fucked up people do: that's why I know strippers, because most of the people I know and like are fucked up in some way. But, like, people do all kinds of crazy things as their way of getting through life given X and Y terrible things that happened to them. People also do things they later regret. I don't begrudge them either of those opportunities, and I don't, in this case, see an inherent harm.
170 - That's fair, I guess, but I think it's also wrong. (See the d/n B/ste magnificence, which is truly one of the treasures of the Internet.) I think there's a large segment of the strip club population that doesn't want a disembrained body, but wants to be able to construct a fantasy existance where a hot woman cares about him (even if only for half an hour at a time). But my strip club experience is minimal, and I doubt that either SdB or Exotica is really an apt guide to what's going through patrons' heads.
(I've actually been kind of hoping O.G. would come hang out under a different pseud. I'd hate to lose the ALLCAPS comments, but they're not conducive to conversation, and she seems interesting when the persona slips. But no pressure, OG.)
You know, there are two issues here that really need to be conceptually separated. One is, 'how much does life really suck for strippers?' And the answer, as far as I can tell, is that for lots of them it sucks plenty, but there are certainly things that could make it suck less, and a sensible feminist response to stripping would be to work on making it suck less. The second, and the one that drives my visceral reaction, is 'what's going on in a man's head when he pays a woman to sexually gratify him'?
165: wow, snide.
I think you are presuming much greater knowledge about what was in those strippers' heads than you really have any clue about, but whatever. Lots of guys do it in the bachelor party context & that sounds pretty darn benign even by the standards of bachelor parties. Am I impressed that the idea that you were doing your part to reform the industry? Not so much. Would have I been pissed at my husband for doing that? Only if he'd organized it. And I don't even know you, I know what those women thought less than you do, it's not especially my business.
I am not speaking specifically about job training programs. It's sort of along the lines of Miss America Organization bragging that it's the "single largest provider of college scholarships for women."* I'm sure lots of women are perfectly happy to dress up in an evening gown & play the violin & say a few words about world peace for a college scholarship; plenty probably enjoy it & for the others it's probably a decent way to get the money; there seems like less of a risk of serious addiction/exploitation/etc. than strip clubs--but it still really, really, really pisses me off that the Miss America Pageant is the largest provider of college scholarships for American women.
*I don't know if they still make this claim, or if it was ever true.
184 is what I was trying to say, LB, and that while kind of sad if done regularly isn't sick, just creepy and, um, sad. Sick is a very strong word.
187: I didn't intend to be snide. It seems like a fine idea to me, if clumsily represented as policy.
Look, I think I should stop arguing this now. I don't call myself a feminist because I know perfectly well that I have serious, real disagreements with the some of the fundamentals of a lot of feminist philosophy, at least as it is implemented in the world today. I wish I could say I was a feminist, but I can't. On the other hand, I'm not going to change anybody's mind on the issues I think are at the core of this, and nobody seems to have any particular thoughts about how changing my mind would work, so maybe I'll stop riling people up.
All the hating aside, I'm rather enjoying Brock's stories.
what's going on in a man's head when he pays a woman to sexually gratify him
Apparently nothing but sick things.
I don't know why I'm being all devil's advocate-y today. It seems like the wrong thread. I'm stuck in the lobby of the Baltimore Convention Center avoiding talks so I can web it up and comment on Unfogged. Weird, weird, weird.
Are you really so sure the OG hasn't been hanging out here all along? I suppose you do have access to IP addresses.
Not sure at all -- while I could check IP addresses, I don't.
I think both m. leblanc and I had earlier been completely overlooking the "poor desperate schmo" segment of the lap-dance market. The guys I've hung out with who went to strip clubs were universally in the "let's go act like assholes" segment of the market.
188: Yeah, while I don't know many regular patrons of strip clubs, I have worked with a couple and these were very socially awkward, fairly unattractive guys who honestly had *no other outlet* for being touched by another human being that wasn't a health care provider, short of prostitution. They really weren't sick, and they weren't really even very creepy. What they were was almost unimaginably lonely, sad, and pitiable.
I'll note further that most of the heated outrage here is coming from youngish, attractive women who almost certainly have never had any such problem.
169: The point of calling any given person complicit is to draw attention to the ways in which they do support this sort of thing, and to make them think about how they can act differently.
Cala gets it right in 179. I do think Ned's point is that to be told you're "complicit" in some vague, generalized thing called "sexism" is not helpful, while identifying complicity in specific set of damaging, changeable behaviours is.
Of course, it helps if the people involved conceive of the potential harms in the same way. In discussions like this, a rift tends to form between tendencies to believe that sexualizing people (especially women) is a form or category of generalized spiritual/social rape/oppression, and the tendency to look at the phenomenon and the problems associated with it more prosaically. I have some sympathy for people with the first tendency, but I don't necessarily trust their instincts as far as problem-solving goes and I often find their approach deeply frustrating and self-defeating, cf. much of this thread.
I'm kind of amazed that stripping seems still to be a given for bachelor parties. It strikes me as a depressingly ironic gesture at best.
youngish, attractive women who almost certainly have never had any such problem.
Hey, fuck you, asshole. Yes, I'm a not-terribly-unattractive woman, which means I've never been lonely or horny.
193: that's actually very good of you. Anyway, I like OG too, in whatever of OG's forms.
Um, let me retract the 'fuck you, asshole' bit of that. That's just a hot button for me -- the offhanded claim that women don't encounter rejection, or loneliness, or lack of access to the people who turn them on sexually.
Fuck all y'all! Fuck all y'all with a splintered stick! Woo! Fuck you! No, FUCK you! Hooray!
179: Yes, that's right.
It reminds me of when I was in Amnesty and other groups in college. About 2/3 of our activities were showing movies and going to speeches the entire point of which was to make us feel even more guilty and hopeless about everything. I kept wanting to say "Okay, everyone in America is complicit in the anti-Iraqi-civilians sanctions regime! Everyone in America is complicit in the war on some drugs used by poor people! Let's stop reminding ourselves of how bad it is! We are already in the small minority of people who actually realize it's a problem. Sorry to sound arrogant, but we're the good guys. Let's figure out how to change the minds of people who don't already agree with us."
That retraction should have included the word 'sorry' in it somewhere. Sorry for calling you an asshole, Apo.
198: No, not me.
199: You kiss your children with that mouth? Look, you're married, and had other boyfriends before that, yes? I can guarantee you that both of these guys not only still aren't married, they probably never will be. And if either one has ever been on a date, I'd be really surprised, though anything's possible. I'm not saying that loneliness is their exclusive domain, just that you obviously have potential exits that they don't.
204: I didn't take any offense.
202 would have been more effective in all caps. Are you new at this?
YOU'RE ALL PAWNS
FUCK YOU IF YOU THINK MY ACTIONS EITHER CAN OR CAN NOT MAKE A DIFFERENCE
WHO CARES
See? There's a master at work.
I haven't read the whole thread, or even much of it. But I'm guessing I'm with Apo in #205, here (personal discussions aside). I think I've commented before that strip clubs are the saddest places in America. But anyone who thinks that the desperation is unidirectional, or that sorting out the harmers from harmed is easy, hasn't been to many strip clubs. (Or, on a bet, a host of other depressing places.)
199: After reading this thread, I'm not feeling nearly so bad about losing my temper in the indoor/outdoor pet thread yesterday.
205: But you're still fucked up on this. If your reaction to a strip club is to pity the poor poor pitiful men who have no other possible way of finding any sort of love or affection, that's screwed up. Lots of people don't get the love or affection they want, men and women both. And they live. Treating another human being with the kind of contemptuous indifference it takes to pretend that what they're paying her for is affection isn't a harmless response to that lack.
That is to say, I've only been unattached for relatively short spans of my adult life and I've still experienced pretty crushing loneliness, as I'm sure everybody else here has. But it's the difference between a contraction that you can breathe through until it passes and chronic, untreatable pain. When I wasn't wallowing in the worst of my pity party, I knew I wasn't going to be alone the rest of my life. The guys I'm thinkg of probably suspect it, and they're more likely correct than not.
I don't think the phrase "contemptuous indifference" applies even a tiny bit to what these men are feeling, LB.
"he kind of contemptuous indifference it takes to pretend that what they're paying her for is affection"
How do you know there's contemptuous indifference? I feel like some of this thread is predicated on ideas of what men are getting out of strip clubs, and their relationships with the women who work there, that are based on very little actual experiential data.
If your reaction to a strip club is to pity the poor poor pitiful men
My reaction to a strip club is not to frequent them. But I recognize that there are MANY different pathologies going on inside them, rather than just the one that lines up most neatly with the predetermined gender war matrix.
Treating another human being with the kind of contemptuous indifference it takes to pretend that what they're paying her for is affection
See, I don't think it's like that for this subset we're discussing. If you went inside apo's two acquaintances' heads, my model for what they're feeling is very, very far from "contemptuous indifference."
I'm going to just take this opportunity to complain about something else. Here are two things that I have hated recently:
1) When people respond to the news that an infant has survived some kind of illness/surgery/complications of premature birth with remarks about how this survival demonstrates that the baby is "brave" or "a fighter" or other general remarks about the essential quality of the baby's character. What, so then the babies who die of similar things are cowardly losers?
2) When people reflexively describe their daughters as beautiful. "Our beautiful daughter Marie is five years old." Oh? How old is your ugly daughter? Your beautiful son? Harrumph.
Treating another human being with the kind of contemptuous indifference it takes to pretend that what they're paying her for is affection isn't a harmless response to that lack.
Believing that what's motivating the pretending is "contemptuous indifference" is wrongheaded.
222 was pwned by a comment that had already been pwned by three other comments AND acknowledged two of the pwns. That may be a first.
222 was pwned by a comment that had already been pwned by three other comments AND acknowledged two of the pwns. That may be a first.
180: That wasn't (meant as) a pot shot but as a voicing of exasperation. It's a particular frustration of mine that the things that most need talking through rarely get it because of this kind of thing. Even in liberal, academic-dominated forums, you'll rarely see a conversation about race, gender, Israel & Palestine, etc, get very far before the shouting starts and the useful part of the conversation ends.
I really wasn't looking to make an enemy out of you, it's just that as soon as the fuck-you-assholes start dropping, my desire to participate leaves the room.
216-219: Because in my life outside strip clubs, I see men acting as if their fantasy of what's going on a woman's head is more important than what she's actually thinking -- their thoughts about her and desires relating to her are important; she's nonexistent. And that's contemptuous indifference.
SdB has all sorts of deep, warm emotions directed toward his fantasies about strippers and how warm and caring and womanly they are. For the actual women he's interacting with, I think contemptutous indifference is a fair summation.
189: sorry for misreading.
197: it's not actually. I think it's been at 1/4-1/3 of the bachelor parties my husband's gone to.
I kind of agree with 218.
In conclusion, card check for strippers now!
And then 225 was pwned by 224 for the full meta.
Strip clubs: more creepy, less creepy, just differently creepy or exactly the same creepy as those restaraunts where patrons eat sushi off the bodies of naked women? And why?
SO BACK TO THE ORIGINAL OUTRAGE
WHO, AMONG THOSE WITH HIGH-LEVEL JOBS IN THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION FROM 2001 TO NOW, WILL NOT BURN IN HELL?
227.1: How is that any different than appreciating what an actor does? Because it's sexual? I don't know if that's a necessary category distinction.
Brock, I think the fetishizing of the completely immobile female body is definitely more creepy than the fetishizing of the vigorous and gyrating female body.
To everyone who says that 'contemptous indifference' is a bad description of how sad lonely men feel toward strippers, what do you think they feel? They're crazy enough to think that the strippers sincerely care about them? Or they can pretend what they like, and they don't give a flying fuck what the strippers are actually feeling?
231: Still very creepy, slightly less so, I think, but probably more easy to shame people out of.
And then 230 by 228 to take it to a whole new level of meta.
232: Possibly, whoever sourced this story. But noy probably.
Sometimes people are desperate for physical contact, LB. As for caring about what the stripper is feeling...well, the stripper is doing her job, isn't she? And that job is to give him physical contact, isn't it?
227 is still way wrong I think.
If we're talking about that subset of schmoes who do things like buy flowers for their favorite strippers, then the feeling is more along the lines of "I would take you awhile from all this and treat you like a queen."
Sad, pathetic and sexist in its own way? Yup. But definately miles from "comtemptuous indifference".
My friend's father, who worked in aerospace and traveled to Korea an awful lot, was at one of those business dinners where they woo the high-level American executive, and his hosts misinterpreted his uncertainty about eating every odd thing placed in front of him as inability to use chopsticks. A beautiful young woman was then called over, snap-snap, to sit quietly, hold the chopsticks, and feed him.
What's amusing, when he tells the story, is his clear anguished concern that his amazement at how professional a job she did outweighed his intellectual horror at the situation. Cleverly waiting for the right pause, intuiting what he wouldn't like and discreetly disposing of that dish, etcetera.
227: If he could maintain any satisfying "fantasy" while outside the strip club, then he wouldn't even be in there.
238: Which explains why these men are buying massages from non-sexual massage therapists rather than paying women to get naked and feign affection. Not buying it.
235: The thing is, how do you know? How are you more privileged to know what's in the heads of lonely older men than people who are, if not necessary older and lonely, at least men?
I personally think that they, given the total lack of other options for intimate companionship, they're more willing to settle for a fantasy than they otherwise would be. Do they know that the stripper might not even really like them? Probably. But what does it matter? Does somebody who buys lottery tickets know that there's fundamentally no chance they'll ever win? Who cares.
