Poll: Discriminatory practices of providers
- Thread starter Cloud Nine
- Start date
But that has NOTHING to do with the point you were making that I was arguing against, which was that that policy has something to do with stripping's having been ruled to be protected "expression" under the First Amendment. (It isn't even logically related, first, because lapdancing as opposed to stage dancing is most decidedly NOT protected First Amendment "expression", and second because what you're claiming is "expressive" is not the dancing but the stripper's refusal to service certain categories of customers.) (It's funny, cuz I think you keep changing the subject, whereas I'm sure you don't think you do.)
First Amendment issues aside, it seems to me that the question raised is: Do/why would strippers, having crossed the line from strictly dancing and into physical interaction with any customers, have the right to then pick and choose which customers they will give extras to on a racially discriminatory basis? (I am not talking about the stripper who may form relationships with only one or two customers and/or outside the club, but rather, the woman for whom it is a standard practice in her working MO.)
The answer is the same as for prostitutes (IMO):
Nobody can force anybody to do anything (although there it's different, because the club CAN force them to do things).*
But if you're gonna be too selective, I don't it's right for you to do the job.
And if your criteria are racist, I think you're scum.
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* I've seen clubs force girls to do "bottles" with high-rolling club regulars the girls didn't feel comfortable with. Of course, since club management are scum by definition, they could care less about racism (except to the extent they enforce it).
Nobody can force anybody to do anything (although there it's different, because the club CAN force them to do things).*
But if you're gonna be too selective, I don't it's right for you to do the job.
And if your criteria are racist, I think you're scum.
______________________________________________
* I've seen clubs force girls to do "bottles" with high-rolling club regulars the girls didn't feel comfortable with. Of course, since club management are scum by definition, they could care less about racism (except to the extent they enforce it).
Who makes the first move, does it matter?
One difference between lap dancing and most forms of prostitution (mainly excluding street walking) is that strippers usually solicit customers for a lap dance while customers usually initiate contact with particular providers/prostitutes (in response to some sort of advertising or reference). In other words, unlike in most other versions of sex work, lap dancers suggest the commercial transaction, and the customer accepts or rejects. (Yes, I know that it is not always that way, but it is the usual pattern.)
Now, if you watch dancers working a club for lap dances (or private room shows or whatever), you usually see a bunch of different styles. Some just methodically (and a bit unimaginatively, imo) cycle around the room asking each guy as she comes to his table or seat. In that case it would be quite obvious if she always skipped guys of a particular race. However, other dancers are more selective and use a variety of different approaches. It often isn't that obvious how they decide who to ask, but sometimes you get the impression that there is a pattern and it is often obvious that she approaches different guys differently and so forth.
This doesn't have much of a point, but one nuance is that a racist lap dancer who is not one of those who simple asks each customer in turn can mask her unwillingness to do dances for guys of a certain race fairly easily. It might also be argued that she is not really taking any action, in the same sense that a racist provider who rejects a client is; she is just refraining from taking some actions (i.e., suggesting a lap dance to certain guys). When we weigh that in our by now rather finely tuned ethical scales, does it make any difference?
-Ww
One difference between lap dancing and most forms of prostitution (mainly excluding street walking) is that strippers usually solicit customers for a lap dance while customers usually initiate contact with particular providers/prostitutes (in response to some sort of advertising or reference). In other words, unlike in most other versions of sex work, lap dancers suggest the commercial transaction, and the customer accepts or rejects. (Yes, I know that it is not always that way, but it is the usual pattern.)
Now, if you watch dancers working a club for lap dances (or private room shows or whatever), you usually see a bunch of different styles. Some just methodically (and a bit unimaginatively, imo) cycle around the room asking each guy as she comes to his table or seat. In that case it would be quite obvious if she always skipped guys of a particular race. However, other dancers are more selective and use a variety of different approaches. It often isn't that obvious how they decide who to ask, but sometimes you get the impression that there is a pattern and it is often obvious that she approaches different guys differently and so forth.
This doesn't have much of a point, but one nuance is that a racist lap dancer who is not one of those who simple asks each customer in turn can mask her unwillingness to do dances for guys of a certain race fairly easily. It might also be argued that she is not really taking any action, in the same sense that a racist provider who rejects a client is; she is just refraining from taking some actions (i.e., suggesting a lap dance to certain guys). When we weigh that in our by now rather finely tuned ethical scales, does it make any difference?
