Is the cheek by jowl existence of lapdancing clubs amongst our finest civic buildings on The Headrow in Leeds a sign that we enjoy a mixed cultural economy with all tastes catered for or a sad fact that certain profitable industries can afford to occupy once proud buildings no matter the public opinion against them?
This week, after our ‘What’s the Score with Henry Moore’ Bloggers event I got into a taxi outside the Art Gallery in Leeds. A branded Hummer pulled up next to a group of men evidently trying to lure them to their establishment. The taxi driver was pretty annoyed that this was permitted to happen, saying that ‘touting’ had been illegal, but now this club (and maybe others) could pay for a special license at great cost, to go about their ‘ferrying.’
As we drove along The Headrow past Wildcats and the other one I can’t remember the name of, the taxi driver remarked upon the arrival of a third club. We got into a conversation about the clubs, and just how many there were in Leeds, and how he felt about the proximity of these three clubs to the Museum, The Art Gallery and Library. Essentially civic spaces for all generations and cultures.
On the one hand I mostly feel pretty indifferent to lapdancing clubs, maybe I’ve become blind to them as there are so many in Leeds. As I haven’t been inside one, I’ve got no idea what they are like in all honesty, so cannot judge the working conditions, people who enjoy them, (Leeds has a great offer to the stag market) or the decor. I don’t think I’m either prudish, or unfortunately as good a feminist as I should be. I’m pretty ill informed as to the reality behind lap dancing clubs, but have an assumption that this is the sanitised, glossy high street acceptable face of the sex trade. It’s all just a bit of harmless fun right?
So I’ve tried to examine where my annoyance comes from. I think my initial irritation stems back to a previous time when an existing bookmakers in my local neighbourhood wanted to enlarge and take on a triple fronted shop in a place already dominated by pawnbrokers, amusement arcades, cash converters and two other bookies. Despite huge local objections and protest, the previous property owner had changed the use of the building which enabled the bookmakers to to have a strong case for their much needed addition to our decaying town street.
The local councillors were against it, but due to a lack of powers, and not wishing to run up costly legal fees for the taxpayer they consented. How does this make a resident feel about the place they live in? I know I felt it signalled that we had no power to influence the future of our neighbourhood, and we felt our efforts were futile against corporations with budgets to take applications through the courts.
My issue with the once magnificent thoroughfare of The Headrow having three lap dancing clubs occupying fine buildings is the message this sends out. Some have suggested on Twitter that the clubs are discreet, more attractive than the ugliness of Greggs. Others have pointed to this being culturally vibrant mix of all sorts of ‘leisure activity’ . But for me Steve Manthorp articulated my irritation best; ‘apart from the tawdry sadness of it, it reflects on the desperation of planning authorities to retain city centre business.’
The taxi driver did not see it this way, he felt that he would not wish to explain what a ‘WildCat’ was to his young son after visiting the library.
One good thing at least is that my tirade on twitter led to Andy Charlwood linking to a consultation by the council for people to have a say about what they think.
Is my irritation purely that I see them as a crime against ‘Taste’? That’s a whole other debate!
I walk past wildcats and direcktors on the way to the office, I think its bloody hilarious that they are now open on friday afternoons with a ‘free buffet’… theres a few bad taste jokes about hair nets in there 🙂
I’m all for live and let live attitudes, but I think the best way of getting to the nub of the issue is to think about the question ‘if I had a daughter, would I be happy if she worked in a lap dancing club?’ I think for most people the answer would be no. So the commercialisation of sex and sexualisation of our night time economy are not in my view desirable developments.
There are always going to be men who want to pay to see women without clothes on, and there are always going to be women who want to take their money off them. But the problem with the current situation in Leeds is that lapdancing is so in your face. Clubs in high profile locations, big billboard adverts, people touting for business on the streets (my wife went to a fundraising dinner for Donisthorpe Hall at Elland Road last week, and when she left, there was a stretched hummer with a load of girls in, touting for business in a fairly aggressive way). And all this sends out the message that lapdancing is normal and OK (which I don’t think it is), so more men go to lap dancing clubs and more women want to work in them and more lapdancing clubs open and so it goes on.
Banning lap dancing isn’t a good idea. People should have the freedom to do stuff other people disapprove of, but I do think it should be a less in your face activity. Back streets and side streets, not the headrow. Discreet signs, restrictions on advertising and touting would all be welcome changes in my view.