To everyone who says that 'contemptous indifference' is a bad description of how sad lonely men feel toward strippers, what do you think they feel?
Something similar to the proverbial unmarried 35 year old woman who wants to get married and have kids, and picks a bad or otherwise unsuitable guy because of it. Desperate.
235.1: There's a range of things going on, from unthinking entitlement (it doesn't occur to them to wonder what the stipper feels or whether her affection is genuine), to naive delusion, to more sophisticated or disillusioned perspectives. I'd say only the first would qualify as an equivalent of contemptuous indifference.
I personally think that they, given the total lack of other options for intimate companionship, they're more willing to settle for a fantasy than they otherwise would be.
And the way that fantasy works is to treat the actual woman they're interacting with as a completely unimportant thing -- a prop rather than a person.
But the woman is treating him as a prop too, LB.
But the woman is treating him as a prop too, LB. What she gets out of it is money. What he gets out of it is something that, frankly, I don't think women understand.
What matters to me is that he treats her with respect.
"And the way that fantasy works is to treat the actual woman they're interacting with as a completely unimportant thing -- a prop rather than a person."
Why do you keep claiming this? On what evidence or experience is this based on?
I guess in a sort of good way, you really don't seem to know how pathetic and delusional men can be. We really are quite a sad group.
247: a prop rather than a person
People rarely interact with the full person-hood of any kind of performer. I think equating strippers with actors as Sifu did is a bit naive, but this line of argument tacks back towards "how can people like looking at naked bodies" territory.
I'm not completely lacking in sympathy for sad lonely men who can't figure out how to get affection from people who care about them; still, being sad and in pain doesn't make acting in a shitty way non-shitty.
I'm getting the sense that men have problems, too.
242 seems totally clueless to me, and reminds me of my old roommate who regularly proclaimed that he didn't 'get' porn.
243: it's not all about physical contact. The same population and psychology existed before lap-dances became commonplace. And anyway, massages are mechanistic.
This is essentially a rerun of the voyeurism thread, where many of the people here kept insisting loudly that "voyeurism is X" while others kept trying to say "it can be X, but it certainly isn't always and only X, because it's a terrifically complicated phenomenon."
247: But how do you know that? Have you had this fantasy? Has somebody described this fantasy to you?
In any case, we treat very few of the people we meet in our day-to-day life as fully realized people with their own problems and desires. I mean, do people retaining a lawyer spend a lot of time thinking about what that lawyer really, really thinks of them?
If you're objecting to the commodification of sexuality in any context, well, okay. But that means everything from Second Life orgies to sexy advertising is verboten, which seems a little humorless, in the larger sense.
Counterfly, are you at CL30? I didn't go this year. I mean... Baltimore...
You know, I'm sure many guys who are regulars at strip clubs are sad, pathetic losers, and not really creepy, just desperate. I guess I'm not sure what insisting on that is supposed to prove. That stripping doesn't exploit women? That it exploits them less? That the men are merely trading cash for dignity, and really, the women should be thanking them? Where are you guys going with this line of argument?
242: I don't know your roommate, so I don't really have that frame of reference.
195/199: Was debating bringing this part of gender relations up. The existence of asshole alpha male PUAs comes with lots of beta male losers who get literally NO action. Like none. And so are reduced to paying women to pretend that they like them. I think it's hard for women who haven't really thought about it seriously to understand.
Look at lions. Female lions do most of the work, a couple males hang around lazily occasionally killing a wildebeest with their superior size. All the other males get driven out of the pride at age 2, and roam around the savannah aimlessly until they die.
You know, anything you care to name is a terrifically complicated phenomenon. That doesn't make it impossible to talk about. I'm sure that somewhere there is a veritable saint of a man who's sitting in a strip club getting a lap dance on his lunch break from curing cancer, as his way of coping with the pain of being so horribly deformed from injuries received in a fire he ran into to save some extraordinarily cute puppies that no woman will ever love him, and taking this one outlet from him would be horribly cruel.
Still, in general? Men paying women for sexual gratification? Gives me the fucking creeps.
260: Look at the mall. Schlubs of all sexes, genders, preferences, and political persuasions roam the glittering veldt, paired up with someone just as likely to confound Darwin. We ain't lions.
262: You know, anything you care to name is a terrifically complicated phenomenon. That doesn't make it impossible to talk about
Heck, it's even possible to talk about it as if it's complicated and not amenable to simplistic moralizing, eh what?
Lessons of the day
1. Sometimes people are creepy.
2. Sometimes people are creepy because they have no sympathy.
3. Sometimes you can have sympathy for creepy people who have no sympathy.
Still, in general? Men paying women for sexual gratification? Gives me the fucking creeps.
As previously mentioned, I haven't read the thread--too fucking long, too fucking depressing-- but they guys Apo's talking about? I'm not sure it's sexual gratification that they're looking for. It's not like we live in a world without prostitution, for example.
"Still, in general? Men paying women for sexual gratification? Gives me the fucking creeps."
This is entirely legitimate and understandable. It does not necessarily make that gratification negative to those involved, however.
Wait, there are strip clubs on the veldt?
258: that if you want to get an understanding of what drives the existence of strip clubs (and prostitution), looking at it through the lens of "powerful men sexualizing and oppressing women" is not going to give you an accurate picture.
262: It is fucking creepy. Strip clubs creep a lot of people out. But the patheticness and exploitation exists on both sides, which can be seen if one goes to an establishment that has both male and female strippers, and compares the atmosphere in the different sections.
Not that I've read the entire thread, so someone else might have posted it, but this seems apropos. It also lets you know what (at least some) strippers think about the whole thing.
Male strip clubs are a bad example, if only for the reason that it reeks of the usual move in feminist-issue threads to bring up that "men have it just as bad." Exploitation of male strippers is much, much less of a concern because, well, I can only refer you to 60.
Jake gets it right, but he omits the possibility of large numbers of equally schlumpy "beta females" in our monogamous society.
I would submit that the female equivalent of these guys, once they enter middle age, are better able to completely ignore the idea of sex and prepare themselves for a future without it.
270: Awesome.
273: I wouldn't have any insight on that, but I'm curious.
263: No, we aren't lions. But I know a lot more men who haven't been on a date with someone who was actually interested in them for four years than I do women. And most of the people who visit these brothels in nondescript houses in outlying neighborhoods are undocumented construction workers, not stockbrokers.
Or the one thing that sticks in my mind about the website of some brothel was the personal account of some guy in North Carolina who was saving up all of his money so he could fly to Nevada and actually have sex, only to have a further medical complication arrive so that he only had enough for a blowjob, but the prostitute was still so nice that he was back to saving up his money again so that maybe next year it would work out.
268: No, but there are males who's only opportunity for some hot lion sex would be to pay for it, if there were lion prostitutes, which there might not be. But there are apparently monkey prostitutes?
273: sex s/b "attention and emotional contact."
272: No, male strip clubs (frequented by females) are, from what I gather, much more lighthearted affairs. No dismal lighting, cheering and laughter from all parties involved, etc.
Because what's being bought and sold is closer to titillation and arousal than it is to attention.
Ah, the loading is slowing down too much to try and keep up. Just want to say I wasn't being sarcastic in 272.
273: Yeah, while I don't have statistics on comparative numbers, I know of plenty of women who are not expecting a sex life in their future. Maybe their lack of access to sex isn't a problem because women don't have a need for sex the same way men do, or maybe it's that we're a little more ready, as a society, to accept that men are entitled to sex.
I would submit that the female equivalent of these guys, once they enter middle age, are better able to completely ignore the idea of sex and prepare themselves for a future without it.
I guess what I take LB to be saying is that there are reasons that the male schlumpy lovable losers just in need of a little attention think that they have a right to purchase it, and those reasons are indicative of a larger cultural problems with women and sex as commodities. The individual guy might be pretty sympathetic and pathetic, but it's kind of telling that the main reaction seems to be "he has a right to sex and doesn't have a chance except by paying for it", which, whether you agree with that sentiment or not, isn't something that would be told to a woman.
which, whether you agree with that sentiment or not, isn't something that would be told to a woman.
Ahem.
Have to disagree with that.
Nobody ever said that he had a right to sex. Or that he was lovable. And he's not getting sex, anyway.
Yes, exactly, although I hadn't quite gotten to that level of clarity on my own.
281, 282: But your theoretical men aren't getting sex in a strip club.
I guess what I take LB to be saying is that there are reasons that the male schlumpy lovable losers just in need of a little attention think that they have a right to purchase it, and those reasons are indicative of a larger cultural problems with women and sex as commodities
Alternatively, it might be that as a matter of socialization, there are other places for women to get attention, affection, and sympathy (however feigned)--like other women--that are not available to the set of men we're discussing. It's unlikely that other guys are flocking to them.
or maybe it's that we're a little more ready, as a society, to accept that men are entitled to sex.
Jeebus.
Oh, come on. They go to strip clubs because they find them sexually gratifying -- it's not intercourse, but it's sex.
LB has a curious definition of sex.
Mutatis mutandis
That's Spanish for "what's good for the goose is good for the gander," right?
289: Everything sexually gratifying is not sex.
And, TJ, yes, am at the event of which you spoke. It sucks, as usual. Although the trade show is awesome.
Everything sexually gratifying is not sex.
That would be weird if true.
Moreover, everything that is sex is not sexually gratifying. Trust me on this one.
It is an activity one engages in to satisfy one's sexual needs or desires. I don't see the important distinction being made here beyond quibbling: the assertion was that a man unable to persuade people to gratify his sexual needs or desires out of mutual desire or affection has an industry to turn to set up to gratify those sexual desires; he's entitled to buy the sexual gratification he wants. The situation for women isn't parallel.
That's Spanish for "what's good for the goose is good for the gander," right?
Sodomy!
297: I certainly agree it should be.
It's not like there's no equivalents for lonely straight women, but certainly the scale and presence in society are vastly different.
273 reminds me of a kid I worked with who met somebody in a chat room and went over to her place for sex. Bit of a disappointment for him that she turned out to be something like 300 pounds. After she'd given him the "best head ever," as he described it, he excused himself to go to the bathroom and she said something to the effect of, "It's OK if you want to leave now." Evidently not the first time she'd had somebody run out the back door.
Moreover, everything that is sex is not sexually gratifying. Trust me on this one.
I was tired. Jeebus.
The situation for women isn't parallel.
There's more than one available explanation for that.
The situation for women isn't parallel.
True enough. So the question, then, is which is the best outcome:
1. eliminate the industry for men;
2. maintain the status quo, or;
3. create the industry for women.
302 does not encompass all possible options.
The floor is open to amendments, mrh.
297: I don't see the important distinction being made here beyond quibbling
The difference between watching someone dance and actually screwing them is "quibbling"?
he's entitled to buy the sexual gratification he wants. The situation for women isn't parallel.
Or rather, it isn't exactly parallel -- since men still form the bulk of the market -- but women can and do in fact go to strippers and hire prostitutes both male and female. Wouldn't be my first choice, but that's kind of up to them.
This is starting to feel like exactly the conversation that made me jumpy about supporting Leblanc to begin with -- as if I'm being offered the choices: "Well, do you want to eliminate strip clubs? Because that's totally fascist of you, and there are strippers out there who need the money. Or are you just bitching that women don't go to clubs to watch men strip? Because no one's stopping them from going to clubs like that -- if there was a market for it, the clubs would exist. So I don't know what you're complaining about, there really isn't a problem here."
I still think that buying sexual gratification is generally a fucked-up transaction, and that our fucked-up culture makes it look normal to treat women as sexual props, and that that's a bad thing. I don't have a policy solution I'm pushing right now.
he's entitled to buy the sexual gratification he wants. The situation for women isn't parallel.
Isn't the difference between the genders more ability and willingness than entitlement? And isn't the difference between ability and entitlement meaningful?
How many men have the option in 300?
306: Would you extend this to include porn, then? (That came up earlier.)
This thread is remarkably low on comity.
Extend what? Not having a policy position I'm pushing right now? Sure.
Buying sexual gratification is different in important ways from buying other forms of gratification, but not entirely different. A (gay) guy I know is constantly going on about a particular woman who works in a bakery where he buys his muffins in the morning, how "kind" and "giving" and "warm" she is. When I look at the situation, I see someone working for minimum wage who goes out of her way to be nice because he gives her big tips. That he is unclear about the gross inequality of the situation and/or imagines the inequality to be ameliorated under the heading of "a warm and kind person giving of herself to a fellow human being" really creeps me out.
I mean, would you say that it's a similarly fucked-up transaction?
Analogies between muffins and sex? Oh no.
306 nicely covers my 303. Thanks, LB!
Neil, I agree. This thread could use more comity.
306: if there was a market for it, the clubs would exist
Ummm, there is a market, and the clubs do exist.
In general, you're obviously entitled to whatever view you want of "buying sexual gratification." But you seem to want to make a general moral point beyond your own personal squick, and you're not providing much in the way of specifics to hang that on.
311 is right to bring up the more general issue of affective labor, I think.
Counterfly- I saw you mentioned on your site a certain box of goodies from a certain Nordic-themed equipment company. Does it say more than that I'm a poor little grad student that I love those things?
312: I'm not sure. I don't have the same visceral reaction to it generally -- I think most of what bothers me about porn is the industry and particular features of particular types of porn rather than a necessary component of consuming porn at all. But I haven't worked out my feelings in a principled way.
Does anyone disagree with this statement?
I would submit that the female equivalent of these guys, once they enter middle age, are better able to completely ignore the idea of sex and prepare themselves for a future without it.
If not, then maybe the guys we're talking about deserve more sympathy than they're getting.
