No, it's not.

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There is no dignity in having a man pay you to get him off. Whether you are dancing, sticking your hoo-haa in his face, or rubing his dick with your boobs and/or ass through his clothes or not. Or perhaps going back to the champagne room and prostituting yourself.

There is not one drop of dignity in there anywhere.

A stripper is just leading into the sterotype that women like being objectified and that it is their proper place to exist solely to please a man. If you want respect, start acting like you deserve respect. Find a different way to pay your bills.

And if you were a fat child, you probably are acting out some emotional damage. Just the way it is: if you were a thin, happy child, you would be something besides a stripper. Maybe a decent, thoughtful writer.

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Is it a Feminist act, does it make you empowerful, to doing something that relies on you being viewed as a sexual object, to be sexually objectified? No.

An excellent discussion of why this is so can be found HERE

(I meant to press new post earlier, though I accidently pressed reply)

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Ms. Lewis says she can fake "it"...
the only one deceived is herself.
Still on the sluts r us maypole of self-justification
and so-called liberation--
proclaiming self-realization thru self-prostitution..
American capitalism personified!

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While I am sympathetic to the idea of not being limited by stereotypes, even the stereotype of what a feminist "should" be, I do not like the tone of this article.

Just as I am sad when I talk to people who want a hybrid car because they think it is supposed to save them money, I am sad to hear feminism reduced to the idea that all women need is more money (which they can turn into free time, should they feel like it).

This sound too much like "the end justifies the means". Submitting to the industry standards of what a sex worker is supposed to do and to look like is just like doing every stupid thing your boss asks you to do without question, because "Who cares? I'm just doing it to pay the bills." I am not saying that stripping is a bad profession, far from it. What I don't like is the idea that you can do any job, as long as it pays a lot and allows you to indulge your real cause or your real dreams.

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"If a woman chooses to objectify herself -- shedding her clothes to obtain power through money -- is she helping to eliminate gender inequality or simply degrading herself"

The very first part of this sentence belies any suggestions to otherwise: you cannot objectify yourself, except only for yourself (and do strippers strip to get themselves hot, not because they're being looked at or paid either?); you are objectified (by other subjects, viewing themselves as such). This is true of not just sex-work, but wage-labour period.

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No

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I thought being a feminist meant a women's right to CHOOSE across the board!! Whether it's sex-work, being a cocktail waitress, a tattooer or the myriad of other jobs that women do for money that are construed as a "novelty" for men to comment on. Women will be always be objectified until every family with a son teaches them NOT to treat women poorly.
Would you say then, that gansta rap is objectifying young black males because that's what white society expects them to act like?
It's about the MONEY. Always has been. I've worked in the sex industry, the film industry and now I am in the tattoo industry and STILL some men, not all, want to know who I shtupped to get my foot in the door and can I tattoo their penis.
Wake up, ladies. Whether we are in power-suits or g-strings, we are all considered subversive.

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When I was in college in the late 70s and early 80s, several friends became strippers and/or escorts.

While I was making a whopping $4.25 working in an office during the day and finishing college at night, they were making more $ in one day than I made in a whole week. It would take me a month to earn anything close to their weekly salary.

If money is freedom, then I understand why young women make these choices (stripping/escorting).

Imagine being a young single mom now. You can work at Walmart and earn 800.00 a month, full time, barely spending time with your kid....or you can be a stripper and earn 800.00 in a week and have much more free time with your children, actually SAVE money, maybe even work towards home ownership.

Although I wish all women had better options (aptitude for higher education, desire for higher education,money for higher education, professional jobs, etc...) sometimes it's just about survival.

I would never look down on a woman who was doing erotic work to pay for college or feed her children. When the choice is between 7.00 per hour and 40.00 per hour....

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Why is it that a woman who dances in a strip club is a "slut/prostitute" but the men who pay to see her dance are "gentlemen"? (aka "gentlemen's clubs"??)

I take my hat off to all the ladies who do this for a living! They do this to make a decent wage in a world controlled by men who think women are only here to give them sex and clean the house.

Men should try to raise children on a $7/hr Walmart job and see how hard it is. If a woman can make $2,000/wk doing a pole dance (and secretly laughing at the google eyes that men make at her while she takes their money) I say "you go, girl!"!

Real Women do whatever needs to be done to survive, raise their kids, or further their education.

A salute from this grandma in Ohio!

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I think that this author simply needs to rationalize why she did what she did. I think most of the article was redundant. She said it all, "it is the money honey." There is nothing wrong with survival! She is right, if one is self supporting, one really can't on minimum wage jobs. When one is facing eviction, one does what one has to do! No dishonor in that. But lets not put some lofty spin on it!

Although I do think she was on to something when she said she wanted to make up for being a fat, homely child. Some Alternet viewer complain when we have articles talking about social weight obsession. They are too simplistic to see that it is one of patriarchy's most powerful suppression mechanisms. It makes women so desperate for approval they are easily manipulated into doing almost anything.

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"I am thankful for the freedom I had to choose sex work, in all its polarizing complication."

The thing is, you were not free to choose. You yourself described how you were practically forced, lest you live your life hovering on toothpick-stilts over destitute poverty, to do sex-work, much in the same way that most of us are practically forced to get whatever work we can (the better paying, in theory, the better) lest we starve. If you were really free to choose sex-work, there would have been a variety of options besides sex-work that would have amounted to the same (just as questionable) financial freedom you argue sex-work brought you.

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This is all true. However there is another side to it that you hinted at but didn't say outright. There are lots of people in the sex trade, especially among the dancers and strippers who are there because they finally feel empowered. Who are angry. Unfortunately this is also true of the clientele. It is not a safe space, or an innocent one. And it's not just about the money. The money, like the stage and the costumes, is a prop. Damaged people who have lost their ability to be safely intimate come here to restore their boundaries. And it can work. But it's risky and dangerous. Not everyone succeeds and many are hurt.

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What feminist sex workers, as they might see themselves, have to acknowledge, is that the blonde, big boobed, white stereotype--depending on where you strip--makes more money than women of color, women with cellulite, women with smaller breasts. Sexually expressing yourself can be empowering, making money can also be so, but when some people's sex work brings less choices and financial gains than others, the industry--and those who claim to be feminst--need to take that into account.

The interesting thing about sex work is that you can have agency, be powerful and make choices, but you can also be victimized by a culture that commodifies women's bodies--certain women's bodies as well. So yeah, you can make the choice to exploit yourself, but is that necessarily a feminist choice?

And what if you do Cardio-striptease at your gym, put a pole up in your basement, or buy your eleven-year old thongs because she wants them? Are these still empowered feminist choices, or are you buying into a pornified culture without the financial return.

It IS the MONEY, HONEY....and there are all sorts of complexities that go into those choices, well beyond the black and white attitudes that surround such choices. For further reading I would suggest Ariel Levy, Katharine Frank, and (shameless plug) Sexy Thrills: Undressing the Erotic Thriller, and the new issue of Atlantis: A Women's Studies Journal on Feminist Sexualities.

This article raises very important and serious questions for our time. Bravo!

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I am SO glad the American Left is on top of these vital issues, like feminist strippers instead of wasting time on things like progressive taxation and single payer healthcare and worker vacation time and college tuition.

No wonder the Left is resurgent in America, thanks to the practical attitudes of Leftist activists and Leftist media. They will not stop until they address every vital issue that is important to the everyday lives of Americans.

Hip Hip Hurray for the American Left!!

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There is nothing more objectifying than poverty.

I agree.

If this article was about increasing financial options for women so they had reasonable alternatives to working in a corrupt sex industry in which all sex workers are truly and completely owned by the industry itself (whether they 'feel' empowered or not), I'd have little argument. But it's not: it's about setting up a false frame, and using a dichotomy about some monolithic ‘feminism’ that oversimplifies and divides, to justify the 'choice' to work in the sex industry, even as it is self-evident in the article that the 'choice' isn't there.

