Oh, my dreams....
Ok so I won't go into detail about my dream last night save for one crucial detail...
I went to an important meeting with some potential Jewish investors of our company, with my boss, the CFO. We went to their place of work, the temple, and sat down to start negotiations, which would be a great coup for our company. The Jewish guys had their yarmulkes on. I get the contract and see at the top the incentives of signing a deal with them:
CHOOSE ONE:
1-LAPDANCE AT A STRIP CLUB
-OR-
2-SOMETHING ELSE THAT I CAN'T REMEMBER BUT COMPARED TO #1 IT'S LAME.
I. Was. Livid. So basically I get up and scream about them being Jewish and this is a temple and how dare they offer misogyny and prostitution to potential prospects as an incentive! Don't they realize that 'makin' deals' in strip clubs especially for quasi-religious Jews is basically blasphemy!
So because of my outburst, we lost the deal and I'm kind of on my boss's shit list. The end.
Back to reality.
As a feminist, I hold very unpopular beliefs. I feel strongly about a lot of things that people may not ever question or think about. I have opinions that clash with the majority of people. I can't live any other way, I can't go back to the "blue pill" way of life, because I've taken the red pill and I keep finding out how deep the rabbit hole goes.
Some people are surprised to find out that some feminists support sex workers and strip clubs and burlesque and 'feminist porn' and all that shit. I'm on the radical side, the opposite side of that. So that makes me EVEN MORE marginalized from everyone else. That's fine, I still voice my opinion and stand strong for what I believe in. Strip clubs are one of the things that I disagree strongly with. All the johns sitting there paying to objectify, paying for abuse. It doesn't matter that the strippers 'choose' that life. It's pretty sad when a woman has to degrade herself, take off her clothes and rub her tits and pussy in some john's face, allowing these dirtbags to touch her and oggle her for money. Is that the only way women can make more money than men? There certainly isn't any parity in any other sector that allows a woman to make as much as her male counterparts for the same job. So they have to resort to this? It angers me that women still perpetuate this and enter this system, but I do sympathize that they have to live and survive and that is one of the ways to make money. Because any dirtbag will go to a strip club. If there wasn't a need from men, it wouldn't exist. You would have an easier time finding a man who has been to a rape club at least once in his life than you would not finding one. My esteemed boss, in fact, has been and I respect him a lot, and let me tell you, I look at him in a completely different light now.
Everyone says, "It's not a big deal, everyone goes to one, they're harmless." Oh, so it's not a big deal since everyone does it? Do I have to invoke the jumping off the cliff/bridge analogy? This topic gets me real fired up so let me hand it over to The Armed Housewife for a perfect explanation:
"Our society, which is patriarchal whether we want to admit it or not, commodifies sex. In essence, we think of "sex" as something a woman has and a man wants (think sex="pussy," as in, "I need to get some pussy," or "Bitch needs to give up the pussy."), and like all commodities, it is limited in supply. Because a woman's body is equated with sex, we think of her as somehow diminished personally when she "gives it up." This is where many of the negative connotations to slurs like "slut" and "whore" come from-- a woman who is promiscuous is essentially giving away pieces of herself to every person with whom she has sex, and if sex is finite she will eventually run out and be "used up." From this arises the classic virgin/whore dichotomy, and within this framework all women are the "sex class" no matter which category they fall into.
Sex workers-- from exotic dancers to prostitutes-- operate within this framework, and this is what makes the "but she wants to do this job" argument invalid. A woman's personal choice, even if it is miraculously made entirely free of social or economic coercion, is irrelevant to the argument: even if she chooses to participate in her own oppression and objectification, a woman is still being oppressed and objectified in such a sexist system, and it is the system to which I object, not the women's personal choices. In other words, a strip club does not hurt only the women who are inside dancing, it hurts all women because it perpetuates our standing as the sex class and reinforces behavior that demeans and objectifies women and robs us of our personhood.
In a strip club the women are ornamental. It doesn't matter that you can't have sex with them or even touch them; their purpose in that context is to exhibit their naked bodies for the titillation of men, most of whom have no hope of ever attaining the affections of a woman as stereotypically attractive as the dancers.
In an ideal world, a woman could choose to be a sex worker as if it were any other job, but our society's value judgments preclude such a neutral choice. (I don't believe strip clubs would exist in an ideal world, but that's another post entirely.) Because we view sex work as inherently diminishing to the individual who engages in it, the choice to become a sex worker is fraught with negative social value that may often outweigh the economic value of such a choice. I don't have any statistics, but I would bet that the majority of sex workers do it for the money rather than because it's an occupation they enjoy, and I submit that a person of any gender in any occupation should not have to suffer socially for economically-necessary choices. In other words, if a woman is in a position where she has to choose between a minimum-wage job and a higher-paying position as a sex worker, she should not be penalized with the social label of "whore" simply for making an economic decision. She is being punished for choosing the best option available to her within a sexist system.
So, my friends, please remember: when you support a strip club, you are supporting the subjugation of women as a class. And that's not cool."