314 -- comity has been replaced for the duration of this thread by complicity.
315: The general moral point is that our culture generally treats women as dehumanized sexual props, and strip clubs are a particularly disgusting facet of that tendency. If you like, you can think this is simply some weird little quirk I have.
323: Okay, but statements about what "our culture generally does" of which strip clubs are supposed to be a facet are unhelpfully vague. But for your 319, I'd be tempted to assume you're arguing for a position about the general immorality of "objectification" or something similar -- that at least would make coherent sense to me, though I'd disagree with it -- but that appears not to be the case.
311: We need mind-reading ability. The maintenance guy at my office building is scarily cheerful to everyone all the time and we don't tip him.
I'm sorry not to have been of more assistance. Please do ask again if you think there's anything I can help you with.
161: Well, yeah. What makes people defensive in convos like this is the presumption that the point of talking about social problems is assigning blame. But I think everyone here is smart enough to know that, while blaming someone (the rich, the Democrats, the Republicans, men) is satisfying in a way, it *really* isn't the point of cultural or political criticism. Think about how annoying it is when, say, the resident conservatives pipe up in threads about the latest fucked up news from the war in Iraq about how unfair it is to blame conservatives. So, so not the point. And everyone gets annoyed at them for derailing and making the thread all about their self-justification.
178: Low blow. Can we not do the "your shrillness is the real problem here" thing?
179: I'm not entirely cool with it, but it isn't a thing I choose to make a big stink over. Again, I think that assuming that "the goal" should be changing behavior is mistaken, and that "symbolic rending of garments" is a little dismissive. It's cultural criticism: the "point" of it (why must everything have a point?) is surely to think about the issue/problem and hope that by doing so one more clearly understands the world.
195: Like, for instance, this. I'll go so far as to say that yes; one of the things that sex workers do is provide an outlet for people (men) who really need touch and have no way of getting it. This is sad and pitiable. Now, Apo's second paragraph, which implicitly pits pitiable men against we "youngish attractive women" is obnoxious, but let's ignore that so I can pose two rhetorical questions: (1) Is condoning sex work the only possible way to provide physical affection for lonely people? What about, say, lonely women? If women don't have this kind of loneliness, then what outlets do they have that men don't? Is part of the problem the male culture where any affection between men friends is "gay"? (2) If sex work is a (or the) answer for these poor, lonely men, then why are sex workers so stigmatized and derided? Surely they ought to be considered part of the medical/psychiatric field--and paid more, to boot, because the nature of their work is much more psychically demanding.
218: Agreed that there are complex pathologies going on. Also going to point out that one way of not perpetuating the gender wars might be not saying "but what about the men?" when a convo like this is going on. That said, I think expanding the convo to include the patheticness of lonely men and their needs is not only a good thing but actually worked in this thread, no?
258: A good counterpart to 179; okay, both sides lack a "point." The pathetic men convo, though, seems to have become the dominant one. One swallow does not make a summer, but I think I can understand why people started getting mad earlier in the thread--we've got the boy hijack going on again, no? Why, for god's sake does it have to be *either* a focus on women *or* one on men--especially if part of the "men have problems too" argument is that the gender wars present false dichotomies?
269: 2 seems to contradict 1, inasmuch as the usual clients for both male and female strippers are men. No?
286: Silly. Or, at least, it contradicts your argument about what these lonely men need/are getting out of it. If they want conversation, why aren't they joining book clubs? If they want intercourse, why not hire prostitutes? And in any case, if what they want is the affection of a woman, the original point LB keeps making still stands: is that actually what they're getting? And if not, what *are* they getting? And what about the strippers--or do we want to dismiss them because "it's their job"?
286 isn't silly. I think that the men are getting something that they want, but women don't want. That this is a way in which men and women differ.
It's hard to explain it. The best thing I can think of to say is that having recent experience of having a woman rub up on one salaciously makes one's next several masturbation sessions a lot more rewarding.
we've got the boy hijack going on again, no?
It's more than a little different when the complaint charges men with a specific odiousness, no? If a woman of color came on board and complained that mainstream feminism cared only about the interests of middle class white women, would it be similarly wrong for a white woman to object to that characterization?
implicitly pits pitiable men against we "youngish attractive women"
It does no such thing.
If they want intercourse, why not hire prostitutes?
Some people have this weird thing about being put in jail after having their picture on the evening news. Plus, they aren't getting intercourse at a strip club.
is that actually what they're getting?
They are getting physical contact in a non-clinical (e.g. massage) setting.
Again, I think that assuming that "the goal" should be changing behavior is mistaken, and that "symbolic rending of garments" is a little dismissive.
It was meant to be a little dismissive because there's a contrast between how high the outrage is (wearing heels is spitting in the eye of every rape victim! everyone is complicit in the plight of strippers) and how little is required to satisfy that outrage (think about it before you put on your heels! tip the stripper well!)
This is probably mostly my hang-up, but either it's not that big of a deal and we should ratchet down the outrage, or more than cultural criticism is required.
330.1: Oh come on, it does too. The implication is that we youngish attractive women have no idea what the problems of frumpy lonely guys are. Which is at least as much of a gender wars blow as anything any of us ever say.
330.3: They want physical contact in a non-clinical setting. Okay. But that still doesn't explain why, for instance, the nakedness or the dancing. Or why not hiring prostitutes--after all, you can surely hire a hooker and *not* actually have penetrative intercourse with her.
I suspect that what they want is conversation and a sense of company and the fantasy of being able to flirt/be liked. The problem is that what they're getting--whether or not they're aware of this--includes a lot of other baggage about women being buyable (and at really pathetic prices), women "using" men to make money, and all the other defensive misogynist crap that goes along with these places.
ratchet down the outrage
This seems like a highly inapposite suggestion given the nature of this thread.
326: You know, I'm actually not being flip or deliberately obtuse. But hey, whatever.
327: Why, for god's sake does it have to be *either* a focus on women *or* one on men
It doesn't. Why does any mention of men have to be intepreted as a demand that the focus be only on men? I can see plenty of reasons why the behaviour of pathologies of both genders are relevant to the subject, and little reason to assume why bringing up one of those genders should be regarded as temerity or hijacking.
Oh come on, it does too. The implication is that we youngish attractive women have no idea what the problems of frumpy lonely guys are.
Well, do you think you do?
Which is at least as much of a gender wars blow as anything any of us ever say.
I think both sexes have a right to say "This is an experience you wouldn't understand because you aren't a man/woman".
I think that the men are getting something that they want, but women don't want. That this is a way in which men and women differ.
A point here (yes, it's presumptuous of me to theorize about what's going on in anyone else's head, particularly a man's head. Sorry. Huh, I do seem to be doing it anyway, though) is that this difference is not innate and unproblematic, but is part of our sexist society. I would argue that what makes this sort of thing less attractive to women is that they empathize with the potential stripper -- he's a person, with sexual desires and needs of his own, which are almost certainly not served by rubbing up against unattractive women for 20 bucks a time, and having someone rub up against you isn't salacious or enjoyable if they'd rather not be there. Once you're paying attention to the stripper as a person, their services stop being sexually gratifying because you're pretty damn certain they aren't into it. (See Ned's 31).
Men are much likelier to be able to enjoy this sort of thing, because they have much more cultural support for completely lacking empathy for a woman being paid to service them sexually, and her thoughts and desires aren't offputting or a barrier in any way. (Obviously, not all men lack empathy like this -- most of the men in this thread who've talked about personal exposure to strippers have had exactly the sort of empathy that gets in the way of enjoying the experience.)
The implication is that we youngish attractive women have no idea what the problems of frumpy lonely guys are.
No, I think we all do have an idea, just perhaps not much real *empathy* for the actual situation for lack of having ever been in it. It's the latter that I was getting at. When I made the comment, though, that certainly wasn't being considered aloud and was, in fact, being angrily dismissed.
331: Mm. I think that expecting the collective "we" to ratchet down the outrage is unrealistic. And yeah, more than cultural criticism is required, but it's difficult to figure out a solution when you can't even begin to discuss the problem. Ya gotta start somewhere.
329: I've only had about half an eye on this thread, but it seemed like the real problem wasn't that men were objecting to the characterization of the strip club patrons, but that this new characterization somehow turned the man into the real victim of exploitation, not the woman dancing for cash.
I feel like I could caricature the argument as "hey, they're not assholes, some of them are losers who are the real victims here", and that seems wrong because it's not a game of misery poker here, and it just seems strange to say that the consumer isn't the one with the power here.
here. here. here.
327.269: in-call male strippers - only one I've seen was paid for by a man, seems like a reasonable assumption that their clientele is mainly men. Male prostitutes - clientele probably mostly men. But the only "male strip clubs" I've heard of cater to women, and this is interesting because they sell attractive de-personified naked dancers, which is supposedly what all men are buying in strip clubs. When, if you look at, say this piece of insightful social commentary, the dominant message is affection rather than sex.
Fwiw, I have and have had a lot more friends who were unattractive lonely men than friends who were strippers.
Why does any mention of men have to be intepreted as a demand that the focus be only on men? It doesn't, which is one reason why in my tediously long comment above I said that I thought that bringing up the lonely men was a good move. What bugs me is that the conversation seems to have been hijacked by that--not deliberately, I'm sure. I honestly don't know *why* that so often seems to happen, but, well, it does.
337: I still don't think you can describe 'not having access to the sex you want' as an experience that women can't have empathy with; it's certainly a situation I've been in. If you want to say that 'having no prospect of having sex again ever' is an experience women in this thread can't empathize with with, well, sure, but neither can you.
but that this new characterization somehow turned the man into the real victim of exploitation, not the woman dancing for cash.
No no no, you're conflating two things:
"the man as the real victim of exploitation" - this is the idea that Text was proposing, that the stripper is being exploited, the man is deluding himself, and the only one who benefits is the strip club owner. This can coincide perfectly well with the patron being an asshole rather than a desperate guy. He's still wasting money on an unfulfilling rite of passage, and the money goes to perpetuate strip-club advertising.
"hey, they're not assholes, some of them are losers who are the real victims here"
In that case if the patron is a loser, there's no reason for us to claim that he is "the real victim". He's getting something out of it. But he's unlikely to be saying "Dance, slut, act like a whore for me". He's more likely to feel grateful.
Men are much likelier to be able to enjoy this sort of thing, because they have much more cultural support for completely lacking empathy for a woman being paid to service them sexually, and her thoughts and desires aren't offputting or a barrier in any way.
The empathy gap may not be unidirectional. I take that to be Apo's point.
but neither can you
Well yeah, as I made explicit way back in 215. Which is why I try to reserve judgment.
But what he's being grateful *for*, ultimately, is a system in which women's sexuality is a commodity.
What bugs me is that the conversation seems to have been hijacked by that--not deliberately, I'm sure. I honestly don't know *why* that so often seems to happen, but, well, it does.
It hasn't been hijacked. We were done with the "damn those assholes" topic; it was exhausted. Then we went into the "some of the women aren't exploited, and Sify Tweety's experience was entirely woman-positive" topic, which didn't last long because it linked to other websites which pretty much covered it. Then we went onto the new topic, spurred by apostropher's mentioning these guys he knows. We can move on to a new topic of conversation without starting a new thread.
It's becoming clear that the next unfogged meetup is going to have to take place at a strip club, so this issue can be settled once and for all. And yes, it will still involve playing gay chicken.
347: Why is criticizing strip clubs interpreted as casting judgment on lonely men? Yes, there was some of that in this thread, but the gist of the comments by women, at least, actually argued *against* dismissing strip club patrons as assholes.
But what he's being grateful *for*, ultimately, is a system in which women's sexuality is a commodity.
Well, yes. But he's engaging specific women who have no problem at all in selling their sexuality, because it's their job, because there's a market for it. The alternatives are worse.
The patron isn't the real victim - all he's out is his forty bucks and his dignity, of which he probably didn't have much to begin with, else he wouldn't be paying women to pretend to like him, eh? But the patron also is also not powerful or exploitative, and thinking or talking about him as if he is prevents understanding what's going on.
specific women who have no problem at all in selling their sexuality, because it's their job, because there's a market for it.
Absolutely no problem at all, then. Glad to have that settled.
"engaging specific women who have no problem at all in selling their sexuality, because it's their job"
bzzt. Tautology.
351: I think I implicitly got called an asshole someplace in there. That's fine, though.
Okay then, remove "at all". Gosh, at least you could say whether you agree with "The alternatives are worse".
I agree with the claims made by every woman in the universe that men should not feel a need for sexual contact in the absence of love. But we do, more than women do.
specific women who have no problem at all in selling their sexuality
Whaaaaaa? I do not think that there is reason to assume that, and there's quite a bit of evidence that sex work is pretty damaging to people.
Brad Plumer wrote a releveant post. Sorry if it's been linked already.
If you're look for some off-beat reading, Bernadette Barton's Stripped: Inside the Lives of Exotic Dancers might fit the bill. Sorry, no pictures. It's one of the better books I've read lately. The takeaway thesis, I think, is this: Debates about strippers--or sex workers in general--often center on the question of whether sex work is empowering or oppressive. Barton took the radical step of getting to know the workers themselves and finding out. The answer she gets is... it's neither. There are aspects of working in a nude club that are empowering, in some sense, but those same aspects often become oppressive after a period of time.
Women begin dancing because they need the money and like the hours. Coercion is subtle but it's there too. Barton talks to dancers who thrive, at least in the short term, on the compliments they get while working. Some appreciate the ability to set boundaries--the "no touching" rule, for instance--something they might have a hard time doing in the outside world, where some level of everyday harassment is deemed tolerable or acceptable. A few women are able to partially overcome past abusive experiences by taking control of their sexuality through stripping, although this is sort of problematic. Some women even find pleasure in performing--in dancing, in dressing up.