Here, make 600$ cash on a slow shift stripping.

Here, make 300$ for 45 hours of teaching. If you’re lucky.

This is a crime, and a tragedy for real women with real bills to pay. And we need to address it.

I’m not interested in seeing yet another flame war about how ‘pro-sex-work’ feminists are good/third wave and feminists who refuse to support the corruption of the sex industry are prudes/oppressing women who are just trying to pay the bills.

But I think that’s all this article can do, because the frame is one of free and balanced ‘choice’ which doesn’t exist, and of ‘am I feminist or not?’ which is not the issue (and is Alternet the place to ask that question, given the track record of woman-hating comments here? All for seeing Alternet continue to rise above its trolls, but I shudder to think where they’ll go with this one).

As Twisty says, the feminist who supports the sex industry

…confuses “empowerment” with the decision to acquiesce. This is understandable; it’s the one actual choice she has in this game: surrender, or stand and fight. She doesn’t have to be Candida Royalle to recognize that if she chooses the latter all she’ll get for her trouble is ridicule, hostility, suspicion, and the threat of bodily harm.

Feminists who seriously challenge the sex industry are, in my experience, uniformly in support of sex-worker’s safety while they are in the industry, and also for – rapidly - creating financial alternatives to the industry.

Many of them have also worked in the sex industry, and are struggling to create financial options for women which pay a living wage without requiring capitulation to, and active increase of, sexism and misogyny. And they are pro-sex, pro-women, pro-economic parity.

It’s not about judging the stripper or the prostitute, it’s about changing the culture which consumes them and creating alternatives for all of us.

The 'personal story' can enlighten people, but it can also create an impermeable argument in which one person's 'feelings' about their experience trump the larger conversation about systems.

There are plenty of personal stories in which the stripper or prostitute was raped, tortured, sold, killed, etc., too, but on the whole, we're not reading or discussing those personal stories - it's just not titillating enough. We'd rather hear about fishnets and false choice so we don't have to actually confront the systems and create real economic alternatives.

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I agree feminism about choices. I also strongly believe in sexual freedom on equal terms for men and women. The problem with stripping and subjecting one's self to the sex industry is touched upon by the author -- a woman is not doing it on her terms but on their terms.

Yes, women's choices are limited by economics and circusmtance (divorce, children, school, crappy and/or expensive daycare, college tuition, low wage jobs) -- the fact that people need to turn to the sex industry and risk their health and lives to make a decent wage highlights the economic problems we have in our society right now. We should look at why women (or men) are driven to do this work and try to fix those problems: outrageous higher education tuition, low minimum wage, crappy working conditions, no governmental support for low income workers -- if we eliminated these problems then perhaps working in the sex industry would be a real choice rather than a choice of necessity.

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Women have entertained men since the beginning of time. That's just the way it is. Why they do it is their business. I don't believe that they should be required to answer to the rest of us. Some women are born with the equivalent of a 'talent'. No matter what the approach is to questioning what they do, it always comes across as jealousy. Not everyone wants a corner office. A lady has to pay the rent. Thanks, ANNA

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The author is delusional, sorry to say.

On some level I suppose it may be true that $$ = Empowerment. However...

I'll ignore the objectification issue and read what the women have to say about that - of course, they're more qualified than I to make that judgment.

The money and the empowerment are temporary and highly conditional - and you do not control those conditions, hence there is no real power. The money you earn and the power you imagine you have are based on your ability and willingness to make yourself appear a certain way. In the first place, please forgive my crudeness, but not every waitress or WalMart clerk can don that appearance. So the money that gives you that "power" is only available to a few. Second, even those few able to create the look will only retain that look for a few years - do you see a lot 40-year old strippers and porn stars?

Then you're back to busing tables and stocking shelves - once the book royalties run out, that is.

So the power you imagine you have is based entirely on your fitting a stereotype of someone else's design and the money you earn is a condition of your willingness to be exploited and humiliated on a regular basis.

Men are hard-wired to enjoy the sight of naked nubile women. Well, straight men are; gay men I'm sure must be hard wired to enjoy naked nubile men. We are sexual animals. But no man with half a brain or a shred of decency believes for an instant that dancing nude around a pole for dollar bills gives a woman power. We are under no illusion regarding who has the power in that transaction.

Say it was fun for you. Say it was a kick. Say you were stoned or desperate for the dough. Say it satisfied some psychological need even. I might give you a pass on those rationales - we were all young once and did stupid stuff we hope no one remembers or took pictures of. But build a justification around an imagined empowerment? That's pure fantasy and insults your audience's intelligence.

Stripping is not empowerment. A living wage and the right to live free from exploitation is empowerment.

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As a bouncer who worked unpaid at a local strip club for a couple of years, and who eventually married, then divorced a stripper- I saw it all. As an young man I entered into the world of strip clubs with wide eyes and an ear to ear smile. I loved my "girls" at the club. But man, it gets old quick, for the strippers and the men who frequent these places. You hang around long enough, and you see the worst in both sexes. The men for the most part actually end up hating the women, and the women end up hating the men. Not all strippers are prostitutes, but in "the life" things get fuzzy now and then, especially when a girl needs that extra dollar, or more dope to kill her awareness of how disgusting it actually is, beyond the wide-eyed initial impression. Some people boil it down to the essentials - money for sex/simulated sex/attention. But most are mired in all the abstracts-

In the end, you end up hating yourself for being a part of it all. I know that I can't go into a strip club now, without feeling a little used and tainted just by being there. "The life" strips away your sense of humanity and respect. So, can I say that for a woman to be able to choose to live this life is a form of empowerment? Yes. But Empowerment is about being able make choices you want, whether good or bad. And choosing the life, empowered or not- is just a bad choice in the end.

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From all this discussion, one thought jumped out at me: women have been "entertaining men since the beginning of time." I believe this is a false myth, introduced by patriarchy, which men and women have bought into hook, line and sucker. "In the beginning" women entertained themselves, and men served the needs of women and their children. That is the natural order, not the perverted partriarchic system we suffer under now. Women living in this corrupted world make the best choices they can; but don't mistake the damaged world of the last 6000 years with reality. A real woman/feminist follows her heart and that involves character, morality and spirituality; subjects which are for the most part off the table in our pale-male sicksociety (sic). The Lover Government honors Love, a womam's (spelling intentional) virtue given to her by nature.

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Okay, there are probably not as many of them as there are male strippers. But they exist. And I bet that there are young men who have stripped their way through college. And what about the women who go to see them? Are they being feminist? Or exploitative?

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freedom from imposed meaning
or, the opposite of imperialism
you don't get to say something is "right" or "wrong"
you have to find other words

if you agree to that, then if a woman wants to strip to make money, it's nobody else's business. especially not feminists. they're welcome to educate, but to judge would be hypocritical.

seems like the author walks taller because of the changes she created in her life, not because of the male gaze she can muster.

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When Ms. Lewis appeared at Cornell to deliver her spiel in person, followers of her career pointed out that she neglected to mention that part of her troubles feeding and sheltering herself stem from the fact that she is a heroin addict. http://cornelldailysun.com/node/22711

Be that as it may, a purient and exploitive male-dominated capitalism is responsible for the system in which women like her have no other economic choice but to engage in such alienating 'sex work'.

'3rd Wave' feminists are sell-outs to the Left Wing version of patriarchy which fetishizes "choice" as an absolute value urging women to accept a primitive (male) domination/subjugation model for sexual congress which then welcomes pole dancing, gonzo porn-for-wymyn, prostitution and libertinage as freely chosen expressions of feminine sexual *power* over men.

In an Orwellian twist, the rawest exploitation of women is merchandized as an exercise of female domination over stupid men whose brains are in their dicks.

Corporate capital has totally coopted this type of faux feminism with vehicles from Cosmopolitan magazine to the porn production & distribution wings of every major media corporation. Men (the usual suspects) are making $billions off it.