-Ww
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A good joke...
But the Netherlands (for one) has a generally more regulatory government than the US, and yet they've found a way to have made prostitution less of a problem for all involved, including innocent bystanders.
If you really want a govenment that doesn't unduly intrude in our lives then you should be trying to get them out of our sex lives AND reducing burdensome regulation.
But the Netherlands (for one) has a generally more regulatory government than the US, and yet they've found a way to have made prostitution less of a problem for all involved, including innocent bystanders.
If you really want a govenment that doesn't unduly intrude in our lives then you should be trying to get them out of our sex lives AND reducing burdensome regulation.
Wwanderer: I think it's pretty much hair-splitting, and if she's avoiding "offering a dance" to anyone because of his color, it's as racist as provider saying "no blacks need apply" on her website...
But the real point here, which Ww aptly points out and what made the heat that came down on Monica bizarrely amusing, is that her big mistake was in broadcasting the fact. (I mean, I assume it goes without saying that the absence of a stated racist policy in no way guarantees that a provider isn't racist or defacto discriminating, without calling it such...) A savvy racist provider wouldn't mention it so directly; people are fired, denied and generally mistreated for discriminatory reasons in all walks of life every day, and we all know it. Proving it, however, is another matter, unless you publish it as policy on a website to begin with...
Oy...
But the real point here, which Ww aptly points out and what made the heat that came down on Monica bizarrely amusing, is that her big mistake was in broadcasting the fact. (I mean, I assume it goes without saying that the absence of a stated racist policy in no way guarantees that a provider isn't racist or defacto discriminating, without calling it such...) A savvy racist provider wouldn't mention it so directly; people are fired, denied and generally mistreated for discriminatory reasons in all walks of life every day, and we all know it. Proving it, however, is another matter, unless you publish it as policy on a website to begin with...
Oy...
In a way, I think this misses the point.
This discussion really ISN'T about Monica. Nobody's trying to impose any sanctions on her. And, by her own account (which I believe), she's gotten a decent amount of business off UG.
This is just people talking about racism. From the viewpoint of right and wrong, it doesn't matter how much a prostitute advertises her racist policy (except inasmuch as prostitutes who are upfront get points for forthrightness).
Since the issue isn't punishing people, it really doesn't matter, for purposes of this discussion, how obvious their racist policy is or whether we know about it. It only matters whether they have it.
This discussion really ISN'T about Monica. Nobody's trying to impose any sanctions on her. And, by her own account (which I believe), she's gotten a decent amount of business off UG.
This is just people talking about racism. From the viewpoint of right and wrong, it doesn't matter how much a prostitute advertises her racist policy (except inasmuch as prostitutes who are upfront get points for forthrightness).
Since the issue isn't punishing people, it really doesn't matter, for purposes of this discussion, how obvious their racist policy is or whether we know about it. It only matters whether they have it.
A couple of scattered notes on Wwanderer's post:
1. I've tried to make the point earlier, and Slinkybender DID make it, that the more selective a girl is in general, the more you'd presume that she's turning down customers on individual grounds rather than categorically on account of race.
2. Individual strippers in a club don't advertise their general availability. They don't approach every customer. I'm sure that all of us have had the experience of going to a strip club and trying to catch a particular stripper's eye and just not being able to.
1. I've tried to make the point earlier, and Slinkybender DID make it, that the more selective a girl is in general, the more you'd presume that she's turning down customers on individual grounds rather than categorically on account of race.
2. Individual strippers in a club don't advertise their general availability. They don't approach every customer. I'm sure that all of us have had the experience of going to a strip club and trying to catch a particular stripper's eye and just not being able to.
"More" presents? I resent that, PJ, given how greatly surprised I would be to receive any presents, not to mention my Naughty Gentile status...
Personally, I think you're making excuses for stripper behavior that's fundamentally not viable in the context of earlier pronouncements, but frankly, I've lost interest in pursuing the matter...
But, knock yourselves out. The sheer tenacity of this thread is amazing (especially the fact that after 21 pages, it's actually still on the same subject)...
Personally, I think you're making excuses for stripper behavior that's fundamentally not viable in the context of earlier pronouncements, but frankly, I've lost interest in pursuing the matter...