But those upsides rarely last long. The compliments inevitably give way to insults, boundaries are violated by "grabby" men, the thrill of dancing yields to achy joints. Anyone who works in a strip club for long enough--Barton identifies the magic time period as roughly three years--begins to break down. I hadn't really thought about it, but rejection wears on a lot of the women. Like, say, nannies, they're doing a lot of emotional labor--trying constantly to please people, being judged on their appearance, being invested in their interactions. It's draining, and little wonder alcoholism and drug use is so rampant.
358: I dunno, what are these worse alternatives we're avoiding here?
the patron also is also not powerful or exploitative
From whose point of view? He's got more power than the women he's hiring, and by hiring them he's contributing to their exploitation, no?
Wouldn't a ban on stripping be much more effective than on prostitution? Might be a good idea.
353 sums up my thinking better than my multiple comments.
Oh good, Katherine: Yggls had a post up today just saying that it's obviously a good thing to try to shut down Guantanamo. I remembered Marty Lederman disputing that point a while back, and I was wondering if you (and CharleyCarp, but he appears to be working today) had an opinion either way.
He's got more power than the women he's hiring
This is not at all clear to me.
There are aspects of working in a nude club that are empowering, in some sense, but those same aspects often become oppressive after a period of time.
This matches my general sense, and is why it's so hard to make sense of a game of misery poker about strip clubs.
He's got more power than the women he's hiring, and by hiring them he's contributing to their exploitation, no?
That's not always true for every customer in every industry.
"The alternatives are worse". What alternatives? Worse for who?
the claims made by every woman in the universe that men should not feel a need for sexual contact in the absence of love. But we do, more than women do.
Every woman in the universe does not make that claim. And you base your assertion that men need sexual contact w/out love more than women on . . . what?
much more effective
Um, why would you think that?
360: Elizabeth Eaves' book is also excellent. I can't believe I didn't mention it earlier in the thread.
That's not always true for every customer in every industry.
We're not talking about every industry here; we're talking about sex work, specifically stripping.
363: I kinda doubt it. Maybe stripping would be slightly easier to regulate than prostitution, but I don't generally think that morality-type bans do anything other than make the problem worse (for the actual people doing the banned work).
362: more power? again, he pays some woman forty bucks and she pretends to like him. he also probably paid the bouncer ten or twenty bucks to be let into the club, and maybe another ten dollars for a bottle of bud light. sure, the woman is pretending that he has the power, but that doesn't mean much as a bit of thinking about professional dominatrixes shows.
I didn't say we need, I say we "feel a need". Like a craving, you know.
And "love" should be read as "a strong emotional bond of some sort", but yeah, I'll stand behind saying that men feel that more than women.
273: I would submit that the female equivalent of these guys, once they enter middle age, are better able to completely ignore the idea of sex and prepare themselves for a future without it.
I know a number of women just hitting 40 who are in a lot of pain because there is no prospect they can see of love or even physical affection in their future.
363: Wouldn't a ban on stripping be much more effective than on prostitution?
It would shift the practice more into private hire-a-stripper contexts or toward web pr0n. But that's already happening anyway.
Dude, he's not being forced to go to strip clubs. C'mon.
368: I think that's where the lions are supposed to come into it.
At least against strip clubs, depending on police behavior. And people who'd be willing to break the law, would want prositution anyway. Maybe. I've only thought about it for a minute.
373: Well, I think that's horseshit, but even if I didn't, why would it be the responsibility of women (in this case, strippers) to fulfill that need?
374: Yep. But there's not a whole cultural story set up about their needs.
Nor is the stripper being forced to work in one. The power relationship here is complicated, and it isn't at all clear to me who has the upper hand, aside from the guy who owns the club.
Anyway, I don't *quite* understand why y'all are so defensive about the lonely strip club patrons. They're clearly the exception--strip clubs are big, big business, and I'm not buying that the average customer is some poor schlump who can't get a girl, ever. Don't you think that it's kinda messed up to identify with them more than with the strippers? Especially since you're clearly expecting *us*, the girls, to be able to empathize with the schlubby guys?
381: Oh, come on. In the context of the individual transaction, she's trying to please him enough that he will give her money; her actions are controlled by his desires. He's purchasing her obedience. Is he a slaveholder? No, it's a short-term transaction. But within that short-term transaction, the master-servant relation is clear.
Another tanker of outrage pulls into formation. I think this one is running low.
She's not being forced to work at strip clubs. So? He's also probably more likely to be left wanting more and told that if he tries to get it he either has to pay a lot more money or he's going to be thrown out on the street.
Anothen example. One of the times I went to vegas, one of the people on the trip got separated from the group only to knock on the hotel room door at six in the morning. He had gone to some strip club, where he ended up in some back room completely drunk buying bottles of champagne and lap dances until the ATM cut him off at several hundred dollars. He was a college junior at the time, and as near as we can tell this was half of his food budget for the rest of the semester. The rest of the trip he was continually trying to cajole us into going back to this strip club as his daily ATM withdrawal limit had reset. I can't see how he came out ahead on that transaction.
381: Look, you know I don't buy into the idea that everything in the world is a "choice," but surely you agree that a customer has more of a choice about whether or not to buy than a worker does about whether or not to sell/have a job.
379: It isn't their responsibility. That's why there's a process by which women are incentivized to fulfill the need, by being paid.
The problem arises when these women are also exploited by their jobs, treated as sex objects without agency, and forced to beg for money from assholes. Which is, yes, what happens in our society.
What I'm saying is that the guy's desire should not be viewed as misogyny.
The desire, no. The psychological capacity to satisfy it without empathy for its objects? That's giving me a little more trouble.
washerdryer:
I'd have to look at the bill itself in detail and don't have time to. "Close down Guantanamo" can mean "let's find a decent way to deal with detainees" or it may be purely about de-funding detainee operations in a particular base in Cuba. You could conceivably close it in a way that did more harm than good but I trust the human rights community & habeas lawyers to have their eye on the ball--the greater danger is Congressional inaction.
Based on Harman's post, the part about "transfer to the detainees' country of origin" makes me nervous--diplomatic assurances cannot necessarily be trusted. On the other hand, the State Dep'ts diplomatic assurances re: GTMO are not the exercise in sheer bad faith in the way that diplomatic assurances before a rendition are, and most detainees probably *would* be better off if they were repatriated. I don't know if she's written in a safeguard to extrajudicial detention at some other US prison like Bagram; that's obviously necessary. The habeas restoration is obviously crucial. Overall, I'd say it's a good sign that very establishment moderates like her and Feinstein give a damn.
I know a number of women just hitting 40 who are in a lot of pain because there is no prospect they can see of love or even physical affection in their future.
And if--as I've certainly seen a few times--she makes a series of bad decisions based on that pain, I'd be circumspect about any feelings of outrage OUTRAGE! that I felt. This isn't really that hard.
Don't you think that it's kinda messed up to identify with them more than with the strippers?
Why is that messed up? To the extent that I've had thoughts or experiences that are close to one or the other, they've been a lot closer to "I don't like it, but it looks like the only way I'll be able to get some woman to act like she likes me is to pay for it" than "I have to act as if I want to sleep with this loser and let him grope me because I really need the twenty bucks."
Alex, skype me if you're not too busy.
They're clearly the exception--strip clubs are big, big business, and I'm not buying that the average customer is some poor schlump who can't get a girl, ever.
I agree, but we've already established the awful sexist nature of the place, and are now talking about why not all the clientele is to be frowned upon.
Don't you think that it's kinda messed up to identify with them more than with the strippers? Especially since you're clearly expecting *us*, the girls, to be able to empathize with the schlubby guys?
I don't remember anyone saying we should identify with them MORE than with the strippers.
379: It's nobody's responsibility, but the guy's willing to pay.
Man, I had no idea I would be so far off the mean with this. I really feel like, hey, consenting adults, do you what you feel like. Obviously being at a strip club as either a patron or dancer is going to be non-optimal for both of them at least some of the time. And, sure, it definitely speaks of a sexist culture that one (many) of the few jobs available to young women with limited education is one that relies on their status as sex objects. And lots of guys who go to strip clubs pretty often are schmucks. But I don't think it's inherently exploitative any more than I think some other crappy job is exploitative. That the fact that it involves sex should make it so much more damaging to everyone doesn't make sense to me.
I don't think I'm being defensive, B, though I'll not attempt to speak for anybody else. Everybody has acknowledged that strip clubs contain their fair share of misogynistic assholes. My sense of the thread is that people are trying to broaden the discussion beyond "strip clubs are this, and you're all complicit in this, whether you go to them or not."
Göran Persson, our former PM, has disgraced himself by started working for a PR firm. Better than being a lobbyist, at least, esp. for fucking gazprom.
394 makes more sense with "sympathize" instead of "identify". Of course I identify more with the guys, what with being a guy and whatnot. Unless I don't understand the word "identify".
383: Don't you think that it's kinda messed up to identify with them more than with the strippers?
Someone suggested identifying with one more than the other? Where?
384: her actions are controlled by his desires
Directly speaking, it's likelier that her actions are controlled by club policy, not the punter's desires in some immediate and arbitrary sense.
396 aligns with my thinking. I think strip clubs are icky, I don't go to them if I can help it, and the few times I think about going I always feel disgusted with myself afterwards for even considering stooping so low. If someone tells me that this means I'm complicit in exploiting women, I am naturally going to disagree with their assertion, and will attempt to explain why.
Thanks B for pointing out that the point is to understand the phenomenon. I don't think that was originally in the ground rules, and it's helpful.
I like Sifu's insistence on a labor theory of understand sex work. The more power the workers have, the better. That said, I think it's important to add to that a feminist analysis that spends some time thinking about how shitty sex work is distinct from shitty mine work.
Twisty often uses the refrain, "If there were no patriarchy, porn would be as exciting as watching" (banana slugs? something.) I don't know that that's exactly right -- but I think it's instructive to imagine how this particular worker and its consumer flow from domination and routinized harrassment, the expectation that men are to be provided with sex, etc., and how men and women would enjoy sex more in its absence.
My own complicity: my bachelor party included a visit to a strip club (among other, geekier entertainments), where I had a lap dance that I found soft and mysterious, and a table dance that I found silly. A cousin's bachelor party took me to a club in Vegas once; a distant relation said, "I bet half these sluts are in my classes at UNLV" and I spent some time socratically making him feel bad for that remark, which I think had a small effect.
My computer never interprets the little symbols like in 382 properly, so everyone keeps saying "I pipe Cala", and I keep thinking I can't be smoked.
That the fact that it involves sex should make it so much more damaging to everyone doesn't make sense to me.
Come on... sex is probably the most powerful human drive after self-preservation and one's-kid's-preservation. It's not at all surprising that it magnifies whatever effects would otherwise be in play.
396: I'm probably responsible for most of the hostility in the thread, and as usual, probably, most of that is due to talking at cross-purposes.
If all anyone is saying about the sad schlumphy men who go to strip clubs is that their lives are hard, and they deserve some sympathy for having hard lives, and strip clubs make them happier, sure, I'll agree with all of that. I just don't want to take it all the way to 'so, when men like that patronize strippers, there's nothing problematic going on there from the point of view of sexism -- it's uncomplicatedly a good thing that they have that outlet.'
To force a crappy analogy, B, your argument seems to be that ticketholders have inordinate power over their team's quarterback who is, after all, taking full-speed hits from 270-lb guys for the entertainment of the folks in the stands, which he presumably wouldn't do absent the revenue they direct toward him.
391: SMCT, I think you might be missing my point. I was responding to the idea that the pain of middle aged schlumpy guys is worse and/or they're less able to cope. And actually the unwise actions at least one of the women I know might take involve suicide.
Does anyone disagree with this statement?
I would submit that the female equivalent of these guys, once they enter middle age, are better able to completely ignore the idea of sex and prepare themselves for a future without it.
If not, then maybe the guys we're talking about deserve more sympathy than they're getting.
Fuck all y'all. You have no fucking idea what you're talking about.
Sex work is more damaging precisely because it isn't "just" about sex. It's also about fulfilling people's emotional needs. If the point were sex, then guys could just stay home and masturbate.
Which is also my answer to the question about why strip club clients should be frowned upon. Again, whether they realize it or not, they're taking advantage of a system that's damaging to women.
396/400!: I think it's important not to think of "complicity" as a personal attack. As an American taxpayer, I'm complicit in the Iraq debacle. I plan to vote Democratic, but I'm still complicit. I've helped organized some protests and anti-war resolutions, but I'm still complicit. If there were some benefit to the country (like when we topple dictators to keep bananas cheap), we'd be reaping it, no matter how much we monkey wrench the machine. I think you can be complicit and resistant at the same time, and it's healthy to understand how you can benefit from a situation even though you reject it.
409: Yeah, I couldn't figure out what to say to that one, and just let it pass.
Which is also my answer to the question about why strip club clients should be frowned upon. Again, whether they realize it or not, they're taking advantage of a system that's damaging to women.
They're taking advantage of the system, but not necessarily contributing to it.
405: Only if you put that analogy in the larger context of a society that values men primarily according to their athleticism to the extent that men who are successful in other ways are continually devalued, personally and professionally, for not being athletic.
That said, one of the things I don't like about football is exactly what you're saying. I feel much more strongly about boxing, which is a lot more damaging.