Anti-porn feminists like Gail Dines are mocked as reactionary 'family values' kooks by 'Nouveaux' Feminists for their association with the Dworkin viewpoint which was the consenus view of 2nd Wave Feminism on porn, pole dancing and prostitution etc. until it collapsed under the flood of multimedia corporate smut confected for male viewing in strip clubs and the privacy of one's home with new technologies.

Betamax went under when it refused to license porn on its systems and every media corporation took that lesson to heart. Now, it is a race to the bottom.

The status quo is that soft core porn currently reigns in the public culture and 'gonzo' (violent) porn is the hot new corporate property now pushing the envelope. Looking at Dines' slide show one can't help recalling Dworkins' comment: "Porn is the theory. Rape is the practice."

Old fashioned feminists have not fully confronted the need to upend feminine 'choice' as an absolute value by placing it in the wider context of the social system as a whole and not just within the bounds of a single woman's socio-economic convenience narrowly construed.

As long as one woman's 'choice' remains the touchstone criterion that it has become in the abortion debate, feminism has nothing to say to help poor waifs like Ms. Lewis before they become the manipulative hustlers that she now appears to be.

One doesn't have to be a partisan of coercion by 'illegitimate hierarchies' to realize that, with Ms. Lewis, we have reached the limits of the relativist analysis and find it wanting in a visceral way.

We must find our way back to some form of reasoning about transcendent moral principles and discover that these need not necessarily be grounded in the received ideology of some dread theocon patriarchial reaction.

The full force of multinational capital is arrayed against clear thought on what is happening in this aspect of our deeply wounded culture. We had better get to work soon.

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How priviledged we must be to keep focusing on boobies.

I suppose that the women in Saudi Arabia, women in Afghanistan,
women in Burma (Myanmar), Women in the Sudan, or women around the world wish they could have serious, thoughtful debates about the meaning of the word "guys" and that sort of thing.

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If you think sexual objectification is ok now, because there's good money involved, well just wait until the money aint so good. It will happen. What will you say then?

The entire reasoning behind assigning such a high value for a controversial service is to make it socially acceptable. Once it becomes socially acceptable, market forces drive down the value of the service.

There is, in my opinion, only one problem with professional stripping: it is useless to an economy. Like gambling. Stripping and gambling are parasitical elements of an economy. Imagine if the entire country was nothing but restaurants, gas stations, casinos, and strip clubs! It might be entertaining but such an economy cannot survive. (like Rome) And that is why stripping for money should be socially unacceptable. Because it's bad for society. Whether it is bad for an individual woman really is beside the point. And that's my problem with feminism in general. It seeks to "empower" women while grossly and deliberately ignoring the hidden social costs. Which really arent so hidden imo. Skyrocketing debt, divorce rates, cancer, corruption, outsourcing, all of that can be linked to the rise of feminism. Some of those take a bit of thought in order to see the connections, but some are totally obvious. Especially the link between feminism and debt. That one is like, totally obvious, isnt it?

I know that feminists are the last ones who are going to listen to me(!) but you really should listen to this: If this country fails, if this country totally collapses, what do you think that's going to do for feminism? Will the rest of the world look at the US and say, it was greed, it was corruption, it was thirst for oil, lack of education, American Idol, bla bla bla, or will they say it was because their women were too "empowered"? (Or "brainwashed" if you prefer.) If you are truly a feminist you should be very concerned about this because there is every reason to believe that your ideology is in fact destroying this country, and if it succeeds that will be the end of your ideology. And women all around the world will pay the price. Just like how after 9/11, Bush set the precedent for a total crackdown on freedom around the world. Americans dont like to think in those terms, but in truth, 9/11 hurt Russia more than it hurt us. If we kill feminism, or it it kills us, does it matter what killed what?? The rest of the world will react the same either way.

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The issue is about respect. Whatever we coose to do in this life, it must create a positive vibration. Stripping creates animosity in both men and womyn. In fact, it only perpetuates hatred. Men disrespect the womyn dancing naked (in this situation) and the womyn dancing sure as hell have no respect for these mostly married ignorant men. So enlighten me, where is the positive that comes out of this cycle. Again, respect yourself and others.

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Money that lifts you from poverty to self-sustenence is empowering. Money that becomes an end in itself is a burden (to put it much too simply). Anna Nicole Smith couldn't stop making the money, via ever more strained representations of wanton sexuality.

But who doesn't enter an occupation determined to put their own stamp on it, to make it of a piece with their character as they know it (the adult industry also trades in youth and naivete)? Who isn't disillusioned after a time, seeing oneself less as actor than as a cog or functionary--or prostitute?

It's almost like coming of age, to make that first compromise, to lose one's virginity, whether sexual or in worldview.

The writer took the money, the lesson, and moved on; while she was somewhat hoist on her own petard, it did hoist her over the prison fence. She may always bear a scar, and sometimes a wound will hurt in certain weather.

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It's a goddamned shame that apparently nobody reads Karl Marx anymore. . .

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" I was raised to believe that feminism means respecting the choices women make for themselves -- particularly the ones concerning their own bodies and their own lives, as full members of a fair society, whether or not I agree with their choices."

Right on, Sara Katherine Lewis. I totally agree. I am completely Pro-choice, where women say, "my body, my choice," and, I believe that this holds true for sex work. Sex is naturaly, normal and we all have to realize that-- why is revealing your body bad? Why is being able to make your OWN choices on what you want to do with your body non-feminist? This society is paternalistic enough as it is- so why limit women's choices even further?

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Finally a non-reactive, honest former sex worker that found the one true reward of that salacious work: capitalizing off insatiable and hyperhedonistic humans.

Seriously though, consider: a sexual relationship really is just a long term prostitution sting. Boyfriends and girlfriends certainly aren't a free investment, indeed, their form of exploitation is much more insidious using such seductive sentiment as "love" to reel the customer in to purchase more trivial crap (dinners, dates, movies, trips etc) in order to keep the hope alive (and the sex available!!)

I am going to make an assumption here that all the people that responded with harsh criticism laced with some feminist hysteria are probably all unbearably unattractive... women.

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Your article was a very helpful analysis for me, as a male, trying to figure out the answers to those questions, with the ever so slight disadvantage of not being a female. It seems to me to come down to a matter of choice again. It took women to point out to me male patriarchal morality is the driving force that puts the negative (woman as temptress and evil v.s. man as the tempted and innocent; uh huh). And once again I think that morality is handed down to many women, not all, not those who think independently and have studied and lived this issue far more than myself, but many who have been trapped in the male dominated culture here in the old US or A.

It is a poverty issue--the issue behind racism, sexism, ill health, lack of housing, lack of access to education, and ultimately war.

Keep on putting out the info, you write well. I will look forward to more criticism from you.

By the way are there any opportunities for a 64 year old not so good looking male in the biz? This computer is paid for--the rent is not.

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Because if they are, then men who support them can be considered feminists as well.

And that way, nobody has to take personal responsibility in this issue.

I love it when feminism so neatly aligns with traditional male expectations. Girls Gone Wild = Empowered feminists = happy male viewers...that's what I call synchronicity.

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...piece, and I am going to have to sit back and really think about it before I can come up with any real solid opinion on the topics it brings up (so, that's a good thing!).

However, I would very much appreicate it if those who are harshly critical, would stop being accused of being severly unattractive. That's just mean...and not very mature.

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If it's true, according to a previous poster, that Ms. Lewis is a heroin addict, why did she not disclose that? If true, it tends to make her whole presentation disingenuous, and lend credence to her being a "manipulative hustler" (another poster), now a writing hustler, and thereby taints the argument that stripping is somehow virtuous also disingenuous. Making women's "choice" a central touchstone is likewise tenuous and narrow minded. The proof is in the pudding, as the saying goes, and can only be judged by each individual who is ultimately judged by the greater context of Love.

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In a world where everything is for sale?

If you can put a price on feminism (and articles on AlterNet do it all the time, with commentaries on statistics carefully selected to perpetuate the view that women are victims), then more is better.

