Economic Tits

So I know - I should expect this sort of thing from The Sun. Seriously though, I would do a line-by-line except as with most Sun stories there's only about three lines. Apparently the recession's over because more people are going to strip clubs. So....

1) Where are the statistics on this? There aren't any. This is based on one guy saying so - one guy who in return gets his chain of misogyny shops plugged in Britain's best-selling paper.

2) Hooray - lets see what other dodgy industries we can use to prop up the economy. People are buying more heroin than ever. Hired assassins have never been so popular. The demand for mugging old ladies has gone through the roof. Oh whoops, except economic benefits don't justify an industry that's riddled with exploitation.

3) If this is all true then it's very very frightening news indeed. Women are already seriously over-represented in the ranks of those affected by the downturn. We earn less across the board and are way more likely to suffer discrimination, way more likely to have dependent family members to support along with complicated caring arrangements. How many more women will start to feel that their only viable economic choice is to work in one of these horrible places? And then when they're not making as much as they thought, feel like they have to start offering sexual services too...

4) Again if this is true then why exactly would we imagine that lap-dancing is more resistant to economic conditions than other activities? What other industries appear to have strong resiliance against bad economic conditions? Alcohol and cigarettes. Stuff that's addictive, stuff that is actually doing you no good at all but over a number of years you've become so used to that you can't live without it. If lap-dancing is really just the "harmless" fun that these assholes constantly claim it is then when money's a bit tight guys would stop going and come back when they have more disposable income. Not happening.

5) Our reliable correspondant says the customers are city bankers. So bad news for the female city bankers who wanted to get ahead with a bit of networking. He also says more and more women are going to strip clubs - I wonder how many of them really have a "different" attitude to "sexiness and fun" and how many of them are just worried about losing their jobs if they don't go along with the team for the socialising.

6) Of course - random excuse to show more tits in The Sun. Why is this "newspaper" not sold on the top shelves? This is not news. News would have found actual market trend statistics, interviewed an economist rather than a pimp, and included, for balance, comments from those who feel that a rise in strip club attendance may have it's negative side too. This is porn. Pure porn. Porn goes on the top shelf - away from where children can reach it.

The Sun "newspaper" has so much in common with strip clubs: Bad for women. Bad for men. Bad for business. Bad for society.

Two footnotes here: (1) on the subject of how young women are now supposed to have a "different" attitude to "sexiness and fun". When the revolution comes and I am magically able to access whatever pleases me whenever I please I'm going to demand regular hot baths poured for me and about an hour a day of cunnilingus. Going to a grimy, tacky strip club full of drunk blokes letching at women who we all know for the most part really don't want to be there strikes me as neither "sexy" nor "fun". (2) The photo - I took it just before xmas in a major chain book store on Oxford Street (I forget which one - Waterstones or Borders I think). There under a huge "we recommend" sign are the gifts for the man who likes to spend his festive season thinking about women's bodies in a strangely dismembered way. The Big Book of Legs and The Big Book of Breasts. I guess great literature isn't dead...

Mystery of the Day

Remember recently when Chris Knight from the Lap Dancing Association angrily told me that the existing law on lap-dancing "works perfectly"? How then can it be that a lap-dancing club in London has been closed down and eight others raided after the police found out that sex was for sale on the premises as well as drugs. Could it be that Chris Knight is a lying asshole? You decide.

Dark Knights

Last night I was on BBC Five Live discussing Harriet Harman's plans to stop businesses from reclaiming VAT on "expenses" trips to strip and lap-dancing clubs. Well we were supposed to be discussing that. Instead I got screamed at by a guy called Chris Knight (the one on the left) who described himself as the president of the lap-dancers association. Weird for two reasons - firstly elsewhere on the web he's listed as the vice-president and secondly because why would a guy be head of the lap-dancers association? I mean isn't that kind of like having a white guy as head of an organisation which represents black people?

Anyway there were three things that I was angry about.

Firstly because he just shouted over everything I said, which sometimes I do too on air, sometimes you have to stop someone taking up all the air time with some irrelevant or just outright wrong point. But this was not it - this was just him trying to silence me. He didn't listen to a single point I made, however brief.

Secondly he had this manner of saying things as though that made them true. He said "the law as it is works perfectly" - and that's really not true of any law. The murder law doesn't work perfectly, murder still happens and some people trying to assist suicide for the terminally ill can be at risk of prosecution. He also said "if anything illegal happens the police sort it out" when in fact what is true is that when illegal things happen if the police find out about them there is a chance they'll try to sort it out.

Finally though when I agreed to do the interview I was told there would be one other person on air - a lapdancer called Naomi. When we went live Chris Knight was there too - effectively Naomi's boss. Needless to say when your boss is sat next to you you're hardly going to be open about the positives and the negatives of you work environment. For instance at one point I asked Naomi if clients ever touched her while she was dancing and she said "no, never". Really? So she's worked for several years dancing naked across the laps of drunk men and not one has ever touched her? Does anyone believe that. Afterwards I had a chat with a friend who has worked as a stripper and I told her what Naomi had said to which she responded (and I quote) "ah fuck that's ridiculous".

Today I noticed that I'm not the only person who thinks Chris Knight is a nasty bully. So do ... wait for it ... the House of Lords! He's been paying lobbists to try to convince Lords to table watering-down motions to the new bill changing the way lapdancing clubs are licensed. The article in The Times (linked above) contains two classic Chris Knight-isms...

"We got the best response from lords because they don’t rely on votes like MPs do."

Or in other words "Boy, if we lived in a real democracy, we'd be in trouble". And...

"It’s hard to get public support when you run strip clubs."

Aw boo hoo. Well don't do it then!

But the best line in the article comes from 78 year-old hereditary peer Lord Bridgeman who said "I’m very happy to discuss this with you but I need to be properly briefed".

...being "properly briefed" is not something Lord Bridgeman or the women working the industry should expect!

Mile High Misogyny

This article is from the latest Ryan Air inflight magazine. It lists their recommended top ten lap-dancing clubs worldwide. Has anyone told them that some of their passengers may be female? Or indeed for any number of other reasons not comfortable with an article like that peeking out of their seat-pocket?

But the article is also interesting in that they admit two things that most lap-dancing promoters will aggressively deny:

They admit that "gentleman's club" is a direct synonym for "lap-dancing joint".

They admit that the claim that these places are frequented by "adventurous young couples" is a lie and that the actual clientele is "randy blokes".

London's was represented on the list of course by Stringfellow's, a club whose owner is delighted to brag on his blog about his great friendship with David Cameron. How nice.