But, knock yourselves out. The sheer tenacity of this thread is amazing (especially the fact that after 21 pages, it's actually still on the same subject)...
Yes...and frustrating it can be too.
Have you ever tried approaching one of these "just won't notice you" dancers directly and asking her to have a drink or give you a dance or whatever? I don't usually do that, but I have a few times. In all of them that I recall (and, I am sure, the majority of them) she has made some excuse or put me off until "later", and in the end I still did not get to spend any time with her. So, I was left with the impressions that it was more than just a matter of her being inattentive.
-Ww
Have you ever tried approaching one of these "just won't notice you" dancers directly and asking her to have a drink or give you a dance or whatever? I don't usually do that, but I have a few times. In all of them that I recall (and, I am sure, the majority of them) she has made some excuse or put me off until "later", and in the end I still did not get to spend any time with her. So, I was left with the impressions that it was more than just a matter of her being inattentive.
-Ww
Okay, one last point... (Oh c'mon, are you surprised?)
Tell that to the black guy who can't get a lap dance...
Actually, it's been almost everyone else who's been claiming that as the bottom line, not me, but it's those same bottom-liners who are now making exceptions for the strip club, and I think that's hypocritical.
"[T]he more selective a girl is in general, the more you'd presume that she's turning down customers on individual grounds rather than categorically on account of race." Any you would presume this because...? She may be so picky that her screening also excludes some white men, but it hardly means she isn't categorically excluding other groups on a racial basis alone...
Okay, now I'm done.
I think...
Tell that to the black guy who can't get a lap dance...
Actually, it's been almost everyone else who's been claiming that as the bottom line, not me, but it's those same bottom-liners who are now making exceptions for the strip club, and I think that's hypocritical.
"[T]he more selective a girl is in general, the more you'd presume that she's turning down customers on individual grounds rather than categorically on account of race." Any you would presume this because...? She may be so picky that her screening also excludes some white men, but it hardly means she isn't categorically excluding other groups on a racial basis alone...
Okay, now I'm done.
I think...
How its done in brothels down under
In at least some foreign brothels, I am thinking of those in Sydney and Melbourne particularly, it works much like lap dances or private room shows in a strip club, in the present context. In other words, the guy goes in, perhaps pays a door fee, gets a drink and/or snack, sits down and waits for the ladies to approach him. At the Daily Planet, Melbourne's famous publically traded brothel, they assign you a "hostess" when you arrive (unless you decline) who takes you around and introduces you to any of the ladies who are free at the time and shows you the facilities if you are a newbie there. If you don't accept her invitation to a session at the end of this process, she cuts you loose in the lounge, and the other women start asking you in various ways and styles. It feels very much like a strip club atmosphere.
Once, at the Penthouse in Sydney, I spotted a woman that seemed particularly interesting who was with a group of two other women and one guy at another table/couch in their lounge. I sort of stared at her until I caught her eye and then smiled; she soon excused herself from the group and joined me. Later, in the private room, she commented on how much more "aggressive" I was than most Australian guys who she said were all very shy around women. (She was Brazilian, I think...was years ago.) It did not seem to me that I had done anything unusual at all.
-Ww
In at least some foreign brothels, I am thinking of those in Sydney and Melbourne particularly, it works much like lap dances or private room shows in a strip club, in the present context. In other words, the guy goes in, perhaps pays a door fee, gets a drink and/or snack, sits down and waits for the ladies to approach him. At the Daily Planet, Melbourne's famous publically traded brothel, they assign you a "hostess" when you arrive (unless you decline) who takes you around and introduces you to any of the ladies who are free at the time and shows you the facilities if you are a newbie there. If you don't accept her invitation to a session at the end of this process, she cuts you loose in the lounge, and the other women start asking you in various ways and styles. It feels very much like a strip club atmosphere.
Once, at the Penthouse in Sydney, I spotted a woman that seemed particularly interesting who was with a group of two other women and one guy at another table/couch in their lounge. I sort of stared at her until I caught her eye and then smiled; she soon excused herself from the group and joined me. Later, in the private room, she commented on how much more "aggressive" I was than most Australian guys who she said were all very shy around women. (She was Brazilian, I think...was years ago.) It did not seem to me that I had done anything unusual at all.
-Ww
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