So I really do hope that the council use powers introduced by the last government to rein in the lap dancing industry in Leeds. If you agree with me (or even if you don’t) please respond to the council consultation, because this is our city and we should have a say in deciding what sort of city it is.
I really agree with Andys post above. Personally I dislike lap dancing clubs and the whole trade. I think it glamourises the sex industry and I object to how mainstream and acceptable it has become for women to sell their bodies to men, this is highlighted perfectly by the now common place position of these kinds of clubs within our cities essentially ‘cultural quarter’. It disturbs me at the impression this leaves on visitors to Leeds who come to enjoy the fantastic museums and galleries, when they leave then being greeted with the seedy side of the city and the many lap dancing clubs. On the same hand, and as Andy points out, I can’t imagine the horror of leaving Leeds Museum with children and bring confronted by questions about ‘What a Wild Cat’ is.
It’s a sad fact that clubs like this will always be around. There’s always the stag do Market (is this the kind of economic driver we want for the city?) and there will always be bored husbands/businessmen who aren’t getting it at home. But let’s keep this seedy side of society away from the mainstream.
I also get concerned about the hummers driving around the city touting for business. This is curb crawling in it’s most basic form, except the girls are now driven round like pieces of meat in a big car rather than having to stand on street corners. I love it when people who are pro lap dancing clubs say that these girls are empowered and earn good money. There’s nothing empowering or acceptable about pimping out women in this way, but if as a society we insist on having these clubs for those who wish to partake, let’s not make it acceptable and common place in the centre of our beautiful city.
If we want the sleaze to remain let’s put if somewhere away from the mainstream, where it belongs.
There is an increasing 2 way trade here that we must be aware of. Men are also selling their bodies to women. The volumes may be smaller but the trade is there. Is the problem at heart one of exploitation of one gender by the other or of objectification per se?
I think I agree with the key points of these posts but these are how I would order it
What can the Council do ?
Well hitherto nothing. These places applied for a cafe licence and were considered against the same criteria as other bars and cafes. I know that Councillors are uncomfortable in particular with Wildcats and Red leopard which are in prominent locations near to the art gallery etc, because they said so in the press
New rules will mean these are licensed as sex encounter premises Here is a parliamentary paper about it http://www.parliament.uk/briefingpapers/commons/lib/research/briefings/snha-04751.pdf
So what should Leeds City Councils policy be?
The posters here are more fussed than me but I think the policy should be no ground floor premises in the main core of the city centre – That would be a move for Wildcats Red Leopard and the closed Blue Coyote – but the others could probably stay.
So we could have discrete premises – not noticeable in the day – but maybe neoned after 9pm. I have certainly seen this work in countries like Belgium where a sensible approach to adult entertainment flourishes.
Carding and touting
Is a pain – and a pain from all bars etc – but there should be more restrictions on adult entertainment
In a number of cities around the world a glossy brochure listing the strip clubs, escorts, brothels etc is a standard item in a hotel room – so maybe we need to get a bit less English – have info available – but not so in your face
We should not use the new law to go puritanical – but create a place for these clubs – which is basically out of sight in the main city centre
It does feel like another bout of Leeds bashing. There are just as many lapdancing clubs in Manchester Birmingham and London.
Finally the Jubilee (now Red Leopard) was reported by Barrie Pepper of Leeds Camera in his lovely book on Leeds Puns as a 1930’s Gin Joint – a palace of naughtiness – maybe it is living up to its history
Some really good solutions, thanks for taking the time to comment. I think we are mostly in agreement with each other.
I did come to understand that the council had very little ability to determine the nature of the occupation of a certain class of planning consent, it struck me as very dis-empowering to all concerned.
However I’d disagree with it being Leeds bashing (again!), my post is not saying that Leeds is worse than any other UK city as I don’t have sufficient knowledge of anywhere else to take that route. I am saying there are a lot. Surely that’s not in doubt?
Would you rather we never questioned the stuff that irks us about somewhere? The majority of blog posts here are proof of the fact that we love an awful lot of what’s happening in Leeds. (Just don’t get me started on what I think about Leeds train station’s entrance & exits).
What gets your goat?
It took me a bit of googling around to find the online form for the public consultation, but eventually I found it! Here’s the link:
https://consult.leeds.gov.uk/leeds/KMS/elab.aspx?noip=1&CampaignId=231
It’s open until the 24th June.