It's the same mistake the labor movement made with John L. Lewis' "More." No, that's no worse than any other economic position, but it's no better either.

The saying is "you can't be too rich or too skinny." Ask the eating disorder folks who die. And, yes, the US is too rich; ask the world that is occupied by our military.

"Enough, already." But who bothers to think about "enough"? I should be very surprised if the author of this piece has enough even yet. If she does, she's grown up to reach adulthood, and that's what feminism ought to be or truly is about.

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Whoops, just spotted another comment to this article (from a male) regarding heroin addiction. God forbid that another taboo be thrown up in our faces. In this case yours for having the courage to tell your story publicly. You'll notice my use of 'our'. Poverty is famous for not only creating drug addiction, but does the young man remember the contra affair or listen to the hip-hop activists and rappers talk about the history of our government introducing crack into our ghettos. But the voice of righteousness sayeth that the only thing worse than a heroin addict is a female addict, and woe be unto her if she is a mother, and on welfare. So of course, who is the stereotype of that? Young women of color who are poverty stricken mothers Not child molesting men or male drug addicts, strip club dollar bill folders and gropers, or coke snorting corporate executives who party with 'hot and cold running boys and girls'. Sorry, I think I should have posted this on the commenter's comment spot. I'm new to this, but I'm hooked. You know, that 'addictive personality'.

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I find your views very on point, we all have the rigth to choose our destiny. What i find amazing is the views of other women on here. You are correct it does'n matter if a woman has a Master Degree, if her male coworkers view her as a sex object this is how she will be treated at her work place: IBM,AT&T, Public Work, etc.... Our creator gave each one of us a free choice and with that, there are consequence for those actions. I believe a woman has the right to make her living as she chooses, because that is what all human beings do. We are all slaves to something and it is driven by the capitalist society we live in. My view is from a male perspective. God Bless America because we truly need it.
Peace!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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I thought Feminism was suppose to improve society?

I don't see how exploiting and encouraging perverts for personal financial gain is helping make the world a better place.

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I realize that there are not as many, but it has become quite common at bachelorette parties and the like to have a male stripper. Is that Feminist (for the male stripper or the female audience)?

How does it relate to empowerment or respect?

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You've managed to be a strong feminist, a victim, transfer wealth from men while feeling superior to them, and avoid doing the sort of grinding day-to-day work that men have no choice but to do and which keeps society going.

Congratulations! I think you've achieved the feminist ideal.

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She chides people for objectifying poor people, then celebrates a system that only allows her to have any sort of monetary stability solely if she is willing to debase herself for tips.

Don't you just love "me" focused politics...

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I understand what you mean when you say that the hard, honest work of, say, waiting tables is more respectable than selling your body. I think you're blaming the wrong person or people when you lay it all on the sex-worker. Yeah, she misguidedly chooses the sex-industry, but that's like saying a person is misguided in their principles when, with a gun to their head, they hand over their wallet to a mugger. I think there is something at once tremendously easy and difficult about selling your body in the sex-industry. It's relatively physically easy, if you actually have it so easy, to dance for a few hours a few nights a week and make as much as you would waiting tables every weeknight for a month. I wouldn't call that lazy though, any more than I would call taking a higher bid for a construction gig. What's tremendously difficult about it is, if you have the courage to face it, how objectified you are, how little you are respected.

The sex worker is doing what she has to do, and she can only be blamed for that because of the system that makes this what she has to do.

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You are the flip side of that coin, pal. By casting judgement on them and thus creating the condition of humiliation that pornography sells, you are the sizzle to that steak.

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I wish you could have raised your daughters to also have respect for other women, and not make presumptuous, insulting comments about whether they also turn tricks.

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Stick to your 'White House corruption', speaking of lazy whores. You're not required to agree with the writer, but there is no need to be so mean spirited. ANNA

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Why don't you stay with your 'White House ' corruption, speaking of lazy whores. You're not required to agree with the writer, but there's no need to be so mean spirited and sanctimonious about it. ANNA

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Sorry, I couldn't resist.

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What about the men who pay "whores" for their favours? They're not forced to do so. It takes two to tango. And besides, why do you care. No one is forced to purchase sex. If it doesn't effect you, just leave it alone and get on with your life.

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I have nothing against strippers. In my youth, I dated many. They're people too. But as many in ANY kind of nightclub life do, a lot of them fall victim to the scene's excesses: in this case, drugs, STDs, turning tricks on the side. Those of you who have done this without getting into it's dark side: good for you! But you know what I'm saying is true, too. I worked in the music end of nightclubs for years and anyone who has can tell you what a trap it is. It's not reality, and we sometimes forget that while we make money and have a little fun.

But 'empowerment'? Come on!

A good friend of mine is a DJ/Manager in several strip clubs and has been for several years. But he doesn't delude himself. It's just a means to an end. He's very aware of the 'sleeze factor' involved and can't wait until the day he's socked enough away to afford the time to pursue his real dreams - just like some of the girls do. If he was reading this he'd not only agree, but probably be even stronger with his opinions.

But as veggiegrrl pointed out in her attempts to defend the lifestyle: it's just basic economics, a way to pay the bills. If it's not really about the money, let's see you donate your tips to charity and do something truly socially responsible.

If you are to equate stripping for money to something like 'making a courageous stand', then I guess drug dealers are up there too, since they too are just taking advantage of a situation because their own options are limited. 'Making the world a better place by standing up for what they believe in': MONEY!
By any means necessary...

But let's face it, both arguments are really total cop-outs!

Bottom line is: You have a nice body and are willing to take your clothes off for money? There damn sure are many men out there who will pay to watch.

Supply and Demand.

Period.

Now let's talk about some of the real problems facing this country. If that means 'better career choices for women or minorities', then GREAT!

But this isn't it.........

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There it is, in total honesty. For whatever reason, my instinctive reaction to promiscuous women, and to women who behave in a promiscuous manner -- strippers, actresses known for sex scenes, the hordes of young women walking around on my university campus dressed in tight, revealing clothing -- is to think less of their intelligence, their morals, and their personal integrity. Maybe that's not fair, but it's the truth, and it appears to be hard-wired into me. And I think the same is true for most men, even if they won't admit it. I might enjoy looking at strippers, but I surely wouldn't want to marry one.

And yes, I know that it's a double standard. Sexually promiscuous men are not stigmatized like sexually promiscuous women are. The reasons for that double standard are buried deep within our biology and our evolutionary history, so it's not going to change any time soon.

Many religions (such as Islam) and traditional cultures discourage women from dressing too revealingly and from sexual promiscuity. It is often thought that this is a means of oppressing women. Quite the opposite, in my view -- the purpose of these restrictions, by minimizing the sexual aspects of women, is to help men to see them as fellow human beings rather than as sex objects. It doesn't always work out that way, obviously, but I think that is certainly the intention. Muhammad may well have been one of the greatest feminists in history.

Promiscuous behavior not only doesn't help women in their quest for equality and respect, but it actually hurts them. Sure, you might get handsomely paid for being a slut, but at the end of the day, you're still a slut. The second-wave feminists were wrong about a lot of things, IMO, but in this matter they were spot-on.

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Has been a poisoned and ambiguous realm for centuries. Neither the author nor the posters have acknowledged the fact that the US has had an unhealthy attitude towards sex which is among the reasons why sex work is something we have to moralize pejoratively while far more damaging professions (say The Corporate World with its long list of ills) go unregarded. That said...

Women (and men of all stripes) should be free to do whatever the hell they want to so long as it's not hurting anyone else. And, how about this one: some women work in the industry not to "get through college" or "help raise kids", but simply because its a mode of work where the b.s. is much less and people know what they're there for and what they're supposed to be doing (as opposed to say a corporate job where you have one title but are expected to do five other jobs and everyone plays a game to get ahead, aka "networking"). There's something extremely retrogressive about the idea that a women would chose one line of work because in the long run it helps her to her "Proper Role", i.e., A Mother. WTF?!? Can we start to act like it's the 21st century please!