I went to an important meeting with some potential Jewish investors of our company, with my boss, the CFO. We went to their place of work, the temple, and sat down to start negotiations, which would be a great coup for our company. The Jewish guys had their yarmulkes on. I get the contract and see at the top the incentives of signing a deal with them:
CHOOSE ONE:
1-LAPDANCE AT A STRIP CLUB
-OR-
2-SOMETHING ELSE THAT I CAN'T REMEMBER BUT COMPARED TO #1 IT'S LAME.
I. Was. Livid. So basically I get up and scream about them being Jewish and this is a temple and how dare they offer misogyny and prostitution to potential prospects as an incentive! Don't they realize that 'makin' deals' in strip clubs especially for quasi-religious Jews is basically blasphemy!
So because of my outburst, we lost the deal and I'm kind of on my boss's shit list. The end.
Back to reality.
As a feminist, I hold very unpopular beliefs. I feel strongly about a lot of things that people may not ever question or think about. I have opinions that clash with the majority of people. I can't live any other way, I can't go back to the "blue pill" way of life, because I've taken the red pill and I keep finding out how deep the rabbit hole goes.
Some people are surprised to find out that some feminists support sex workers and strip clubs and burlesque and 'feminist porn' and all that shit. I'm on the radical side, the opposite side of that. So that makes me EVEN MORE marginalized from everyone else. That's fine, I still voice my opinion and stand strong for what I believe in. Strip clubs are one of the things that I disagree strongly with. All the johns sitting there paying to objectify, paying for abuse. It doesn't matter that the strippers 'choose' that life. It's pretty sad when a woman has to degrade herself, take off her clothes and rub her tits and pussy in some john's face, allowing these dirtbags to touch her and oggle her for money. Is that the only way women can make more money than men? There certainly isn't any parity in any other sector that allows a woman to make as much as her male counterparts for the same job. So they have to resort to this? It angers me that women still perpetuate this and enter this system, but I do sympathize that they have to live and survive and that is one of the ways to make money. Because any dirtbag will go to a strip club. If there wasn't a need from men, it wouldn't exist. You would have an easier time finding a man who has been to a rape club at least once in his life than you would not finding one. My esteemed boss, in fact, has been and I respect him a lot, and let me tell you, I look at him in a completely different light now.
Everyone says, "It's not a big deal, everyone goes to one, they're harmless." Oh, so it's not a big deal since everyone does it? Do I have to invoke the jumping off the cliff/bridge analogy? This topic gets me real fired up so let me hand it over to The Armed Housewife for a perfect explanation:
"Our society, which is patriarchal whether we want to admit it or not, commodifies sex. In essence, we think of "sex" as something a woman has and a man wants (think sex="pussy," as in, "I need to get some pussy," or "Bitch needs to give up the pussy."), and like all commodities, it is limited in supply. Because a woman's body is equated with sex, we think of her as somehow diminished personally when she "gives it up." This is where many of the negative connotations to slurs like "slut" and "whore" come from-- a woman who is promiscuous is essentially giving away pieces of herself to every person with whom she has sex, and if sex is finite she will eventually run out and be "used up." From this arises the classic virgin/whore dichotomy, and within this framework all women are the "sex class" no matter which category they fall into.
Sex workers-- from exotic dancers to prostitutes-- operate within this framework, and this is what makes the "but she wants to do this job" argument invalid. A woman's personal choice, even if it is miraculously made entirely free of social or economic coercion, is irrelevant to the argument: even if she chooses to participate in her own oppression and objectification, a woman is still being oppressed and objectified in such a sexist system, and it is the system to which I object, not the women's personal choices. In other words, a strip club does not hurt only the women who are inside dancing, it hurts all women because it perpetuates our standing as the sex class and reinforces behavior that demeans and objectifies women and robs us of our personhood.
In a strip club the women are ornamental. It doesn't matter that you can't have sex with them or even touch them; their purpose in that context is to exhibit their naked bodies for the titillation of men, most of whom have no hope of ever attaining the affections of a woman as stereotypically attractive as the dancers.
In an ideal world, a woman could choose to be a sex worker as if it were any other job, but our society's value judgments preclude such a neutral choice. (I don't believe strip clubs would exist in an ideal world, but that's another post entirely.) Because we view sex work as inherently diminishing to the individual who engages in it, the choice to become a sex worker is fraught with negative social value that may often outweigh the economic value of such a choice. I don't have any statistics, but I would bet that the majority of sex workers do it for the money rather than because it's an occupation they enjoy, and I submit that a person of any gender in any occupation should not have to suffer socially for economically-necessary choices. In other words, if a woman is in a position where she has to choose between a minimum-wage job and a higher-paying position as a sex worker, she should not be penalized with the social label of "whore" simply for making an economic decision. She is being punished for choosing the best option available to her within a sexist system.
So, my friends, please remember: when you support a strip club, you are supporting the subjugation of women as a class. And that's not cool."