Thanks for this piece, Emma. Sometimes I feel as though we’ve taken a step back to the 60s. If our councils tacitly sanction the idea that women’s bodies are a commodity, and that women should be judged on their youth, beauty and thin-ness, what kind of message does that give out? I don’t at all buy the idea that these places are empowering for the women who work in them. True empowerment is being valued for your smarts and your skills, and not only your tits and your ass.
I see this debate through the eyes of a mother painfully aware of the pressure on my 12 year old girl to conform to a certain way of looking, being and expressing herself. Music videos, magazines and billboards pump out images of perfection and objectification of womens’ bodies. High street shops sell padded bras and high heeled shoes for children. Lap dancing clubs are just more depressing inteference/noise impacting on my daughter’s experience of growing up, how she sees herself and how she is seen by the boys she hangs out with and men on the street.
I’ve been pondering this all day, since I read Emma’s original musings early this morning.
Conclusions? Well boringly very similar to everyone else – I have both a daughter and a son, late teens (nearly 20) and mid 20s respectively, and worry that as my daughter goes out in Leeds and encounters ‘clients’ who have enjoyed what’s on offer on the Headrow (and not in the Library or either of the Galleries) she will be viewed in the same light as the women just encountered, so to speak. Don’t get me wrong, I know she can give as good as she gets when it comes to negative male comments, but why the hell should she have to? As for my son; well I asked him what he thought of the proliferation of lap dance joints in the city centre and he was not impressed. Granted I doubt any cruising hummer is going to approach him and his mates – they don’t exactly constitute target audience – but he described the touting as ‘pimping in disguise’.
Interestingly the research on lap dancing as a career was undertaken by Dr Teela Sanders at the University of Leeds – fairly gratuitous reporting of the findings at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/7967049/One-in-four-lap-dancers-has-a-degree.html
I haven’t been able to find the actual report yet, but the idea that because the majority of lap dancers have degrees, are well educated and like the flexibility of the work (?!)makes it all vaguely okay leaves me feeling quite nauseous.
So what to do? Justaguy’s comments make sense; lower profile, restricting off the street access (and I’m with the taxi driver here – please, oh please stop the touting – it is just too damned awful!) – but having the clubs directly opposite the Library and Galleries feels very wrong in so many ways. My gut screams, “shut them down, and shut them down now!” but that isn’t logical and it probably won’t happen, and will closing the public, high profile clubs simply move them somewhere else, sleazier, darker and dodgier? And what would that mean to the women who work there?
I am definitely going to respond to the council consultation, as suggested by Andy, and who knows maybe we can find solution that everyone can all live with!
Here’s a link to Teela Sanders talking about her research into the lapdancing industry:
http://www.lssi.leeds.ac.uk/special-reports/teela-sanders/
And Here’s a summary of the research findings:
http://www.sociology.leeds.ac.uk/assets/files/research/InitialFindingsFinalMarch15.pdf
I can’t really get excited about this one, either way. The idea that we have to protect visitors to our “cultural quarter” from nasty, uncouth behaviour – we all know how delicate the darlings who visit museums and galleries, theatre and opera are, wouldn’t want to upset such refined sensibilities would we! – just about makes me despair. Everything wrong about culture is contained in that notion – sanitized, saccharine, white-gloved, remote, ridiculous. And the solution is even more offensive – stick the sleazy stuff in the slums, where the poor people are. Well, thanks. Yesterday I walked into town as part of a #hometourist jaunt (post to come) through Holbeck, barely a mile from the “cultural quarter” – if your idea of absolute horror is the Wildcat then you really need to get out more.
Hi Phil I’m going to respond since it seems you have particularly objected to my post.
The first thing is I would never suggested putting what are essentially glammed up whore houses in the less affluent parts of the city, that’s not what I meant. Your post points to ‘getting out more’ I’ve lived in Leeds for 10 years during that time I’ve lived in Beeston, Hyde Park, Burley, town centre and now very close to Seacroft, I’d say I’ve seen my fair share of reality in that time. I was more in favour of putting them all in one bit of the city away from the main bars and away from places families want to enjoy with their children. So as to make them contained in a more ‘destination’ based part of town that can be more effectively policed and managed by the council. I think there was some very interesting research that came up recently that showed an increase in rapes and sexual assaults around areas in close proximity to lap dancing clubs. That’s nothing to do with culture and museums but highlights a deeper issue with society, in my opion and our continuing acceptance of the degradation of women in this way (guess I’ve got my Rose tinted glasses on now though).