Lastly, way way too much attention has been focused on performers and not enough on the Johns/consumers which is really where this argument/topic needs to go. Just who are these "gentlemen" and why do they need special "clubs" for sexual/emotional gritification? Could it be by analyzing that question we might stumble into some territory we're not yet ready to deal with? Methinkso.

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and now our Environment is getting raped along with us.

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I understand that reducing feminism to an issue of money seems to diminish the cause but what the author is saying, that the acquisition of money allowed her to better herself, her mind and her quality of life, seems like a feminist endeavor to me. I think too many people here are prosteletizing with the old adage, "find something else to do!" Do these people undertand poverty? Do you know what it means to have to spend all your waking hours trying to find food, or work or a way to get them? Like it or not, money makes this world go round. Think back to days gone by...In Renaissance England a writer had to secure a patron to pay their living expenses while they spent their days writing (usually in the framework of what the patron wanted them to write about). It seems such a small thing, to have free time with which you can "do something else". All you people are saying there is another way to do it, but she did it in her own way. I hope none of you guys who are preaching to this woman ever look at nudie magazines or watch porn videos. Cause that would be mightlily hypocritical.

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Oh Yea! Thanks for addressing a complex issue with the thoughfullness that is deserves. ..and then there are the comments from out there that would like to reduce all the richness of the issues of money, sex, feminism, objectification, class and culture to a simple, brute, good or bad dicotomy.

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"I find it interesting that the very people who complain about the objectification of women's bodies are the ones who have little to say about the objectification of poor people's bodies, of all genders."


Right. The article was about taking one's clothes off for money. It's Stripperism.

This, and other bedroom politics such as gender politics, sexual preference politics, religious politics, all the politics that are not properly political, are weapons of mass distraction, diverting our attention from the big screwing we're all getting.

I guess that makes us all sex workers.

Where's my KY?

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I don't care who's screwing you.

I'm concerned about the screwing I'm getting.

And not even a peck on the cheek.

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I've never worked in the sex industry, but I felt like a whore during the time I spent married while getting it together to leave. I wonder just how many married whores there are out there, and how many more of them cannot leave their marriage prisons because of issues that are very real, such as being married to a prominent powerful man, having a special needs child(ren), no means of support for herself and her child(ren), fearing her death or that of her family, her own medical health, no support from her family or society. Why is all this so difficult to comprehend? So many don't.

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... because arguing this old canard is moralistic and relative.

Feminists should only be concerned with the reality. Who controls the money? In the strip club world, it's the men. Answer the question? Did ya need to write a whole frackin' book?

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I worked at a bank in the late 60's. I worked for just enough money to pay for my car and gas and a hot dog for lunch and the required nylon stockings. I had to live at home with my parents which meant sleeping on a mat on the floor of my sisters bedroom I was 20 and recently divorced with an army husband who didn't send me the divorce settlement of one thousand dollars total for long two years. I had the car but had a large car payment. I worked as a maid to put him through college and had only a high school diploma at that time. After eight months I asked for and received my raise at the bank. It was an extra nickel more an hour. I was stunned. I complained to the woman who worked under our boss. she had worked there for ten years and actually ran the branch. She, I found out was making about $25 more a month than I was. Of course she had a rich husband so she was working for "extras" really. I went to work in a club that week. I made good money and while it wasn't always nice and it was in fact hard physical work, I knew that I got an honest dollar for an honest hour of work. I didn't need to stay long and today I'm just another upper middle class mom soon to be grandma, but if any of you out there think I'm sorry you're crazy. I went on to have a great husband of thirty-five years a great career in the arts and I learned how to value what I had to give. It's not for everyone but then neither is the bank. ATM's do my job now.People need to follow their own unique way not some body else's idea of "feminism". BTW,I met Gloria Steinem last January. She's nice too.

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And Kat Bjelland, both amazing feminists/activists, were also strippers while they were starting their respective bands.

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It's just a shame that men keep coming back for more teasing and find a certain level of gratification from it. Men are willing to piss away hundreds and hundreds of dollars to be entertained by strippers, to be teased, and it culminates into nothing.

Women exert more power and influence over men. Too many men remain stuck as sex and greed-driven creatures.

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"I was raised to believe that feminism means respecting the choices women make for themselves -- particularly the ones concerning their own bodies and their own lives, as full members of a fair society, whether or not I agree with their choices."

I disagree. Feminism means fighting to liberate women from male oppression. It's certainly what the movement was founded to do and what most feminists are still working to achieve today. The right-wing rhetoric of choice does seem to have snuck in everywhere however, even feminism. It's weird to see it being given such an uncritical welcome at Alternet, but of course when we're talking about women's "choice" to take their clothes off for men, political analysis often flies out the window.

I think the problem is your rather narrow focus on yourself and what stripping does for you. After all using that logic you could pretty much argue that any job is feminist if it pays women money - secretary, feminist; prison guard, feminist; police officer, feminist; defence lawyer for rapists, feminist. You're ignoring the sexual, racial and class oppressions that drive women into the sex industry and then keep them there.

The real question is whether the behaviour of the men who use the women in the sex industry is sexist. Is what they are doing sexually abusive, sexually harassing or even sexually assaultive towards the women they pay to exploit? Do their actions further the cause of women or help to ensure that women remain in a second class position in a society? I would argue the latter.

The continual focus in feminism on a handful of women who supposedly choose to strip or work in other parts of the sex industry, helps to disguise the often vicious, always exploitative, frequently violent and never respectful behaviour of the men who choose to pay to use womens' bodies.

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so, waiting tables and stripping are the two choices this woman had. And life is about money and having time to write a book. got it. thanks.

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and I loved reading the more relevant and thought-provoking comments... like those that examined the frame or challenged the notion of "choice" involved.

As a feminist male (made very convenient by my own hypo-masculinity), I have to say that feminism, for me, is more about listening to whomever is Other to me (as a white/Jewish male) and making/holding/opening space for those voices and experiences than anything else. For my wife, my daughter, other women, even other men, feminism will be expressed differently and there's a whole realm of that that I, being who I am, cannot know first-hand; I have to rely on others being willing to tell their stories and me being able to hear them. I'm grateful to the author for having told her story in her book and here. The title of her piece is problematic because it demands a judgment, something I can't give... because of who I am. I'm grateful for her own conclusion and I take that for what she says it is.

The fight over whether sex-work is or isn't feminism, seems like an unwinnable or unresolvable situation as long as we're all stuck with a fucked up patriarchal system that holds us all back as human beings, let alone gendered human beings. It sounds like the kind of stoopid fights we hypo-males have with our hyper-male brothers; they call us girls (like it's an insult, bah!) and we call 'em pigs... mebbe women ought to just punch each other in the mouth and once there's blood on the ground, it's over and everyone's on equal ground again... there's something to be said for the way guys "work stuff out" on occasion. I dunno... Ms. Bear just came home and told me I'm writing too much. So there it is.

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did you know one in 5 strippers is a male. the male strip industry is booming bigger than ever before. but no one ever brings up males in the role of being exploited. why would it make a diffrence of the gender? or are all these articles sexist? i just dosent seem fair for all thouse suffering guys who have to dance naked in front of a 500 pound whale's with cankles and belbos and older than jusus. then their expected to have a hard on while dancing to these broads,dames, skirts, floozies, tramps, ho's and mothers.

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When women make their livings selling their bodies, they aren't making their livings selling their brains. Society at large showers respect, money and power on politicians, judges, CEOs -- in other words, people who do their work with their clothes on. Yes, people are always willing to pay big money to see women conform to sexual stereotypes. Then when they die, like Anna Nicole Smith, they mock them and call them stupid whores. So much for feminism.

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Damn, wish I'd know that while I was going to Sarah Lawrence. Oh, and while I was a virgin till I was 24.

