The adult entertainment industry is a subject rife with controversy.  Modern society has a deep love/hate relationship with pornography, exotic dancing, and prostitution.  As time goes on, we have become more accepting of the less tangible facets of adult entertainment, namely pornography and exotic dancing, coming to see both as private, harmless recreation, but this is only with the consumer in mind.  The bureaucratic view of the entertainers is tinged with contempt.  For this article I will focus on stripping and the legal red tape surrounding the business. 

In many areas the laws governing strip clubs can be obscenely strict, or even plain out strange.  Many of these laws are enacted to “protect” the entertainers and reduce prostitution, but in reality these laws are thinly veiled misogyny.  They frankly insult both the dancer and the customer in that they must be protected from themselves, that they do not know how a naked girl will negatively affect them.  A common sentiment in these laws seems to be that the naked female body, considered by politicians who author these laws to be so vulgar and obscene, will somehow scar both she and the patron so horribly that it must be outlawed.  In a number of locations a dancer cannot remove her bottoms, or even her top to reveal her nipples, instead forced to wear pasties.  There is nothing so vulgar about a nipple, or even her entire body that the transactional revelation of a such should be made illegal.  It holds a woman’s body in contempt, something that must be covered up in order to be deemed acceptable. 

Another common law is a mandatory distance held between the dancer and the customer.  Originally this was enacted to reduce prostitution and drug use, but in reality this makes prostitution worse.  Coming within X feet of a customer, and prostituting one’s self (by common definition) warrants the exact same punishment, legally, so for those who are so inclined, it can be lucrative to go the extra mile.  This exacerbates the problem as clean dancers have a harder time keeping a good income without providing these “extras.” 

Some other odd laws in various points in the country are the dancer, during lap dances, must keep her shoes on, keep one foot on the floor, cannot grab her own breasts, cannot drink, cannot spread her legs, cannot reveal her buttocks, must wear a ’legal’ thong (an inch wide at it’s narrowest point), or cannot wear a garter outside the club. 

In many places the laws are not strictly enforced, but random raids and mass arrests of dancers and customers (as it is not unheard of for police to round up all dancers if they find one acting outside the law) are a constant threat.  Police are not above lying to get the extra bonus points.  Misogyny is everywhere, even in the Boys’ Playgrounds.

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3 Comments

August 5, 2008 10:38 PM

[0+]  Logrus said:

Love ya, NF.

The filth will always try and screw a working woman, and the one's who work blue will often literally try and screw you. I give pigs no respect unless they first demonstrate they are worthy of it, having known too many willing to trade "favors" for a pass or willing to look the other way when a partner did. I did some taxi/escort (literal, not euphemism) work for some peelers for a while and a pig tried to imply I was a pimp after pulling me over for a bullshit "suspicious stop" (I was at a 4-way stop, and rolled out a bit to see around an obstruction), I'm sure he was trying to bait me into popping him in the mouth and I almost did. Then he tried to tell me I was "running an illegal taxi service", I called him a commonly used British insult in the hopes that he would hit me. No such luck, I got a "warning".

What kind of "pimp" drives a 92 Sentra?

I've known a few good cops, but mostly I've observed thugs or people who go along with thugs.

F.T.P.

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August 6, 2008 3:55 AM

[0+]  Steven said:

Logrus-

I think you are out of line by calling the police pigs. I know you threw in kind of a disclaimer "I know a few good cops" statement, but it does not mitigate the disservice you have done to police officers.

And I don't care if they are peelers, it did not really get at Naked_Feminist point. Rather than saying Fuck the Police like some adolescent you would have been better off looking at why local legislatures or Assemblies pass the laws you don't like.

I'll just stop now.

Naked_Feminist:

Good job pointing out the policy flaws in laws directed towards strip clubs.

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August 13, 2008 7:47 PM

[0+]  i_muse said:

Hi NF

I guess I'm old school. I danced in the 90's and appreciated the 3 ft away rule (table danced on boxes).
I appreciated bouncers who would fuck up any customer who tried to touch me.
I appreciated the law that made the club responsible for any "contact" laws being broken because it kept our work visual rather than a full contact experience.

By the time I retired, no contact strip clubs were a thing of the past.
4 women in Vegas got together and worked to change the laws so that the clubs would not be responsible for the dancers actions anymore.
The transition was very difficult, as you can imagine, old school dancers were suddenly expected (by customers) to do a lot more for the same $20 based on what "the last girl" did during their (contact) dance.

Personally, I preferred to work with energy and visual entertainment without contact. I thought $20 for 2 or 3 minutes of that was appropriate. $20 for contact is ridiculous in my opinion. It takes a lot more out of the dancer. I missed the days when customers were hauled off to the alley by bouncers or county jail by cops if they tried or managed to sneak a touch in.
I missed the days of visual dancers kicking out the contact dancers who were "cutting into our money". By the time I retired, I was told by many of the younger girls that "grinding" and contact was "just easier". It seemed like working hard to me.

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