I enjoy a good night out in our city I just don’t want to see hummers driving around tauting for business. If dirty middle aged men want to go and have an 18 year old jirate in their face, hey that’s their own business. I sincerely doubt any of the patrons lap dancing clubs go home and start writing a poetic master piece of are secretly the next Matise.
Emma I really don’t think you post was Leeds bashing at all. This is a problem in most major cities in the UK. Unfortunately whilst men are willing to pay or it and see women as nothing but mere sex objects and these women find themselves in this situation for whatever reason, I doubt there is a great lot we can do. I’m just thankful that not all men are take this view and found most of the comments on this post very encouraging 🙂
No, I wasn’t singling out any post particularly. Just feeling a bit cantankerous this morning. And it does seem like the more prosperous a place becomes the more it attracts disreputable types, that’s just simple economics. Would distilling the nastiness into a “questionable quarter” help? Isn’t that just being complicit with the degradation of women? It’s not something I’ve thought about that much, though it’s obvious that the turning a blind eye approach which the authorities seem to have adopted around here only encourages sleazy behaviour. In the past couple of days I’ve been approached by a pregnant woman, a couple of drug addled lasses who work as a double act, and a 14 yr old girl (I’m being generous about her age btw) within 100 yards of my flat . . . at least I can avoid the Wildcat etc, and I can hear that Hummer coming a mile away and take evasive action.
I’d like to see some research on the patrons of those peculiar places. Historically you would find the arty/literary/cultural types hanging around there – cultural activity and immoral behaviour are highly correlated, the opera house and the whore house deeply entwined. I’m sure those days are well behind us . . . though did you see Carmen?
Have to (partly) agree with Phil.
Pushing ‘undesirable’ aspects of the city into areas where there may already be huge swathes of economic, cultural and spiritual depression is only going to make those people who don’t like it feel better, not change the actual problem – which is a larger issue of society freely accepting objectification and the sex industry as an 1) acceptable profession and 2) economically sound business enterprise.
I agree with SJ Bradley in the ‘regression’ idea. But solutions that involve pushing these types of industry into the back streets is similarly regressive. Sort of reminds me of times prior to the legalising of abortions. Because society couldn’t accept this apparently horrific and immoral behaviour, it was pushed into the back streets (sometimes literally) and consequently women died, emotionally and physically deteriorated, etc.
Thankfully we’ve (sort of) got to the point where we can say ‘it is not wrong to have an abortion’ (at least legally we can say that). But we still know it’s a hugely complex and emotionally challenging process.
It is not wrong that people want to go to strip clubs, or that other people work in them. But it is complex and it is challenging, and it may be wrong that our society/city supports these industries with particular forms of legislation. That doesn’t mean we should stick the ‘sleaze’ where we can’t see it, it means we should work creating other things that counter this. Surely that’s what a city is anyway, sleaze and sophistication battling it out to be on top?
As I wrote the blog I was aware in the back of my head the niggle that if not The Headrow then where? So is the Headrow the perfect counterbalance of cultural power on one side, and legitimised sleaze on the other?
The more I reflect upon this the less clear I become. Which is why I guess I’m glad to be able to blog and have a discussion about this. Nothing is ever black or white. That’s not meant to be a cop out.
Completely agree Emma, the discussion of it makes it more complicated. Some people will always be very fluid in their opinions, others not so.
The Headrow … seeing as one side is old school cultural power, and the other side as you say legitimised sleaze – where do we stand? Not part of the old art guard that will withstand the tests of time, money and sex shops; not part of rampant commercialisation of every aspect of human life…where are we?
Little story,
I used to work in a very very busy pub near the train station. One night as I was glass collecting I got groped by a group on men on a stag do. I had these men thrown out of the pub, which started a massive fight with the bouncers because I was being a ‘frigid cow’ and ‘none of the other girls here mind’ (here being Leeds, the group was from the midland). Turns out they had just come from one of the sex encounter establishments (or if you like ‘lap dancing bars’) and were walking down Boar Lane in order to go to another one. In their minds every single woman in every single bar was fair game, because really what is the difference between a young girl serving drinks in one to a young girl serving drinks in the other?