This stupid stripper whore has also been a dominatrix. Double whore.

You know what feminism is? I've been dancing in some form or another since I was a toddler. I think that absolutely nothing's dirty or wrong with the naked (or nearly so) human body (unlike a lot of the closeted sexual conservatives here. Yeah, I said it.), and that nothing's wrong with sexual titillation outside of a relationship- esp. if it's six feet away, or through clothing!

I love to dance. I have a gorgeous figure. I have little to no body shame. Therefore, dancing was an option for me. Domming was an option. This is not to say that I have no respect for myself, because, trust me, there's a lot of shit that I could have surrendered to that could have screwed me up but good.

Frankly, I had a good time doing it. I met a lot of interesting people. I was careful choosing my club, and the employees and girls were very nice and conscientious.

I fail to see how I'm so much less of a person than, let's say, some slob who hates his life every morning as he sits on a crowded train on his way to a dead-end cubicle. How is he better than me, again? This guy could have a wild love of child porn and be the most dishonest jerk in the world, but I have less character than him because he's clothed? Are you SERIOUS?

Also, you may want to rethink this mentality of "poverty by any means is better than sex money! Ewwww! Cooties! What will people think of you! Money is nasty! If you're not suffering while earning, you're a hooooooor!"

Oh...yeah, to all the feminists on here who chose to tell me my own mind, thinking that they're saving me from myself and the ruinous, dominant patriarchal paradigm...

I FLIRTED, NEARLY NAKED, WITH GUYS FOR MONEY. I LOOKED HOT. AND I LIKED IT. I HAD FUN WITH MY SEXUALITY. DEAL WITH IT.

I think I'm going to turn in my feminist card now. Shame, really, because I'm a strong, fiercely progressive, upwardly-mobile Black woman- just the sort of person the Anglo-skewed feminist movement needs. I can't take the hypocrisy, condescension, or foolishness anymore. Take your supposed "empowerment" and shove it.

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The postings here and on many of the linked sites make it quite clear that this issue of sexuality is highly complex. No big surprise there. So complex that little of what is posted or referenced does little more than scratch the surface. Also no surprise. And I sure don't have the answers either, but I'd like to share my views on it anyway.

The heart of the debate certainly centers on power; and money is the power that drives our culture. But one has to question why money and power overwhelmingly is vested in the male population. Why is our culture so patriarchal, why do males dominate? Why is our culture not matriarchal? Hard to say. Perhaps it came from the need to protect and defend a tribe from a hostile take over by another tribe.

Perhaps, in the more primitive times from whence our tribe derives, the old upper body strength was the power base necessary to protect it. It's been well reported that many tribes were ruled by the man who could defeat all pretenders to tribal leadership. He was the man (Queen Boudica notwithstanding) who led his warriors into battle, the first one to engage the opposing fighters as he searched for their ruler to kill him and thus end the battle.

I'm guessing, but perhaps over time, when civilizations advanced far enough that a ruler merely ordered the troops into battle while he stayed behind and wallowed in his riches, the male power base of upper body strength morphed from wielding muscle to wielding ruthlessness. Thus the muscle could be exploited from a distance. Aggression and ruthlessness are manifestations of muscle strength and are modern indicators of the old upper body power base. Aggression and ruthlessness are, for the most part, male traits.

What did women do during these times of male upper body domination? It seems they exercised their lower body "strength." The power of the pussy. They knew (and still do) that sex plays to the weaknesses of males. All other things being equal, it's the only thing that woman have to exploit in order to equalize as much as possible what is inherently the nature-made inequality of power bases between men and women.

Let me pose this silly updated illustration: A CEO, male, is looking to promote from within and has two candidates, equally qualified middle managers. One, a woman, smart, capable and good looking, and the other, a man, smart, capable and good looking, both vying for the same promotion. What might be the tipping points to favor one over the other? The male candidate can't use his power base, i.e., his upper body strength and beat up the woman. The woman, on the other hand, can use her power base, i.e., her sexuality, her lower body "strength," and seduce the CEO.

Now, back to the past. As the years roll by, women really learn how to use their power base to balance out the inequalities. They had to. It's in their DNA. All those alleles craving equality, needing to release their intelligence, their sense of fair play, etc. But it didn't take men too long to realize what was going on. They had to take back the power. So, what to do? The best way is to figure out how to take the control of a woman's sexuality away from her and vest it in the males. (continued on next post)

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Along comes religion. Perfect. To nullify a woman's strength, simply anathematize that strength. Develop a cultural imperative that essentially says that if a woman tries to capitalize on her power base she's a sinner, a slut, and one to be cast out. And if a man succumbs to a woman's sexuality he's a sinner, a pussy-whipped weakling, also to be cast out, just maybe not quite so far out. Make woman into temptresses who want to wrest away males God-given right to rule over them. Women want to exploit men's weakness for their own sinful purposes, it's entirely their fault, so they have to be oppressed, repressed and suppressed.

Perfect? Well, almost. See, sinful or no, men still want to have sex with women. It's in their DNA. All those alleles craving softness, smoothness, curves, nurturing (pant), teasing (pant, pant) . . . sorry. In fact, men want sex so much they may not want to go along with the religious prohibitions and maybe they'll revolt and form another religion, possibly even let women start another (gasp) matriarchy. Nope, can't have that, so, okay, let's create the institution of . . . marriage. Men will rule the roost, naturally, so they can have all the sex they want, but in order to do so, they will be responsible for not letting their wives get the upper hand. They have to keep them barefoot in winter and pregnant in summer, I guess.

When all is said and done, most of our problems on this issue come from this irrational, inhuman, sometimes hysterical view of human sexuality. Belaboring a point about accepting money for sex is all those things. In a money driven society such as ours, to say that a whole segment of it is wrong for choosing to profit from something that "the market" demands, is probably the most irrational argument in the whole debate. Funny thing, though. It seems that a whole lot of the people who think selling sex is sinful are the same ones who support letting "market forces" drive government policy, especially in regard to regulating businesses other than those in adult entertainment.

No one as yet has offered any solid evidence that consensual sex between (or among) adults causes any real harm. Many have tried, but it really doesn't work because the only path these attempts have followed takes them along the cultural imperative path. This means that the only harm that accrues from sexual matters comes self-imposed from the society itself, from the artificial, and mostly religious, opprobrium attached to sex; from the guilt and ostracism that follows the exposure of sexual matters; from the nagging fear that if women's sexuality is unrestrained eventually they'll rule the world and reveal how much better they are at it than are men.

In the end, there is no inherent harm coming from the adult entertainment industry. No harm is wrought on society by the industry, but there is harm wrought by society on members of the industry, as well as the members of that society who patronize the industry. Society brings about the harm.

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The author seems to make the assumption that there isn't any sort of employment for college-age women between waiting tables and stripping. It speaks to a total lack of entrepreneurial and economic imagination on the her part. There are so many employment options for college students if they take the time to look and get creative.

Furthermore, she contributed nothing but superficial self-centered wishy-washy commentary on the feminist perspective of sex-work. I agree that the two opposing narratives about sex work are flawed, but this was a poor attempt at trying to wrangle this subject. What is communicated is a seemingly pathetic lack of character on the part of the author. Not because she was a sex worker, but because she is exploiting her current ambivalence about her past experience by posturing herself as being somehow authoritative without actually saying anything meaningful.

The only articles about feminism alternet seems to find fit to post are superficial and self-important. This is disappointing to say the least.

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Men are such simple creatures, so predictable, so malleable, so easy. As an all-American male, I have been to strip bars and played the game. It is nearly the ultimate fantasy...and without fantasy, there would be no sex, period. The thing that was obvious to me in these establishments was that the women had all of the power...not just some of it...ALL of it! They were in total control of the situation and the money.

How can someone who is in total control be a victim? They can't. It seems that the harshest critics on here are probably also the ones who have never even been on a strip club.