410: So work that fulfills people's emotional needs is draining, and can be unrewarding. Okay. This is not a small category of jobs.
414: Other than, you know, by being the customer base without which strip clubs would not exist. What's your standard for 'contributing to it'?
415 continued: That, plus pro football players make a LOT more money than professional strippers.
412: Exactly. And if we were talking about, say, the effect of the Iraq war on Iraqis and a few people jumped in and said, wait, not *all* Americans support the war! And some of us are affected by it too! that would seem, well, kinda assholish, wouldn't it?
. I just don't want to take it all the way to 'so, when men like that patronize strippers, there's nothing problematic going on there from the point of view of sexism -- it's uncomplicatedly a good thing that they have that outlet.'
I think you can rest easy. As I've previously said, strip clubs are unbelievably sad places, on the whole. They are little marketplaces where people exchange desperation. My own belief is that, assuming a schlump, each transaction usually costs the schlump more in dignity than the dancer, but that--as it's her job--the dancer has several orders of magnitude more transactions of this sort than any individual schlump, and so the harm falls, inevitably, hardest, by a lot, on the dancer. I think that if you've been to a few, this is obvious, but that's just my opinion.
And all of the above is a pretty good reason to avoid strip clubs.
417: My inability or unwillingness to go into great detail about the specific ways that sex work is specifically degrading/damaging doesn't mean that all jobs that are draining and require a worker to deal with customers' emotional needs are equal. Surely this is obvious.
I don't understand what "complicit" means in the last few comments. Again, I thought it was used to say someone was partly to blame for something.
How many of us are partly to blame for the Iraq war? There's nothing I could have done to have an effect on whether it happened or not.
412: Responsible, not complicit.
How many of us are partly to blame for the Iraq war?
Surely we all are, inasmuch as we depend on and live within a system of wealth and cheap oil that requires, among other things, the power to go into wars of choice.
419.2: Assholish, but there's a way to convince Americans that their own safety in the world has been compromised by the actions of the government. This can be analogized* back to the psychological reward to men of enjoying the company of women as peers** rather than as objects. Although the consciousness-raising takes probably a different shape.
*Banned!
**Back to the golden shower dance. Wocka!
422: Of course. I just don't believe it to be categorically worse than those other jobs simply because somebody derives sexual satisfaction from it. Is it usually worse than those jobs? Yep. Does it have to be? I don't think so.
SMCT, I think you might be missing my point. I was responding to the idea that the pain of middle aged schlumpy guys is worse and/or they're less able to cope.
Mmm. I don't particularly want to make claims about greater/less than a specific instance of pain.. But I think it used to be a pretty widely held, uncontroversial belief that one of the reasons widows survived as such longer than widowers did the same is that widows had social networks and, well, reason to live, that widowers had never developed. I wouldn't be surprised to find that to be true generally.
And actually the unwise actions at least one of the women I know might take involve suicide.
And--while I think that's uncomplicatedly a bad, bad thing--I wouldn't make disparaging remarks about the character of such a person if she did it. Furthermore, I'm not sure, but I believe that men are more likely by a fair bit to be suicides (or alcoholics--the other great end of the lonely).
427: I used to think the same thing, until I tried it. It really is worse and more exhausting. You can take my word for it or you can go do it yourself and see if you agree, I guess.
428: I think all that is true. I also think that a lot of it is about sexism and the problem of m/m friendships.
429: I think "categorically" was a pretty important part of Beefo Meaty's argument.
429.1: I'll take your word for it - which helps confirm your point, I suppose.
431: It may or may not confirm anything, but surely it's rather suggestive.
I also think that a lot of it is about sexism and the problem of m/m friendships.
Agreed. I suppose we could institute some sort of "Hug a Loser" program.
433: Which gets us back to the stripping thing--why *aren't* there businesses where you can pay guys to be your buddies?
That's a flippant answer, but the more I think about the question, the more I think it really kind of highlights the real issues here.
That men go to strip clubs because they have insufficient male-male friendships?
It wasn't meant to be serious. But there are institutions, within colleges, where men (and women) pay dues to cohabitate with official buddies.
I suppose, in olden days, there were men's clubs and the like. Now converted into restaurants, pubs & thingies. Really, the problem is that we feel the need to call certain men losers. So as to otherize. I otherize my shame to thee!
412: I'd say you're confusing "complicit with" and "implicated in." We are all implicated in the macro-economic system of neo-colonialism that sustains the developing world, but someone who actively goes out and lobbies for wars or dehumanizes Third World populations in propaganda is complicit with neo-colonialism in a way that someone who lobbies against such wars or in favour of cultural understanding is not.
Nobody should claim to be a candidate for canonization or anything, but accusing someone of being actively complicit with criminality or oppression should be at some level personal, and offensive.
And also because men don't crave friendship strongly enough that they're willing to pay for a poor and ultimately insulting imitation thereof?
why *aren't* there businesses where you can pay guys to be your buddies?
There are.
. But there are institutions, within colleges, where men (and women) pay dues to cohabitate with official buddies.
I think it's the nature as much as the existence of male-male friendships that are at issue. And--I don't know; I may be wrong about the state of play of fraternities these days--my understanding is that those institutions put barriers to entry to prevent losers from joining.
sure they do. I was just pointing out that we don't lack for male buddy instutitions involving payment. And I don't imagine all the members of a given frat would have been best friends outside of the institution.
Does using the word "loser" directed at some imagined person, make you feel better about yourself?
444 part two came off way harsh. I'm just thinking, maybe men are sad because we crap all over each other all the time. And not in the fun gay chicken way.
Does using the word "loser" directed at some imagined person, make you feel better about yourself?
I'm not sure if you're joking, but it wasn't meant to be insulting, even to imagined people. I think of the shlumpy guys at issue as being more or less exactly the Stephen Root character in Office Space. For whom I feel bad. And who is mostly a stock "loser" character.
But we're all losers at some points in our life; that's how we learn compassion!
I have to agree with text's objection to throwing around the word "loser" here.
448 before seeing 447. And what about Stephen Root's character from Newsradio?
443: there are many fraternities, some more selective than others.
448: to the extent that "person percieved by society to have no redeeming values and thereby shunned" is a category that exists and who's inhabitants are more likely to frequent strip clubs than the population at large, what other term should one use? "differently popular?"
451: I thought we'd stepped beyond the category of strip club patrons and entered the category of men who do not frequent strip clubs, are not "shunned," and are not perceived by society to have no redeeming values, but who nevertheless are lonely and lack friendships, male and female.
Come on, didn't you guys see Little Miss Sunshine? The biggest loser of all, he wrote Remembrance of Things & Stuff.
440: You may be right. And this may reinforce the need for analogy bans. Because there are benefits that accrue hour by hour to a man that are nearly impossible to reject, and that come at the expense of women's status and security. This is not so evident with respect to the Iraq case.
449:
Mr. James: "You know, when I was in school there was this kid right, he wanted to play football more than anything - coach wouldn't let him because he wasn't big enough... but... did he give up?"
Dave: "I'm assuming for the purposes of this story, no."
Mr. James: "Damn Straight!" No, it just made him try harder and harder, I mean the kid ate like a wild animal everyday, I mean he pumped iron all night long and after two months he got a hernia............. makes you think, huh?."
Dave: "I really don't think I get the point."
Mr. James: "Oh yeah, there's one more thing. That kid's name... that kid's name was Richard Nixon."
Dave: "Richard Millhouse Nixon?"
Mr. James: "What the hell's his middle name got to do with anything? Dave, the point of the story is... ahh let's see... hernia, wild animals, Nixon... hell, it's in there somewhere. I'm glad I could help you out."
It's not the morning any more, but I am totally outraged that the House rejected a bill demanding withdrawal from Iraq within 9 months. Fuck you, my Blue Dog rep! GRAAAAAAAAAARGH!
440: Okay, fair enough.
I'm not buying fraternities and the like as analogous to strip clubs. The differences ought to be obvious, but since people appear not to recognize them: fraternities pick their members. *Everyone* there is paying dues; there is no one who is being "sold."
Honestly, think about it for a second. What would you think of men who paid money, directly, to have other guys buddy them up for a few minutes? And what do you think would impel a guy to take a job like that?
459: What would you think of men who paid money, directly, to have other guys buddy them up for a few minutes?
Pubs call them "barflies." The people they pay to buddy them up for a few minutes are called "waiters" and "bartenders."
That may seem flip, but I'm actually serious. There's a certain breed of bar regular who is doing precisely this, because he doesn't have friends of his own. And yes, it's sad.
459: It's called an "entourage" and anyone with sufficient spare cash has one.
And to amend 453: I don't actually have a problem referring to a lot of frequent strip club patrons as losers. This may include people who go there with friends.
Honestly, think about it for a second. What would you think of men who paid money, directly, to have other guys buddy them up for a few minutes?
They're called "bartenders," and I like them.
And what do you think would impel a guy to take a job like that?
A need to pay rent.
460: Ought this to be part of a waiter's/bartender's job? And does dealing with barflies include touching them affectionately? I'm thinking not.
Ought this to be part of a waiter's/bartender's job?
Bartender, yes. It's a waste of a waiter's time usually.
And does dealing with barflies include touching them affectionately? I'm thinking not.
I don't know much about gay bars.
Ought it to be the *primary* part of their job? Come on, it's not the same thing and you know it. And I'll bet that bartenders find persistent overfamiliar barflies the worst parts of their jobs. *And* they can kick them out if they want to.
465: I wasn't saying it's strictly analogous to being a stripper. But most bar staff are expected to be polite and professional with customers -- which a sadder sort of punter can mistake for friendship -- and those who want to make more tips are well-advised to learn how to turn on the charm/
Of course it's not the same thing. This whole tangent is facetious.
And strippers can definitely kick customers out if they want to. There's a reason why there are more bouncers in strip clubs than anywhere else.
Well, I'm willing to say that the "sad" customers who hassle wait staff into overfamiliarity, knowing that the wait staff have to put up with it b/c of the tip economy, are assholes. And that's a far cry from expecting someone to masturbate you, clothed or not.
I also thought bartender, but decided it wasn't funny enough to risk stepping in a flamewar. Anyway, you ask for analogies and you get irrelevant crap, what a surprise.
Confidence tricksters will pretend to be your friend for a fee, how about that one?
470: They can kick out customers who cross a line that's well beyond what anyone in any other job would even think of putting up with.
471: expecting someone to masturbate you
??? I thought the thread drifted away from massage parlours and toward strip clubs a few hundred comments ago. Nobody expects someone to masturbate them in a strip club, unless you're talking about a truly dodgy joint. And as Ned points out, strippers can get patrons kicked out quite easily.
I'm really not trying to perpetuate a flamewar. I'm thinking about whether/why people--including me--find it easier to feel sorry for strip club patrons than for, say, annoying barflies. And I think it's because we honestly don't tend to think of strippers as human--at least, when someone puts it like that, we'll say "of course I realize they're human!" but I don't think we think of them as human, i.e., think of ourselves as being in that position, in the same way we do with a waitress or bartender who's having to kiss someone's ass for a shitty fucking tip.
474: A lap dance doesn't involve masturbating the customer? Come on. It ain't just the "truly dodgy" joints where that line gets regularly crossed.
Are we going to quibble about the distinction between 'touch someone's genitals through their clothing for the purpose of sexually arousing them' and 'masturbate to completion' here? Or am I entirely mistaken that a lap dance conventionally includes physical contact between the dancer and the customer's lap, as it were?
The goal posts have been completely moved here. The question in 464 was is there any situation where men essentially pay to have a friend, and what do we think of them.
Bartenders, and attitudes towards barflies are a perfectly acceptable answer to that question.
There's a reason why there are more bouncers in strip clubs than anywhere else.
It's partly because the job involves stimulating customers to the point where a sizable proportion of them are likely to assault you.
come on, b. sympathy is about the least zero-sum thing there is.
478: No, the question wasn't "essentially pay to have a friend"; it was "pay someone to buddy them up," which involves hugs, tousling, physical affection.
the whole point of this exercise has been to show that we don't sympathize with strippers because we do sympathize with patrons of strippers? this is frankly beneath you, b.
480: It ought to be, but it really does seem to me that people tend to offer excuses for guys who pay women for sex work that they wouldn't offer in pretty much any other situation. And that therefore there seems to be a real block when it comes to sympathizing/empathizing with sex workers. We seem to only ever talk about those jobs with clinical detatchment, as if they were an example in some econ course or something.
483: I'm not sure that characterizes all that much of this thread, really. Certainly I was talking about experiences I've had and women I know.
482: Beneath me how? I think it's a not uncommon problem, that people identify with group A while failing to really do so with group B, especially where group A is exploiting group B.
I dunno about larger studies, but within this thread, I think the only issue has been whether sympathy extends to the patrons. Sympathy for the strippers has been (and obv. should be) more or less given.
And the latest argument appears to be, "sympathy for the patrons detracts from sympathy for the strippers." No it doesn't. Understanding what is actually going on requires sympathy for everyone, and that level of understanding also eliminates the possibility of enjoying a strip club, a good thing.
484: Then I wasn't talking about you. Your problem wasn't empathizing with customers; it was equating sex work with, say, working at McD's.
475: or because in the strip club there is no element of plausible deniability about what one is doing. In a bar, you're just going to a social establishment to hang out, and you can easily argue that the fact that it's only the staff talking to you is just a coincidence and not really indicative of anything. That's a complete lie, of course, but at least it's believable.
Hell, I've gone to the same bar regularly and talked to the bartender because I was depressed and didn't have anything better to do. Of course, she was cool and heavily informed my cocktailing tastes and practices, but maybe it was all just an act and really she was rolling her eyes the whole time.