For me, the argument for and against sex encounter establishments isn’t whether or not it makes the city I live in more culturally viable, it about protecting women, and men, from being objectifying and assaulted. You have many clubs advertising themselves as culturally acceptable by the masses that allow their patrons to assault, verbally harass and objectify their staff in the city where you live. Hooters, which is rumoured to be looking for expansion to Leeds as it has recently done in Cardiff, makes their staff sign a contract that they will not sue if they are sexually harassed, and doesn’t even have to get a licence as a sex encounter establishment as it s a ‘family’ restaurant.
Leeds Feminist Network, and Leeds Object (http://www.object.org.uk/) have been fighting this, in the case of Object, for two years (I am not a member of Object). The Leeds Council consultation cited above is the result of the efforts of these groups. I am happy beyond words that a blog that is not specifically a feminist one is bringing this up, as it is so important not just to the civic pride of Leeds but to the women and men working in minimum wage jobs in bars that we recognise that sex establishment venues are harmful, and should be seen as that by the general public.
Sorry for ranting!
Jess x
The ironic thing being that they probably groped you precisely because they weren’t allowed to grope any of the women in the LD bars—you’d have been safer in there.
Lots of comments, just to throw in a few points–
1) Nobody seems to be mentioning the economic argument. Not from the POV of the individuals, but from the property owners. I haven’t lived or worked in Leeds for a few years, but I remember that stretch of the Headrow as particularly inconsistent in its ability to maintain businesses. Never mind ‘where do we put these clubs’, the real question might be ‘what would we find to replace them, and why should the landlords be bothered?’
2) Sort of from the other side–Leeds does have a big stag scene, but its nothing to the scale of that of Manchester, which has far fewer LD or TD bars. Why does Leeds have so many? Possibly, less to do with the stag scene, and more to do with the prevalence and dominance of professional services? Legal, accountancy, the culture of entertaining (mostly male) guests. Manchester has it, but it doesn’t dominate the city in the same way. Manchester also, of course, has at least three male saunas in the centre of the city–places where men go to have sex. There’s never the same furore about those as about female massage parlours.
3) I have two daughters, and would have no problem with them being lap dancers. They’d stay fit, earn huge amounts of money, be in a relatively protected environment (no, really). They’d be making money from their bodies and their ‘art’ in exactly the same way as ballet dancers, just with fewer clothes on. The idea that lap-dancing isn’t acceptable seems part of the feminist absorption of Victorian attitudes towards sex. I’d rather they did that than worked in a factor anyway…
4) There has been some evidence presented, @Kristal, that rape increases nearby to lap-dancing clubs. Unfortunately, like the vast majority of ‘research’ produced to back anti-sex trade arguments, its appallingly flawed. I won’t re-run the reasons why, but point you at Brooke Magnanti (aka Belle du Jour) who demolishes it over here..
http://sexonomics-uk.blogspot.com/2011/04/lap-dancing-and-rape-in-camden-part-1.html
Ms Magnanti elsewhere points out the phallacy (sorry) in attempts by both mainstream moralists and by their feminist supporters to lump the entirety of the sex trade in as one monolithic entity. No, legal lap-dancing clubs are not the same as girls in hummers touting for trade are not the same as legal porn are certainly not the same as trafficked women. The only link is sex.
V, I was a topless dancer (at a very “high class” club) in the states for two years, starting when I was 18. There is no “art” to it and to compare it to ballet is ignorant and offensive to those who have put in the work and dedication that goes into becoming a ballet dancer. Yes, some lap dancers have dance training. That may make them a bit more graceful at gyrating their hips, rubbing their hands in their hair, and humping mens’ legs in exchange for £20 notes, but the difference is minimal and I can assure you that the punters could absolutely not care less. The most popular dancers are the ones who are most willing to ignore the rules about touching/being touched. Period. Being the best dancer never, ever figures into it. It absolutely breaks my heart to think of anyone being happy for their own daughter to go into lap dancing. I hope so much that you reconsider this idea. I am 100% sex-positive, but I’ve BEEN in these places. Even if she managed to stay out of it (and most don’t, at least not for long), would you really be happy for your daughter to be in daily contact with drugs and prostitution? What about when she gets tired of dancing, goes for a job interview to work in an office, and the interviewer remembers her dancing on his knee and rubbing her breasts in his face?
It’s worth pointing out here that Blue Coyote was shut down due to a drugs raid that found trafficked women being kept upstairs, so maybe there is a link…
It never said the women were trafficked, it just said they were East European.
Vibrant cultural offer? Perhaps.