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If she can find a way out of the sex industry into something else that pays, then I will not complain about her career. The big problem for young women who think they have it all worked out because of the big money: It will not last. When you get older, the sex industry will toss you aside.

So use the money while you are young to learn a trade or skill that pays, then quietly move over into that and leave the sex industry behind-- while you are still young.

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My partner is a stripper. She does not do this work because she feels she has no other choice, nor because it makes her feel empowered. She makes more money at her other (non-sex-work-related) job, so she doesn't do it for the money either. She strips because she enjoys it. She likes showing off her body (which isn't blonde or thin, and yes she has cellulite). It also makes her feel good when she checks the stats for the week and sees that she consistently outperforms all the other girls, including the blonde, thin, busty ones. She outperforms them because she makes it a show, not just "Here's my boobs."
Many of her customers are actually women, who enjoy her show because she is a good performer. I really don't see this as being much different from acting on stage. She puts on a performance that other people like to watch, and she has fun doing it.
I believe the reason people think it's degrading or objectifying is America's latent Puritanism which insists that sex and anything related to it is 'dirty' and 'immoral.' I think sex work wouldn't be objectifying to anyone involved in it if society would show more respect to the women who choose it. If a woman chooses this work, it is her choice and should be respected. If a woman does this work because she feels she has no other choice, or is forced into it, then there are deeper issues causing the problem. Issues such as poverty or coercion, which need to be addressed as such.

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As long as the stripper feels empowered & actualized and the strip club is owned by womyn it is a feminist act.

At all other times shaking you derriere like you just don't care & shimmying up a pole is the behaviour of a self hating woman who was incorporated & ingested the mores, methods, & phallocentrism of the mainstream, patriachial culture. Thanks for the beautiful article. Now I have to go and research the matter further by interviewing the ladies at my local bawdy house.

It's a tough job but someone has to do it for the good of social science :-[

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that unless you have ever truly had to worry about affording basic necessities you really cannot have a legitimate perspective on this issue. It is easy to challenge the system, buck the status quo, and fight for what's "right" when you have everything you need. Not to mention, what is wrong with choosing to objectify yourself for decent pay? Life is too short and some folks are too poor to be waiting for equal pay for equal work or a decent living wage to be granted by the united corporation of america. And despite what one poster said about it not being a choice, the author exercised choice to the degree she was able and that choice allowed her to build a better life for herself. Let's save the criticism for the overstuffed affluent who truly choose to binge on the least powerful in society.

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Why would any woman consider parading around nude in front of goggling pigs a viable career? I think it’s the woman's choice to make that decision, but at the same time I think it’s a poor decision.

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There are countries where sex work is punished very severely, and there are countries where it is legal. In some ways our tolerance of stripping shows men and women's freedom in America, whether we personally approve of it or not.

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I want to make it clear that I am a male, and I do not "condemn" you, or for that matter implicitly frown upon working in the adult industry. Despite these feelings, I know that you are precisely accurate when you say: "The performances [you] gave didn't change anyone's ideas about women. On the contrary, [you were] in the business of reinforcing the same old sexist misinformation you can see in any issue of Hustler or Girls Gone Wild DVD". That being said, your time spent as an adult entertainer is only justified as a feminist (in my opinion, mind you) depending on what you (as a writer and a feminist) write, produce, and spend your time doing to further the cause of women, whatever that might be. It's understandable that you may feel like you need to make room for yourself as a new writer by taking a fresh perspective, but if you are going to draw a line, or make a distinction, you need to clarify very carefully exactly what that distinction is, in your opinion, otherwise your article might confuse more than illuminate, providing ammunition (or confusion) to those who may be looking for ANY excuse to defend this profession). I am not criticizing the choice that you made in your profession, but the integrity of your article, in which you say that you felt empowered "as a woman, as a feminist, and as a human being -- by the money [you] made". My question as a socialist would be, if I believe that capitalism is inherently wrong, or that the oil industry is not a friend of the environment, is it then OK to work in an administrative position in, say, Exxon mobil, and claim to feel empowered in a similar way?
Even assuming that your book is a true credit to feminism, your article confuses me, and being a person who applies such critical analysis in it's structural format to other ideological arguments, I have an interest in your article. I hope this isn't too long but I wanted you (the author) to know WHY I found your article to be confusing.

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The feminist debate over sexuality has been stuck since the 70's. The problem is we are confusing the two different realms that we humans simultaneously inhabit. First and foremost, we belong to the biosphere and thus are constrained by certain conditions of existence over which we have no choice or control. Most of these conditions are unpleasant but no amount of political posturing has a remote chance of changing anything. One of these conditions is that if you happen to be born female, then nature has made you a sex object. Let me repeat--men have not turned you into sex objects, and TV producers have not turned you into sex objects, and you have not turned yourselves into sex objects by working as strippers. It is, rather, an existential mandate of nature. We all have certain sets of binary choices: We can breathe or we can die. We can eat or we can die, If you are female you can be a sex object or you can die. If you are male you can spend your entire life half crazed by sexual desire or you can die. These things are part of the price nature extracts from us for this miraculous gift of breath and consciousness.

The other realm we inhabit is the social world. We cannot overcome our animal condition through moral effort. But we can make it possible to live together by employing ideals such as dignity and respect. Note that such ideals do not occur in nature--they are human inventions. They do not have the power to eradicate what we are in the biosphere, but they do have a very real power to make social life possible. They are the only thing standing between us and the reality that men are little more than walking digestive systems half crazed with lust, and women are little more than walking digestive systems half crazed with neurosis and insecurity.

If I (admittedly a male) treat a woman with dignity and respect then she in fact becomes dignified and respectable in every meaningful sense (while remaining a sex object). And guess what--I actually become noble in the process as well (while remaining a creep). It makes no difference whether a woman has just rung my doorbell to invite me to church, or is performing a pole dance at the strip joint. The reality is that I am going to be crazed with desire for the nice church lady at the door, and might even show up at church for a second opportunity to stare down her blouse. That is simply the way it is in the first order of reality--the biosphere. Nevertheless I will exend every respect to her in a most genuine fashion. Ditto for the stripper, only in her case lust might be almost a moot point while I am instead summoning up more respect than usual in the attempt, I suppose, to create some equilibrium where lust and respect might be in less balance than normal. The bottom line is that lust and respect are not contradictory or mutually exclusive. They are necessarily coexistent. We can never eradicate the biosphere with noble thoughts, but we shouldn't give in to the fact that we are animals when we can change the world through a healthy dose of idealism. Everything is a balancing act.

And my point is .... ? Ok, I'm male and will never know what it's like to be female so now I lay my neck on the chopping block for criticism. It just seems to me that if I were female the best path would be to accept my sexual objectivity as a given and stop blaming men and TV for it. Biology has made you a sex object. Maybe, just maybe, that's a miraculous gift! First practice self-acceptance, then go beyond that--use and enjoy your gift. If you are female and want to strip (or have to strip for a living) then do so--where's the "degradation"? Degradation is just another fiction, only a counter-productive one. Drop it from your vocabulary and it goes away. Respect yourself. Expect respect from others while, paradoxicaly, not caring what they think. OK, I'm ducking now...bring on the rotten tomatoes!

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I agree that when women engage in these behaviors (usually for lack of options) it reinforces sexism, specifically the continued objectification of women's bodies which enables sexual violence. While this is a problem and these women's behaviors are not beyond critique, why is there so little talk about the central role that men play in all of this?

Men are the primary consumers of pornography. Men are the ones who go to strip clubs. Men are the ones who buy prostitutes for sexual use and the money they pay mostly goes to other men (pimps). Men are the ones who run these industries, thus make the decisions and profit greatly. Men are the ones who get off on this stuff.

I'm a bit suspicious at all the attention focusing on women's choices and women's behaviors. What about men's behaviors and attitudes which make porn, stripping, girls gone wild, etc. profitable and erotic in this culture? All the talk about whether these women are being feminist or not sure keeps the heat off of men.