It's beneath you because I think it's misguided, more than usual, in a particularly pernicious way. Really, this strategy only creates more unhappy strippers.
Sympathy for the strippers has been (and obv. should be) more or less given.
Maybe that's the problem, then. I haven't really seen a lot of sympathy for the strippers, I guess because everyone was taking it so for granted that it didn't need to be expressed.
Really, this strategy only creates more unhappy strippers.
Yeah- now Labs is gonna be all surly this evening on his shift.
I've been far more titillated by certain bartenders than I've ever been by a stripper.
489: I don't think it's pernicious; as I said, I'm honestly not trying to wind anyone up. I just continue to think that there is something that isn't being seen here and I'm trying to make it more visible.
B, LB, it looks like you're back to saying that the concept of a lap dance is intrinsically unacceptable because it's a manifestation of our culture's objectification of women, pressuring women to sell themselves and perform sexually for men.
I and some other people agree with that, but say that there are some exceptions, since these are consenting adults and some of the patrons don't have misogynist attitudes.
You say no, there are no exceptions, selling sexual services is wrong.
Okay, but it's going to happen no matter what, and at least these places have security guards and the women don't have the vulnerability that prositutes have.
490: Yes, in fact, everyone was taking it so for granted that it didn't need to be expressed.
See my 306. I'm not sure what point you're trying to make -- we can't think of strip clubs as generally a bad thing because some of the customers aren't being misogynist?
To the extent you think that there's good, happy, non-misogynist fun being had at strip clubs, you should be all for them.
493: that's what the people who said that the men who frequent strip clubs are losers who are shat upon by society nearly as hard as the women who take their clothes off for them, albeit not as frequently, as SCMT pointed out, thought.
And clearly stripping is a crappy job that I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy much less anyone I know, and has horrible emotional effects even on those who were relatively stable coming into it.
I'm not sure what point you're trying to make -- we can't think of strip clubs as generally a bad thing because some of the customers aren't being misogynist?
No, it's more like you shouldn't think of a person as a misogynist because he isn't repulsed by the idea of a lap dance.
476: A lap dance doesn't involve masturbating the customer?
No. As I understand it, the latter is called a handjob.
One of the things that turns out to be somewhat useful about the bartender analogy is that it also helps to make sense of why people find a certain extent of censoriousness about strip clubs / other objectification-related activities annoying. Do I look down on pathetic barflies? Sure, but that's because they're confusing the purveyors of a product (alcohol) with buddies. Alcohol itself isn't something I'd defend as a great social good or anything, but OTOH I'm not about to regard everyone who drinks in the same light as the barflies. The context does matter.
For similar reasons, I look down on people who actually expect to have intimacy with strippers, not necessarily on the act of performance. The analogy is a bit facetious, of course, in that stripping is a form of sex work and happens in a different social register involving greater risk. But no, I don't think all people patronizing strip clubs should be frowned upon or shamed as wasters seeking unearned emotional intimacy. (I tend to dislike shame-based approaches to the sex trade, because their effect is usually to drive it underground and increase the associated risks. Because it's happening in a different social register with higher stakes, I actually feel more strongly about that than about preachy teetotallers.)
Remind me of why I shouldn't, again? I've got that some people buying lap dances are sad people who deserve sympathy -- I don't see that that changes the inherent misogyny in the transaction.
160: there was a heebie butt picture???
Wait, nobody is saying that there's no misogyny in strip club interactions, as far as I can tell.
So far this thread has taught me that I don't know the meanings of the word "complicit", "identify" or "misogyny". LB and I probably believe the same thing.
505: right, some people here just think a little misogyny is harmless fun.
Or, wait, that can't be it.
503: "Inherent misogyny" is question-begging.
I see the misogyny in some account manager taking his clients out and spending a couple of thousand bucks on strippers - "I offer you these women to show how much I care about you." I don't see something fundamentally misogynistic about some guy who has no other alternatives paying some woman (albeit one who probably doesn't have any other alternatives either) to take off her clothes and pretend like she's interested in sleeping with him.
It's icky and requires a level of desperation and self-deception that I can't summon, but motivated by hostility and ill feelings toward women? I dunno.
496: Odd, then, because LeBlanc and some of the other women, including me, weren't taking that for granted and were, in fact, expressing surprise at realizing that we hadn't, before, really empathized with what it might be like to be a stripper.
499: I think the point is that buying a lap dance is inherently misogynistic, whether or not you want to extrapolate from that that the customer is "a misogynist."
510: Motivated by an inability to perceive women as fully human isn't misogyny?
And clearly guys, however lonely, *do* have other alternatives. I'm not saying that it's not too bad that there isn't a non-misogynist way to meet those guys' needs, but, well, there isn't. Which is why women who are that lonely don't have any outlets that I can think of.
511: I also don't know what "empathized" means.
Really, this thread has been an odd experience.
509: I don't think it is, inasmuch as we've explained what we mean by inherent misogyny; we're not just expecting people to accept it as a given.
I don't think I understand this thread and should have stayed out. I pretty much agree with what Cala and DS have said about complicitness, and I find strip clubs - or, I guess, the idea of them, since I've never been to one - creepy and depressing all around. I wonder if desperate lonely guys could reclaim the "loser" label like a lot of nerds and geeks have reclaimed "nerds" and "geeks", hang out together (but avoid strip clubs) and thereby form friendships for life! Probably not.
513: The funny bit was that we started out on the same page -- did you notice halfway through I quoted your 31 back at you to illustrate some point? I'd forgotten that the Ned of 31 was the same guy I was still talking to until after I hit post.
Yeah, I think most of this has been arguing at cross purposes -- I've been kind of lost as to what points are being made.
513: I'm using empathizied to mean, really understood/felt what it must be like, what the vibe of the thing is.
Also, when I see the signs in the metro informing people of elevator outages, I sometimes misread it as elevator outrages and wonder what horrible things have happened.
Maybe I should have stayed out, not having really followed the debate. Even for sad lonely losers, whose pitiableness we can understand, there's going to be misogyny in the strip-interaction. Maybe a sad and suffering kind, but, hey, suffering isn't zero-sum. And now I'm out.
I'm not saying that it's not too bad that there isn't a non-misogynist way to meet those guys' needs, but, well, there isn't.
So...they don't need to be misogynist themselves in order to enter this transaction, with another consenting adult, in a misogynist industry? That's what I'm saying.
there's going to be misogyny in the strip-interaction
What if he respects her more than she respects him?
No. The transaction is still misogynist, because the sort of self-deception needed to make it work involves ignoring the humanity of the woman involved.
For my bachelor party, I was taken to a strip club in a lovely place called "Port Allen." (Having spent the past hour downing shots of Chartreuse, I was in no condition to argue.) This was a high class joint -- the poles had neon lights in them and hoses on them -- and when we got there my best man yelled "HE'S GETTING MARRIED TOMORROW!" The whole lot of us were escorted to a table and told I'd be given a lap-dance on the house. About five minutes later, an attractive woman walked up, said her name was "Charlene," sat down next to me and put her hand on my knee. She started asking me about my wife, then, suddenly, I realized that not only did I know "Charlene," but we'd been on a few dates back in high school.* I'd be so blind and she'd been in such a far away mental place that she didn't even recognize me. When I said her name, she looked frightened, like I was a stalker, so I shouted "IT'S [SEK]! REMEMBER? THE GRANT LEE BUFFALO CONCERT?" It clicked, she became very shy, look even more uncomfortable, and slunk away at the first opportunity.
So yes, much sympathy for strippers. They're obviously not in a healthy head-space.
*I'd never seen nearly so much of her before that night, ironically.
512: I don't see purchasing sex work as "motivated by an inability to percieve women as fully human." You may disagree; you're the gender studies expert, I suspect that I've come closer to making such a transaction and have a better idea of what factors went into doing or not doing it.
A part of what I people pay my psychologist for is to listen to me complain about my fundamentally trivial problems and to tell me that while they are really not that bad, she understands how they make me feel. Is this business relationship also dehumanizing and misogynistic? Is it misogynistic if she's more effective because she's female?
Did Charlene ever "take any photos" with your other friend?
You're not paying your psychologist to fake an emotional state toward you -- you're paying her for theraputic advice.
525: No. Working as a stripper at 20 means she was from the wrong side of the tracks. (Though, that would make a better story ... maybe I should just lie?)
514: inasmuch as we've explained what we mean by inherent misogyny
And what you mean seems to be based on fairly specific assumptions about what the transaction and its motivations are that are, in fact, precisely what's being argued about.
498: And clearly stripping is a crappy job that I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy much less anyone I know, and has horrible emotional effects even on those who were relatively stable coming into it.
For the most part I agree -- and yet, I don't think it's so straightforward. I knew someone in college (not well, a friend of a friend) who took up stripping, and she had a other job opportunities. But she liked the hours, the tax-free income, and the relatively high hourly pay. I think the place she worked was relatively expensive and probably relatively safe, but I was still surprised by how completely unconflicted she seemed about the decision to take the job. Part of me wants to say that someone in that position shouldn't take such a job, because by doing so she's supporting a misogynist institution (and most strippers probably don't choose the job so blithely). Another part of me thinks that first part is a judgmental asshole: if someone is content with the taking the job, what gives me the right to say she shouldn't?
521: One of the reasons she lacks respect for him is because of the misogyny problem.
Hmm. She does give me (good!) therapeutic advice. But I can imagine having a psychologist who sat there while I talked, and then rattled off the same advice "Ok, X is important, Y you just need to deal with, and Z is actually quite interesting so let's think and talk more about that." Wheras my psychologist throws in "oh, that's horrible" and looks concerned, which usually makes me feel better, even though it has zero advice value. And on occasion, it makes me think that she'd have more credibility if she were a little less sympathetic, because some of my problems are pretty trivial and a lot of my whining is excessive.
The transaction is still misogynist, because the sort of self-deception needed to make it work involves ignoring the humanity of the woman involved.
Neither you nor I have been one of these guys, but I don't know if "self-deception" or "ignoring her humanity" would have to be involved.
The statement "Any sexual contact is better than none" seems to me like it makes sense, as I mentioned in 328. So if there are these women in this club, who you can pay for some sexual contact, and your alternative is no sexual contact, I don't see where you take the leap into misogyny.
Because sexual contact with someone who doesn't want you should be off-putting if you have any interest at all in what your partner is thinking or feeling. Being able to close off any concern for what's going on in the stripper's head, and forget that she exists as a person rather than a fantasy prop, is misogynist.
526
Lots of people are in effect paying a psychologist for friendship. After all the theraputic advice is generally worthless.
532: I think LB is working the model of the customer deluding himself into thinking the stripper is into him. But that's a specific variant of the transaction. It doesn't tell you anything about what's "inherent" in the transaction.
It might help to talk about a more specific and socially-acceptable form of stripping: neo-burlesque, which often involves women-run troupes, takes place outside the confines of traditional strip clubs and is not the sort of thing most people involved would be ashamed about admitting to their old high-school mates. Fundamentally, this is still women taking their clothes off for an audience who pays admission to see them, and there's some element of sexual gratification involved. Is it "inherently misogynistic"? I don't think you need a rose-tinted view of it to say "no."
336 389
The difference is biological not just cultural. Men's desire for women has something in common with a cat's desire for a mouse. Problematic from the women's viewpoint but not easy to change.
After all the theraputic advice is generally worthless.
This was not my experience. I got huge gains from therapy.
I think I said the same thing back in 42:
Then, an actor is (babbling here, not an actor myself) creating an image to be observed, not performing a relationship -- the line between the two is a fuzzy one, but there's something to it. An erotic theatrical or dance performance doesn't bother me in nearly the same way, although I'm not clear where I draw the line.
The difference is biological not just cultural. Men's desire for women has something in common with a cat's desire for a mouse.
Alrighty then! Leaving this thread! Learnt my lesson 400 comments ago.
538 to 535, and my thanks to Shearer for cracking me up. The thread was getting kind of heavy.
539: Oh, come on, that was hysterical. I now have this great picture of Shearer crouched outside a potential date's house with his whiskers and tail twitching.
Unfortunately, the image is drawn from a Tom and Jerry cartoon, and turns out badly in the end.
536: a cat's desire for a mouse
Ahh, the mouse problem.
538: Ah, well there's the disconnect then. I don't really see the stripper as "performing a relationship." Comity!
535 makes a great point I should have thought of, although I will say that modern-day burlesque dancers are reclaiming an art form that was likely plenty misogynist back in the day.
Okay, I'll hand over the pro-misogyny baton to Shearer.
516: Thanks, I hope my John Kerry-like capacity for nuance will bring me the same fame and fortune he has enjoyed.
Because sexual contact with someone who doesn't want you should be off-putting if you have any interest at all in what your partner is thinking or feeling. Being able to close off any concern for what's going on in the stripper's head, and forget that she exists as a person rather than a fantasy prop, is misogynist.
What if what's going through his head as he arranges the transaction is "I know she's just doing this for the money, but I'll enjoy it physically while it lasts"? I think that's what would be going through his head.
327
"... What about, say, lonely women? If women don't have this kind of loneliness, then what outlets do they have that men don't? ..."
Of course there are also lonely women. They are pathetic in different ways, staying in abusive relationships or writing letters to Ted Bundry.
They also have more access to socially accepted caretaker jobs like nurse or day care worker which involve physical contact.
I'm not saying that it's not too bad that there isn't a non-misogynist way to meet those guys' needs, but, well, there isn't.
They don't have hands? That is sad.
I don't really see the stripper as "performing a relationship."