No doubting that Soho adds to the vibrant culture of London. But at least that is zoned (formally or informally?) and I have not (yet) been propositioned by girls in a pink hummer as I make my way through central London. Indeed even in the heart of Soho the girls ‘in the shop window’ as it were have to remain on the promises, in the doorways whispering their invitations. And De Wallen in Amsterdam too adds a frisson to the city and an interesting counterpoint to the high culture that it apparently sits more or less comfortably alongside.
Although I am concerned about the rise of the lapdancing industry and the moral, ethical and commercial discussions that come with it, for the purposes of this post, I am interested in what it tells us about ‘progress’ in Leeds.
When I first came to Leeds some 30 years ago the market for erotic dancing was in the pubs and working mens’ clubs of the city. And it wasn’t described in euphemisms (lap/pole/table/erotic) but as what it was – stripping.
And, there was a robust and fairly militant, as I remember it, group of feminists who were campaigning against the industry – exploitation, objectification, sexualisation etc. And I remember too, perhaps falsely, the council having a drive against working mens’ clubs as sexist bastions of domestic violence. More recently they let lap-dancing clubs sponsor our road junctions and tout for business on our streets. These days the opposition has withered to almost nothing. And if you even reflect on the role of these places in our city you are accused of prudishness….
I am sure that there were always ‘gentlemen’s clubs’ as opposed to ‘working mens’ clubs’ but they must have been much more discrete establishments.
The rise of the gentrified/gentlemens’ lapdancing industry seems to me to have more or less paralleled the rise of financial services in the city. It seems to be the preferred ‘cultural backdrop’ for the people who take risks with our money. A pre-requisite for effective inward investment is somewhere for the wandering business man to hang their hat.
So I think that the rise of the lapdancing phenomena tells about a shift in values, about a process of gentrification (the rich have a habit of taking for themselves the cultural pleasures of the poor)and about the kind of community that develops when you put ‘financial services’ at its heart.
It seems to me that the argument about the dangers of objectifying the human form has been lost. You want to peer at naked bodies doing erotic dances, that is just fine. What is your preference? Young women? Men? A bit of both? Online? In the flesh? If there is a market we can supply it.
So perhaps we should embrace it?
Put taxpayers money into ‘A Leeds Academy of Erotic Industries’ to make sure that we have a world class inward investment/tourism/hen/stag offer,and that local people are able to take the jobs on offer should they so wish. Time to add Leeds Loves Erotica to the burgeoning range of brands in the city.
C’mon Leeds Local Enterprise Partnership – here is a growth industry. Perhaps we could use the Enterprise Zone to establish a Leeds equivalent of De Wallen? It could be a darn sight more interesting than yet another shopping centre.
No questions asked.
Or perhaps we can imagine a more noble vision for our city?
It seems to me that the argument about the dangers of objectifying the human form has been lost
Venus de Milo?
David?
History of art?
Surely its a central part of what we as humans do? When did it become wrong? Oh, yes, when the term ‘objectification’ was invented and pasted on to something core to how humans perceive and interpret the world.
Interesting discussion.
I think you may be able to make the argument that in this situation the people being the most ‘exploited’ are the punters not the dancers but I don’t know either, so I’d try and find out. I have no idea how it affects the behaviour of the men just as I have no idea how women on a hen night behave after a hunky fireman has released his hose.
I feel uncomfortable with language like sleazy, dirty etc and judgements about other legal behaviour and about a prescribed morality. You can debate whether men and women are fundamentally different in what floats their boat sexually(yes I know there are variations)and which parts of these are morally acceptable but that’s why we have the law, to debate and decide these things. And does history show us that when you get puritanical you just send things underground into more dangerous, exploitative situations?
Catholic priests would make an interesting study of what happens with some when you repress male sexuality. Don’t know if it was sexual repression but some of the nuns were little better. I’m not using that as any kind of justification just that I think we forget that we are animals and when you impose morality it can have unintended consequences.
I’ve only ever seen one stripper and that was 25 years ago at my Dad retirement do, when some of his mates from the club thought it would be ‘funny’. Most people found it extremely unpleasant and I’ve only ever felt so uncomfortable once before when I sat through a dangerously homophobic play (presented as ‘edgey’) at the WYP.
So who’s been to a lapdancing club? Who’s spoken to the women? Why not send a couple of bloggers down, get an inside view? Who’s asked visitors to Leeds what they thought of it? Did they even notice it and were they appalled?
