Check out this awesome post from the Feministing community blog about the double standard between men who pay to go to strip clubs and women who get paid to work at them. A quote:
“I don’t know why you dance. You’re so much better than that.”
Therein lies a double standard. The dancers are ’so much better’ than their line of work, but the customers are not lowering themselves by walking in the front door of a strip club.
Well said! And the post gets even better.
Maybe it’s the men who go into clubs who are ashamed of themselves and their sexuality - or the fact that they’re paying for it - and so they have to project that shame onto the women who dance. I’ve also always thought that men who go into strip clubs can’t stand the reversal of the power dynamic (women who work at strip clubs have the upper hand, power-wise) and in order to deal with that they feel the need to convince themselves that the women are “sluts” or “lower” or “bad.”
Armchair philosophy for the day.
1 response so far ↓
1 Varla Vex // Jul 17, 2008 at 12:05 pm
Amen, sister. Same thing goes for porn actresses, too. I think part of it is also that the industry is changing and the end users are having a hard time adjusting. Porn and stripping were, albeit controversial, often considered to be empowering careers in the 70’s. Then it shifted in the mid 80’s through the 90’s to something scummy and shameful - partly due to the reality of the situation ( a lot of “broken doll” types with either psychological issues or raging drug habits to sooth, etc.) and partly due to a puritanical shift in the country’s perception of sex work (what could have fueled this is a book in and of itself!). I have definitely seen the sex industry shift a lot in the past 5-10 years where many of the most intelligent, business savvy women that I know are getting involved in all things sex. It is, thank god, slowly becoming okay to be sexual and engage in sexual power exchange and fulfillment with an end user (via dancing, porn, prostitution, whatever). Granted, there will always be members of the lowest common denominator on both sides of the coin that will try to poison our well, and to them I say “I am a shameless hussy - hear me ROAR! Now get the fuck outta my way, will ya?”
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