I don't either. Call girl, yes.
Whoa, and is Shearer ever running with it. Outta here!
547: See your 31, which struck me as absolutely correct.
544- Ah... missed that thread (fucking Lent).
Why haven't these photos been posted on the main page? Seems like an insult to Heebie not to, like her ass isn't front-page material.
Isn't it clear that the difference between a good stripper and a bad one is that the good one makes you believe that they're enjoying it, even if it's in a "Oh, well, you know, I like attention from men and doing this job I get paid, and actually compared to the rest of the guys who come in here you're pretty cute" kind of way?
Come to think of it, I'm authorized to make a deal for them.
Everyone on the site agrees that what I say is misogynist is misogynist, and you can all see Heebie's ass. (There's nothing problematic about that, right?)
554: Right. If it were about physical contact, a non-sexual massage would serve the same purpose. It's about pretend sexual availability.
Hmm. If after the fact you say that making deals to see pictures of a woman's ass is misogynist (grounds of objectification and imposing problematic body images), I clearly have to agree, but do I have to feel guilty or can I claim that society made me do it?
do I have to feel guilty or can I claim that society made me do it?
I thought it had something to do with cats and mice.
557: Right. And it's why a "massage with happy ending" is just weird. But is one obligated to assume that any such impression of enjoyment or at least un-squick-ed-ness that you get from a stripper is faked? I mean, I think that it probably is faked, but that seems to tread close to the "women don't enjoy sex as much as men" that attracts so much scorn.
LB, what do you want? The only things I can think of that you've mentioned recently are a new job, spending time with a cute little baby, and sodomy. Unfortunately I don't have a job for you but I'm willing to offer either of the other two.
I mean, I think that it probably is faked, but that seems to tread close to the "women don't enjoy sex as much as men" that attracts so much scorn.
No, really it doesn't.
If it were about physical contact, a non-sexual massage would serve the same purpose.
It's about a specific kind of physical contact that occurs between a man and a woman.
The repeated "then why aren't massages satisfactory" point from women here (or maybe it's just LB) bolsters my completely unfounded claim that this is something men feel more of a need for.
Do you see lap dances as more objectionable than actual prostitution? If so, why?
that seems to tread close to the "women don't enjoy sex as much as men" that attracts so much scorn
Was this a joke??? It's absurd.
552: My 31 applies to the guys I was thinking about at that time, who make up the bulk of the clientele. If you pay for a lap dance and you're married, or engaged, or you regularly get laid, then you're a misogynist, because paying for the lap dance signifies how you feel about the other women in your life. You should overcome this animal need, because it can't even compare to sex with someone you care about.
My 31 doesn't apply to an erection that has rarely or never before encountered the female form. Those things can be tenacious before they become jaded.
To elaborate on 562: Sure, at least some of the time at least some strippers probably have some enjoyment of their work. Some customer has to be pretty cute next to the rest of the guys that come in, so sometimes saying that must be true.
But what the customer is paying for is the fakery -- to get the pretend sexual availability/enjoyment/affection without risk of rejection. If you have any interest in whether a response to you is real, you don't pay someone to fake it.
365 -- I saw your comment at MY and thought about responding, but then got caught up in working. Of course, the fate of the prisoners has to be part of the decision to close the prison, and proposals that allow the DOD and DOS the kind of flexibility they'd have in the Harman bill are recipes for disaster. For some people, anyway.
One sees, from time to time, the assertion that countries have refused to take back their nationals. My response to this is the same as my response to the assertion that X (and X is constantly fluctuating) prisoners have been caught fighting after having been released: name names. And if you can't name names, you're just ignorantly spouting. What some countries have done is decline the conditions that the US seeks to impose. I wouldn't say that no country has ever refused a prisoner, but it's not the case for my guys, or indeed any of the prisoners I know about. There are a number of situations going the other way -- where the prisoner is afraid to be sent back to his country -- but this doesn't always prevent the US from repatriating (as they've done to both Egypt and Libya) over objection. So long as the country makes the right promises to the US.
519 Gets it right. I've never been in a strip club, am not going to go, wouldn't go, and am teaching my son that going to such places isn't acceptable.
563: No. It's not that I don't understand the difference between a lap dance and a massage, I'm trying to make the point that the difference isn't in the touch -- it's in the performance of sexual availability.
Argh. Ok, that was wrong. It's assuming a mental state despite protestations to the contrary on the grounds that no one could really enjoy being a stripper because it's objectifying and misogynistic. Which seems similar in some ways to saying that women don't want casual quasi-anonymous sex, because it's just them being taken advantage of by men.
But is one obligated to assume that any such impression of enjoyment or at least un-squick-ed-ness that you get from a stripper is faked?
If one did not do so, one would be severely delusional.
I'm kind of sorry I started this discussion.
If you have any interest in whether a response to you is real, you don't pay someone to fake it.
Not the same thing as dehumanizing.
Do you ever prioritize your needs over that of another human? Is that dehumanization?
569: No. I could have (and have had) casual quasi-anonymous sex and enjoyed it, because there was honesty involved. I and the other party are both interested in fucking, and we do so. In the stripper-patron transaction, the stripper is interested in making cash, and the patron is interested in have someone pretend to want to fuck him. They proceed.
570: Strip clubs are very unpleasant places, as pretty much everyone who has been in one here is attesting. I'm sorry that you found that out, especially on your birthday.
569: In general, I do wish people would do some reading before declaiming on the likely mental states of strippers. (The books noted in 360 and 370 are both good starting points.) This goes for all sides of the debate.
I'm kind of sorry I started this discussion.
Bah. Better to get 500 subsequent comments than the sound of crickets chirping.
In the stripper-patron transaction, the stripper is interested in making cash, and the patron is interested in have someone pretend to want to fuck him. They proceed.
The patron may not be so foolish as to be deceived by the stripper's feigned interest. He suspends disbelief.
And that makes the transaction not misogynist... how?
575: Yeah, the throat cancer thing was clearly going nowhere.
I don't know how to respond to 577. We must have different definitions of "misogynist".
Comity!
I just don't see what point you're making by saying that the customer is suspending his disbelief. Of course he is, if he's not actually insane.
If that's comity, then comity.
If one did not do so, one would be severely delusional.
Yeah, at a minimum, that's not always true. (Maybe it is; I haven't followed for a while, so I'm guessing at the subject a little.)
I think we have different definitions of "comity."
This thread is starting to feel closer to tragity.
This has moved too fast for me to read all of the comments before posting this.
I am so unbelievably innocent and naive. I knew that there were nude strip clubs, and I knew that women gave men lap dances in strip clubs--but it never occurred to me that the women givign the lap dances were completely naked.
it never occurred to me that the women givign the lap dances were completely naked
That's against the law in most states, bg.
Yeah, the throat cancer thing was clearly going nowhere.
Dude, that should have been it's own post. "Throat cancer, another tool of the patriarchy?"
572: In the stripper-patron transaction, the stripper is interested in making cash, and the patron is interested in have someone pretend to want to fuck him.
"Pretend to want to fuck him" is back to assuming dynamics that may or may not exist. Someone who dances erotically is not inherently pretending a desire to fuck anyone.
"I am so unbelievably innocent and naive." s/b "if I'd known, I would have been getting lap dances years ago."
425
There is nothing about our society which required us to go to war in Iraq, the war is irrational (from the point of view of society as a whole) even according to the logic of empire.
That said almost everybody is complicit in that they could be doing more to stop the war.
We're having the lap dances over there, so we don't have to have them here.
528: No, what we're saying is that whether or not it's misogynist does not depend on the guy's intent.
535: LB's talking about the customer deluding himself into thinking the stripper is into him because at some point upthread most of the folks arguing agreed that strip club patrons are mostly assholes, but that there are some extremely lonely individuals who lack touch and relationships who aren't.
"most of the folks arguing agreed that strip club patrons are mostly assholes, but that there are some extremely lonely individuals who lack touch and relationships who aren't."
I, at least, was arguing that strip club patrons are both assholes and suckers, and are all probably lonely too. I'm not sure how the physics works out, but I swear that it's possible.
566 (among others) to 593.1. The argument about "pretend sexual availability" is unavoidably an argument about intent. And 539.2: Yes, I know. I'm not agreeing with that, either.
The argument about "pretend sexual availability" is unavoidably an argument about intent.
It is? Strippers as such aren't sexually available--you're arguing that a lap dance doesn't even constitute masturbation. And yet stripping is undoubtedly about sex--as people keep saying, otherwise why not go get a massage?
By which I mean, not that "peopel who go to strippers go there for the sex" but "stripping carries sexual overtones, as a simple matter of fact, even if you only wander in because the buffet is good."
Sexual overtones and content don't get you there. LB was not arguing that any transaction with sexual content is inherently misogynistic.
A lap dance doesn't constitute masturbation. And strippers aren't sexually available. But most of the time, if a woman is naked and rubbing themselves over your body, it's a sign of sexual availability, and barring gross intercession by your consciousness, your subconscious will treat it as such. It's foreplay.
Massages get you physical pleasure (assuming that by massage you mean hand-job), prostitutes will get you sex and possibly in jail, but I suspect that you get the most gratification bang for your buck (sorry...) by combining strippers and masturbation.
I think some people are being overly literal with the word masturbation, here. Please don't lose sight of the fact that she's rubbing her ass against his crotch.
"Overly literal," wha? How many strippers do you think would regard a handjob and a lapdance as interchangeable? I can't believe that's even a point of dispute.
599: No, she's arguing that a transaction that involves women selling sexual content that involves their own, personal bodies to men for a few bucks is misogynistic.
600: I don't get the lap dance /= masturbation thing. If a woman is rubbing her ass on your dick, that isn't a form of her masturbating you?? Since when?
603: I don't get the lap dance /= masturbation thing.
Cripes. I guess now I know why they called the lambada "the forbidden dance."
No, people are not "masturbating" each other when they rub bodies together. If I'm dancing with a woman in a club and she rubs her ass against me, she is not "masturbating" me. I don't understand where you get that from.
Oh, 603.1: (as opposed to sexual content that involves impersonal bodies? other bodies?) She was making a specific argument about turn of mind and the customer's attitude to the stripper -- that being able to turn off awareness of what's in her head is misogynistic.
604: people are not "masturbating" each other when they rub bodies together
Anyone here wanna dry-hump? I promise there's no chance it will end up like masturbation.
606: Thanks, Stanley. I owe you a lap dance.
DS, come on. If you dance with a woman in a club and she rubs her ass against you, it's for like two seconds. As opposed to sitting her ass down on your erect cock and grinding away.
607: As opposed to sitting her ass down on your erect cock and grinding away.
And you think most lap dances involve that much contact?
I mean hey, maybe in some cases they do. I'm not an aficionado of lap dances or anything, and I'm sure it varies depending on the locale.
I can't believe I've spend this much of my day on this thread.
I can't believe I'm actually arguing seriously with someone who denies that a lap dance is a form of masturbation.
Thanks, Stanley. I owe you a lap dance.
Don't you already owe him avocados?
Avocados make an excellent lube. Also, how did you know about that?
When you write something on the internet, no matter the form—off-blog or otherwise—it ends up in apo's backpocket. It's all in the canon, B.
That said almost everybody is complicit in that they could be doing more to stop the war.
We could also be doing more to stop the sun from exploding into a red giant millions of years hence. And are therefore complicit in the impending fiery end of the planet.
One is not complicit for failure to do something that would be utterly ineffective. And I don't think there is a single thing that I could do that anyone could name that would hasten the end of the war by a single minute.
I could be doing more to help keep the site analogy free. My status as a scofflaw has been amply demonstrated, however. I ban myself.
612: It's cool with me, I was just surprised.
Does he know about . . . that other thing?
how did you know about that?
That's a good color on you. You should wear it more often.
609: I think calling this a "serious" argument is a bit of a stretch.
616: What, wheatish/camelish/old wool sweaterish? I'm not buying it.
It brings out the old wool sweaterish in your eyes.
619: Those are lashes, thankyouverymuch.
587: it is? Hm. Not in the only state in which I've ever been to a strip club. (Which is something of a backwater state, granted.)
At the club I was at lap dances lap dancers were completely naked. And most lap dances involved at least some rubbing of naked vagina all over the patron's face.
It's possible the place we were at wasn't the classiest joint.
Brock -- I believe you were witnessing a "face dance", not a "lap dance".
It seemed to be included as a token portion of any lap dance, though. At least from some of the dancers.
some rubbing of naked vagina all over the patron's face
Ma'am, I'll give you ten dollars to not do that, thank you very much.
It's possible the place we were at wasn't the classiest joint.
That does seem possible.
Ma'am, I'll give you ten dollars to not do that, thank you very much.
Misogynist.
Ma'am, I'll give you ten dollars to not do that, thank you very much.
Misogynist.
She's stimulating your genitals, fercrissake. And in fact, a little bit of Googling (Brock's presence reminds me to clear out the search bar) indicates that it is not unheard of for men to find release within the confines of their shorts while receiving a lap dance. How much genital stimulation does it take before it's officially masturbation?
Wow, that's the strangest double-post I've seen here.
625: my thoughts exactly. It was not actually a pleasure I experienced that night, although a friend of mine must've spent a good hour in the bathroom scrubbing his face, so horrified was he by the event.
629: I don't consider it masturbation unless my gentitals are actually inside the woman.
I'd hate to hear your standards for oral sex.
rubbing of naked vagina all over the patron's face
Holy disease vector, Batman!