I really don’t buy this, ‘What if the children see it?’ What are they seeing? A sign outside a club? I’ve passed the club on the headrow 20-30 times with my 8 yr-old and he’s never asked. If he did I’d answer him as it’s my responsibility to give him as much guidance as I can. It’s 2011, they are bombared with images of prescribed sexuality. I find Beyonce’s selling of sexuality extremely disturbing but I’m not sure I’d want to ban it, just point out it’s flaws. I find a lot of body image and sexuality stuff aimed at youngsters of both genders quite disturbing, I’m sure it can mess with their heads but again, don’t know what you can do about it other than talk to them.
I don’t like the idea of lap dancing clubs, others do. I find the structure of most ‘high art’ offensive, others don’t and so it goes.
I have met lapdancers. I used to do body art and was once contracted to appear at the Leeds sex show to paint up some dancers before their next performance.
I find a lot of comments about female empowerment through sex work to be naive, although I accept that there are individuals who do find this work fits in well with their life goals, since it enables them to support themselves through study, or to spend daytimes with their children.
The young women I met had been employed as “models” and instructed that they would not be required to be naked but would be modelling underwear. So this new crop of models, (school leavers with aspirations to be the next Kate Moss,) looking for their first job, had agreed to the day’s work. Once on site, the older girls (and they were still girls, few of them much over 20) quickly persuaded them of the benefits of the dancing and nakedness required in the work. Men who were the “managers” lurked in the background, cleverly leaving the other dancers to do the persuading for them.
The young women also quickly picked up the attitude to men which was guaranteed to net them the fastest income. They soon despised the men, but spent all their time simpering around them, laughing at their peurile comments, suggesting availability whilst carefully watching to ensure each other’s safety from serious assault. “Minor” sexual harrassment, and even touching, was soon seen to be a part of the job requirement. Indeed, for the best tips, in this environment, the men could hardly contain their excitement at being given this access to lovely young women, who in real life would clearly not be sexually interested in them. They continually looked for opportunities to get physical, slapping arses,brushing “accidentally” against the girls, and making very lewd and explicit suggestions to them.
I was sad for the men, they were having the worst ideas about the objectification of women instilled in them by the culture there. They really weren’t prepared to deconstruct the relationships they had with the providers of their kicks. Why would they? it’s not in Tesco that we raise our conciousness about the superstores impact on their environment.
I was sad for the women. By the end of the day, many of them had learned that they could make enormous sums of money from this work (especially when “new”) and many had given up on their ambitions to pursue regular modelling. I was equally concerned about how their developing attitude to men could affect their ability to form a long-term relationship with a man in the future, should they choose to do so. I was sad that someone’s daughter, fresh out of school, was now gyrating in the faces of men, believing that being regarded as a fresh piece of meat was somehow aspirational. Interestingly, their inexperience showed when “off-set” by their clear admission of revulsion at what they were doing. The more experienced women were much better at hiding it.
The men appreciated the younger girls- partly this was due to their excellent physiques, but it was also due to the fact that they were less able to stand up to them as they continually pushed the boundaries of acceptable behaviour. The older women had learned to keep their distance to avoid the grabbing. They were also far more likely to call for back up from security when required, or walk away from a potential money source which was going to be too much “hard work”.
I think the men believed the girls pulling away from them was due to a coyness, and this was clearly very exciting (a representation of the virgin/whore dichotomy that they found fascinating?).
I was impressed with the business acumen of the women, and the nimble intellects many of them displayed- able to converse across a range of topics and several with degrees and postgraduate study.
Over the years since that day, I have returned to it many times, in order to think more about the emotions and thoughts it stimulated. I don’t have an answer about whether this should be “allowed”- the cat is rather out of the bag- but I do hope that at some point people will cease to regard this cheapened form of sexual expression as worthy of their valuable time and youth to provide, and too shallow and unsatisfying to consume.
And that was my last job in the sex industry.
From 18-20 I worked as a stripper (no euphemisms for me, thank you) in a “safe”, “high-class” club in the states that is so famous as to almost be considered wholesome. It’s mentioned in the tourist literature for the city. And it was, and certainly still is, EXACTLY as you describe above. Exactly. Plus constantly available drugs of all sorts, mostly coke. And the option of a little something extra on the side, in the back of the club, or back at the punter’s hotel – that was always there for the women who wanted to make extra money. ALWAYS.
Prostitution has been mentioned a few times in this conversation as an analogy – stripping is “like” prostitution – but few seem to realise how directly they are connected, and how much actual, non-metaphorical prostitution is arranged either at these clubs or between the dancers and the punters outside of the clubs.
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Excellent debate and some interesting comments above.
I just wanted to add that maybe if we’re considering the need to move lapdancing clubs away from the main streets then surely the window displays and posters in stores such as American Apparel should be hidden down a dark alley? I know which one I’d prefer my little boy to walk past….
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Personally I find it all a bit shabby, as much for being part of the world that sees a Hummer as some sort of status symbol rather than something only a monstrous a**hole would drive. It’s a clumsy crass import (the business and the car).
We have it all mixed up, everything tied up to how much money it earns rather than recognising the intrinsic value of the city’s history and fabric. We’re looking at big casinos, ‘upmarket’ strip joints and sanitised malls while Lambert’s Yard, Marshall Mills, Hunslet Mills and the White Cloth Hall crumble away. We’re letting the Market get killed off to make way for gentrification and the Corn Exchange undergoed a needless tacky refurbishment. No wonder Leeds seems a cultural desert relative to many other cities. There’s no thrust of historical pride creating a narrative and setting out Leeds as a place. If you go to York or Bristol or London or Newcastle you get a sense of what those places are about, where they came from. Leeds in comparison has nothing tangible. It should scream out about the cloth trade, the mills, the locomotive manufactiuring. We need better, more than a few trestle tables selling home-made jewelry. Tacky businesses establishing themselves on major thoroughfares are a symptom of this, we seem to have nothing better to put there.
Leeds City Centre is dull. One big shopping mall, surrounded by a hotcpotch of bars, a small number of restaurants, your theatres, ringroads, lapdancing clubs etc, then beyond that apartments.
This is the way the city is designed and the way it will stay as this is the way successive council policies, poor licensing and planning, inadequate Visions will keep it.
This particular urban design model and emphasis on big box development, and big venues does not favour diversity and interesting places to go out, it favours a narrow cultural offer, boredom and a tendency to seek out titillation elsewhere.
If the people of Leeds want to change this, they’re going to have to stand up and demand better and the council is going to have to listen, and not just to their usual cronies.
Create an environment which favours diversity over homogeneity or get used to more of the depressing same. .
In response to these posts I would like to say that most people here are taking a very radical approach to lap dancing bars. We live in the 21st century and this culture is very much part of our society. I myself am a stripper at one of the lap dancing clubs in Leeds and to suggest that they ought to be shunned away from society is enraging. There is nothing illegitimate about these clubs! Personally I do the job for a bit of extra cash whilst studying at University so I do think it is unfair to look down on the women who work at these clubs. It is quite simple that if you do not like seeing such clubs then do not walk past them! there is also nothing wrong with touting..It is a way of advertising and getting more customers as every business does!
To be honest SexySammy, it’s intelligent women like yourself participating in this trade that should be most challenged directly by the arguments being made here. I wouldn’t ‘look down’ on you, but I would point out that however you look at it these clubs, in these numbers and with such a big high street visibility, contribute to the mainstreaming of the commercial sex industry. That, in turn, normalises the roles of exploited and exploitee for women and men. This is not good for our children and certainly no good for society. We’re normalising the lowest rung of the sex industry which is a whole world of violence, hate and the most heinous exploitation.
That’s what I’d say you were contributing to. That’s why it’s difficult to ‘just walk past them’.
Going to a lap dancing club is a bizarre, backwards experience. The women approach the men, and the men do the (occasional) turning down. I think also that once rules are bent slightly in one club, rules must be bent or broken in others to compete. As a dancer, do you want to earn £10 in a solo dance, or £30 performing girl-on-girl with another dancer? If this happens in one club, the others will follow suit. As this isn’t technically legal, it becomes an unspoken, unadvertised feature. The girls who are the most open-minded get the most money.
any particular reason the feminazis don’t make the same comments about the male strip club? maybe men go to those clubs because they are sick of women’s one sided whinging
In all fairness mobile lap dancing is not a crime, but I can understand it is not to everyone’s tastes.
We run a mobile lap dancing club in Essex and our primary audience is male between 18-45. This audience who turn up only come because they want to be there.
If strip clubs were more discreet with advertising it could be turned into a thing which is trendy and not tasteless.