You know how, when you refresh a long thread, it hangs for a bit at the beginning? It's very strange to be contemplating lap dances and repeatedly see the sentence, "I suppose Kurt Waldheim set a precedent for that sort of thing, so we shouldn't be surprised." Though if I needed a reason to stay out of strip clubs, that mental association would pretty much do the trick.
was the vaginal face-rubbing before or after the golden showers referenced in 70?
It's very strange to be contemplating lap dances and repeatedly see the sentence, "I suppose Kurt Waldheim set a precedent for that sort of thing, so we shouldn't be surprised."
I've been getting that feeling seeing the inexplicable "Goooldsteeeeiiiiin!" over and over. What's that doing there, anyway?
I was assuming it was something to do with a sporting event.
It's the punchline to the joke where the Jewish stripper rubs her naked vagina on the guy's face. You'll have to construct the rest of the joke yourself.
I've realized that if you'd asked me yesterday morning "What kind of acts are you likely to see/experience at a strip club" my answer would have been hopelessly naive and out-of-date.
Without the level of specificity we've seen on this thread, we'd have been talking about different things without necessarily being aware of it. There must be a lot of discussions like that.
"But under cross-examination he agreed that he had no way of knowing that and the cellophane could have been put on the barrel after the gun was fired. He also agreed that even though the gun was seized with the dildo and cellophane attached to the barrel, there was no damage to the dildo when it was found."
"I'd hate to hear your standards for oral sex."
"Standards for oral sex" is deserving of its own thread.
How much genital stimulation does it take before it's officially masturbation?
I believe the unit of measurement is 250 MilliReubens.
Hey speaking of outrages, did you guys notice dsquared going all David Foster Wallace-style over at Crooked Timbre?
Yeah, it's brilliant. If you're going to defend Budweiser, going over the top is absolutely mandatory.
His article is very funny, and probably factually true, too. Budvar still tastes nicer than the Anheuser-Busch product.
I don't know that about Budweiser being older than Budvar and more entitled to the name.
It still has no particular taste, though.
And is he being serious about having it for breakfast?
Well, yes. It focused a great deal on questions of authenticity (Bud is, microbrews aren't) and not so much on questions of whether Bud is an unpleasant beverage. (Oh, very cold on a hot day, I'll drink it. But not if there's any other option).
But now I feel much better about having had my taste for Irish whiskey mocked.
Lots of people like Irish whiskey. Not me, obviously, but ... people.
The authenticity question is a good one, and it's nice to read a good rant about it.
However, since I prefer stronger, more hoppy lagers Budweiser is out.
Also, contrary to Sideways, there's nothing wrong with fucking Merlot.
I'm a Scot, we lead the world in bigotry.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sectarianism_in_Glasgow
I think my favourite part, aside from the extended aside on Wrexham, is the reminder that it doesn't taste like piss because it's slightly more acidic.
re: 654
Only a barbarian would serve their piss without ice and a slice of lemon, though. So I think he may find that, in practice, their acidity levels are the same.
there's nothing wrong with fucking Merlot.
If you can work up any friction, that is.
655: the barbarians favored lime.
Irish whiskey? But... why?
654, My favorite is the comment saying, roughly, "Obviously you've never tasted piss before. I have and I assure you you're mistaken." OK, you win the point, but at what cost?
658: I have a huge amount of respect for that comment. Being willing to incur massive loss of dignity in order to win a blog argument is the sign of an agile mind.
I found the comments that noted that the fact that Bud, when chilled, tastes like nothing and so is suitable for very hot summers like we get in the U.S, to be correct.
All beer talk in the U.S. is 99% classism anyway.
657: Because I like it. If I wanted to taste smoke, I'd keep drinking Irish and nibble on a hunk of charcoal occasionally.
660: When I was in Samoa, I drank the local beer, Vailima, which is a very nice German lager, light, but flavorful. One day I went to dinner at a Japanese volunteers' house, and they were all excited about being able to serve us our native beverage -- ice cold cans of Miller. On the first sip, I literally thought it was a prank, and that they'd somehow managed to repaint cans of club soda to look like beer cans; I couldn't taste beer at all, in comparison to what I'd gotten used to.
660: I dunno, there's some incredibly tasty beers to be had, even excluding the bullshit pretentiousness of most "beer snobs."
Local, craft-brewed beers fresh from a keg: objectively more awesome than other beer.
661: You could drink Macallan and get mocked, like me.
You know what developing world beer is delicious? Beer Lao. Mmm.
I find the rest of them pretty cruddy. Beer Chang in Thailand is particularly bad: I hear rumors it has formaldehyde in it as a preservative.
I like lots of different beers -- although mostly lagers rather than dark beers or ales. Not a beer snob, though. Many of the ones I like are plain ordinary mass produced brands.
Sure, but if you're snobby about drinking Rolling Rock ice-cold vs. Bud ice-cold, that's just dumb. In the dark all beers are gray.
there's nothing wrong with fucking Merlot.
Some of the most sought after wines in the world are 100% merlot from France. The fact that a healthy percentage of American merlots are mass-produced plonk is another issue altogether.
Merlots are either delicious and too expensive or cheap and crappy.
On a related note, we are shutting down the office and having a wine drinking afternoon. I just bought twelve bottles of wine. No merlot. (And no Boones - sorry apo.)
While I'm throwing out generalizations, anyone who only started getting snooty about merlot because a fucking movie had a scene it about merlot really needs to get over themselves.
666: plus, Rolling Rock is awful.
666!
Rolling Rock isn't awful. It's no Yuengling, but it's a damn sight better than, say, IC Light. I was surprised to see that they had it in London (brewed under license), and drank it to remind me of home.
I can't stand it. Probably my least favorite beer.
Worst beer-adjacent beverage I've ever tasted: Cool Colt: mentholated Colt 45.
no Boones - sorry apo
Dude, I'm the wine snob on this blog.
Rolling Rock is pretty damn bad. But, hands down, the worst beer I ever tasted was a Keystone Light. Beer should not taste like bananas.
Speaking of long threads being slow to load, I only just now got comment 1.
All this time I've been reading it as electrical outage, and not grasping a fairly boring event could have any kind of salacious association.
Rolling Rock is awful. Keystone Light is worse. Personally, I like living' the High Life, even though many people I know can't stand it.
Why are we talking about a brand new subject 600+ comments into the thread? You all hate Becks, don't you?
"Dude, I'm the wine snob on this blog."
I thought you were a UNC grad?
I think most "lite" beers are worse than Rolling Rock, along with Laker, Iron City, Keystone, Milwaukee's Best, Golden Anniversary, etc etc.
I would not wish to defend this statement in a blind taste test.
658: Yeah, and it's the absolutely straight way that comment was delivered that makes it something else.
677: Why are we talking about a brand new subject
I'm told Dos Equis goes really well with a lap dance.
Well that wasn't supposed to happen.
I thought you were a UNC grad?
Sam Cassell called UNC fans "a wine and cheese crowd."
"Sam Cassell called UNC fans "a wine and cheese crowd.""
Your argument is that an FSU basketball player thought UNC fans were sophisticated? I'll bet the Clemson players think so too!
Cassell couldnt even spell correctly. He meant "whine."
thought UNC fans were sophisticated
I believe he was implying "unintimidating".
Cheese can be plenty intimidating.
We signed up for a farmshare this year, which means that every week, we get a big cardboard box full of fresh organic produce without the grocery store middleman. This early in the season, it's mostly strawberries, greens, and herbs, with turnips and carrots thrown in. Anyhow, the other night, we had the best collard greens I've ever eaten, sauteed with garlic and oil for about 10 minutes or so. Collard greens plus a very dry rosé: surprisingly delicious.
Collard greens are delicious.
Do you end up with massive overstocks of vegetables? Most people I know who get those farm share things end up with radishes spilling Tribble-like from the fridge.
Hasn't happened yet, though they've clearly got a strawberry surplus, so I'm starting to OD on them (smoothies are the answer!). So far, we've cleaned out each box by the time the next one was due; we're on the third box now. It kinda enforces eating fresh vegetables every night, which is a good thing. I'd never end up with an oversupply of radishes, because I'll eat those like some people eat potato chips.
Yeah, radishes was a bad example. Cascading endive, maybe.
658, 659: obviously the work of a yogi.
But I think Swamootra Neti trumps Amaroli.
The idea of pouring urine through your nose would be, for nearly everybody, a very strange and disgusting concept.
I forget where I saw the funny bit that claims that radishes are nasty, but endowed with the ability to destroy the brain cell which stores the information that radishes are nasty, but it was a funny bit.
It's bad enough when it happens by accident.
690: With our box scheme turnips tend to be the unloved vegetable, though I make the odd haggis and chappit neeps for myself.
Recently I came home from a month in the field to find the fridge bursting with turnips and swedes. "What are these?" said my wife.
We had the service for about 8 months before cancelling. To many vegetables rotting away in our fridge. We always ate the fruit, but the vegetables get to be a bear in the winter months. Come to think of it, might be worth re-signing up, now that the weather's warming up again.
697: A simple salad to make your turnips better loved: combine turnips, celery root, leeks and gruyère, all finely julienned, in proportions of roughly 6:3:1:1 (maybe a wee bit less gruyère); drizzle with lemon juice and olive oil.
A Google search for "chappit neeps" informs me that there's a Scots Wikipedia. Who knew?
The idea of pouring urine through your nose would be, for nearly everybody, a very strange and disgusting concept.
Now that pure salt and water are easy to come by, anyway.
What David said in 360. Times 10.
"Barton took the radical step of getting to know the workers themselves and finding out. The answer she gets is... it's neither. There are aspects of working in a nude club that are empowering, in some sense, but those same aspects often become oppressive after a period of time."
This conversation has been more than a little frustrating for me because there's an awful lot of assuming what people (strippers, men who see strippers) think, in the absence of any actual knowledge of what they think or what motivates them.
My sister is a stripper, and has been for about eight years now. Her experience, as she has described it to me, sounds very much like what David says in his 360. There are things she finds tiring about the job and things she really likes, such that she chooses to strip rather than work in the video store. And it's not just money -- in fact, what's more important to her is time (although the money is very important too, given that she basically supports my mother, who lives with her and, yes, knows what she does for a living and doesn't have a problem with it).
As a stripper, my sister has quite a lot more control over her work life than most people do. Part of the reason for this is the fact that she's very attractive and can choose where she works -- she laughed uproariously when I asked if she ever works in our hometown since the clubs there are divey and scummy. The places she works, she said, are upscale and safe and pay very well. Much of the time she travels pretty far from home to work. She spent 4 months on the east coast working in a club whose owner she gets along with well and where the other women were friendly and supportive. I don't disbelieve this last point, because her kitchen is papered with photographs of her and her co-workers out on the town, at birthday parties, at the beach, etc. I also overheard a lot of her phone conversations with these friends where she discussed work, and nothing she said made me think she hated her job.
Relatedly, she went out west to work when I was last visiting but came home after a few days because she didn't like the atmosphere of the club and the money wasn't as good as she had been led to believe.
Anyway, she told me that what she likes best about the work is that she has oodles of leisure time. She took all last summer off so she could renovate her house...a house she wouldn't have been able to afford working any other job available to her. But it's the time she said is really valuable. Yeah, I suppose it does suck to be treated as a sex object, but it sucks more -- to her -- to be treated as someone whose very precious time is worth only $7 an hour. Body, whatever; you never get that time back. She could make a lot more money than she does, but she opts for long vacations.
I don't really know too much about the men who pay her for lap dances other than that overwhelmingly they are guys who work in oil -- on rigs and whatnot -- who are away from home, and away from regular communities with women in them.
Anyway it's not all rosey, of course, and she knows her days are numbered -- in fact, she's been really lucky as it is, because she looks a lot younger than her age. So now, as the eminently practical woman she is, she's looking into getting a real estate license.
Years before she became a stripper, I went to a club once with a girlfriend (I am myself a woman too) and wasn't horrified and outraged. I don't really know why. We did buy a drink in lieu of a lapdance from a stripper and talked to her; she said that her line of work really made her really start to hate men.
So anyway, I could say more but this is long already. I don't really have a point, except to say that I care about my sister but I neither feel outraged about her "plight", nor do I feel sorry for her. Not in the least.
What the hell is going on in this thread?
Strip clubs, the great budweiser debate, the vegetable mob. Whither will it go next? I CAN'T WAIT TO FIND OUT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
What the hell is going on in this thread?
This is more or less how every thread goes here.
The next topic =
THE NEXT TOPIC!!
blog will eat itself
702: I think a fair number of people who've known strippers or sex workers feel that frustration in such discussions, it's completely understandable. It's one of those topics where the perils of having only personal, anecdotal evidence and guesswork to build on get painfully evident.
706 comments? is that all you people can do? Surely, this thread can make it to 1000!
"Breasts drive the economy." Discuss.
"Breasts drive the economy." Discuss.
Can you refine them into gasoline?
Cats with cell phones. Discuss.
Discuss
An abomination, I calls it.
Discuss.
It's not really a sport. Throwing a big metal frisbee is just stupid.
re: 700
I had no idea it existed, I'm impressed it's actually IN scots, too.
http://sco.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophie
is particularly great.
Maist Philosophers wirks bi speirin quaistens an leukin for guid defineetions (meanins) o wirds for tae unnerstand whit a quaisten means. Some philosophers says the ae thing ye maun hae for tae answer a quaisten is ti finnd oot whit it means an that the ae thing that maks philosophical quaistens sic as thir abuin deifficult is that fowk disna raellie ken whit they mean (for exemplar Ludwig Wittgenstein).
The definition of "Philosophy" there is congenial to me but unprofessional, I would say.