Why don't we make men and masculinity the focus of our conversations?

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What a woman chooses to do with her body is her right and her business and feminism need not be entangled into it.

After, when a woman has financial hardship and needs money, feminism doesn’t give her any or pay her rent or buy her clothes or cars.

What is going is capitalism.

If woman feels she is beautiful and can earn a lot of money stripping, she is engaging in capitalism, that is capitalizing on her beauty to create income and it should have nothing to do with feminism at all.

After all, I have heard that many so called ardent and fiery feminists end up later in life getting married and having children and families.

What happened to their feminist ideology?

Ikey Benney

Maychic.com

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You drove the point home Dave. This is also my view.
Ikey Benney
maychic.com

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...this makes me sick. I've written about it on my blog here.

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...is survival really feminism? You can work at an erotic job and you can survive or you can get stuck out in the wilderness with nothing to eat and survive. But, either way, are you making a statement that supports the argument that women are equal to men? By pole-dancing, are you making some statement about a woman's right to choose? Um, not really- in all practicality, you leave it up to men to decide whether or not you get pregnant and you get paid to do so.


You want to work at an erotic job? That's your choice. But don't think that you're making a feministic statement, b/c I'm sure that most people who see, say, a prostitute having sex are not going to think, "Aha, she's making a statement about equal opportuntiy." In this case, it IS what you do, not the thought behind it.

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I'm glad you have/had the freedom to strip! Too bad prostitution is illegal, like smoking reefer. That way, only the true criminals and politicians (which in a way are true criminals, also) get to make the real profit. I have travelled to many countries around the world, many where prostitution is legal and smoking reefer/hash is pretty much tolerated.

Anyway, according to Bush, Cheney and every democrat who voted for the war in Iraq, we need to instill our values to every country in the world.

I wish I could leaglly pay you to come to my home and strip and smoke a doobie, if you so desired. I wish you would be responsible and pay your taxes on your wages. And, then if we had a good time, we could go down and see my neighbor, buy a bag of good Miss Hippie weed, and she, too, would pay taxes on the sale.

But, I dream.............

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First we had Feminists complaining about women being "objectified" while all the while shelling out more than 22 Billion a year (this is just on their faces for lipstick, mascara, lip gloss and the like) and commensurately complaining that women are held down economically. Now we have them celebrating their "objectification" by touting their skill in manipulating both old and young horny men vis a vie strip clubs.
What is so fascinating about this dialogue is the extent that women will go to rationalize their actions. Why a dyed-in-the-wool feminist or any women for that matter would even countenance such an argument and thereby give the little whore author both credibility and notoriety is beyond human logic. Of course since this is so totally illogical, it makes perfect sense to the average woman.
It just goes to show what a bunch of incredible bullshit the entire Feminist Movement is and how little agreement there is as to what kind of actions both define and marginalize women at large.
This article substantiates what men have known about women for hundreds of thousands if not millions of years. 1) all women are whores of some sort, 2) A woman will do anything and everything she possibily can in order to achieve "advantage in." 3) She will then go to exraordinary lengths to both justify and rationalize her behavior no matter how irrational and illogical--and then when she has not succeeded in the attempt: will blame either a man or men at large for her shortcomings and transgressions. 4) Her only allegiance is to her direct biological progeny--and sometimes not even to them. 5) educating them was a big mistake--giving them the right to vote and even bigger mistake.
One hundred years from now historians will be scratching their heads trying to make sense out of the hundreds of millions of vacuous words written by self-absorbed air-headed little tarts trying to ingenuously manipulate both guileless men and overweight soccer moms with too much time on their hands and not enough to whine about and a society that consistently listens to their irrelevant, irrational and hysterical drones.

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So you are categorizing women's sexuality as "whore".. how convenient

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Starting a discussion by treating words like degrade and objectify as if they carry objective meaning guarantees that the discussion will get nowhere.

On the other hand, what is real is the phenomenon of a person (sex worker or otherwise) feeling degraded or objectified, or another person, or society in general, or the person herself, treating the person's activity as degrading. A sex worker should not have to put up with people treating her work as degrading, and any sex worker who has internalized society's attitudes so that she considers her work degrading should should get out of that work ASAP. If she stays in it anyway for economic survival, that is a problem of actually existing capitalism, and not of sex work.

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on the negative effects of the capitalist system in general. Extreme leftist views are not required to understand that we live in a culture that requires we all sell ourselves every day. Strippers put themselves out there in a more literal way, but most ordinary citizens are doing it figuratively, no matter what job they have. Is sucking up to the big man and your colleagues any different than selling that pound of flesh? Then after a miserable day at work, both women and men are sucking up the lines of folk in department stores and car dealerships, really believing that such and such a product will make them appear sexier/ sharper/ smarter. It's a sad, vicious circle. Strippers are hardly the only ones participating in it. The revolution can only happen from the inside. Outer reality is something that the masses (especially Americans) are far too attached to. I have no more respect for the corporate whores than the actual ones.

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The discussion should not be about whether stripping is a feminist act, but the capitalist system which compels some women to become strippers. We all have our opinions about the sex industry, and will not likely change them.

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Every time someone post an article regarding gender or social perspectives of women on Alternet, extremist opinions are sure to follow. The sexist rants of men (and yes, sometimes women) who use this as an opportunity to make sweeping generalizations about women so that they can remain at peace with absurd double standards as well as supposed "feminists" who presume that all forms of sexual entertainment are morally indistinguishable from snuff films and child porn do little but butress the sexist social paradigm that perpetuates the repression not just of women but of the sexuality of both women and men. Ms. Lewis' article was not pulitzer prize winning stuff to be sure--but it would be nice if it engendered thoughtful discussion about the subtleties of sexual politics rather than the same tired old hateful screeds. This is not to say that I did not find some intelligent discussion here--just that it seems to be drowned out by shrill, bombastic, "self-righteous" diatribes by individuals who would rather glibly pigeonhole large numbers of their fellow humans, rather than consider the complexities of each person and each situation.

I admit that some of my responses to postings were emotionally charged--Some might accuse me of reacting in a judgemental manner to the judgemental attitudes of others. In retrospect, I always wish I had a greater ability to appeal to our "better angels"...I'm afraid I'm not very good at that. But please folks...can we at least try to imagine walking a mile in another's moccasins before viewing them with spiteful, disrespectful eyes.

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This is just me speaking, but I think that I feel more degraded and prostituted by being a nurse than this author felt while being a stripper.

Try representing some sorry ass medical procedure or nincompoop doctor as being right and good to the patient, just to make your wage and keep your job all the while knowing that all the sweet talk is not the actual case. Talk about being prostituted!

At least a stripper controls her environment to a great degree. A nurse does not. And I don't think that teachers do much either, for that matter. Stripping does seem totally boring though.

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It had absolutely nothing to do with the Jews. Won't someone find a Jewish angle in all this somewhere. Maybe Jews and stripping or maybe Jewish strippers. Maybe all the strip clubs are secretly run by the Jews!! Yeah! There ya go! Any thoughts, Alterneters?

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Bravo to the author for having the guts to talk about this.

I have never worked in the sex business, but I have worked as a waitress. Waiting tables is a whole lot of work for very little money.

Personally, I think that if man or woman chooses to strip or to be an escort or a prostitute, as long as that choice was without duress, then there is nothing wrong with it.

As long as there is free informed consent, then it it their body and the ultimate freedom is to have the freedom to have control of your own body.

I don't see it as either feminist or anti-feminist. It simply a decision that a person makes with regard to their own life and their own body.

I am sick of this busy body nation that wants to tell everyone (often through law) what to do with their bodies.

These busy bodies want to tell us who we can sleep with and in what position. They want to tell us when, where and why we may have children from birth control, to adoption, to abortion. They want to tell us how we are allowed to dress. They want to tell us when, where and how we may die.

It is beyond time to say, BUTT OUT!

Mind your own business. I say this to both liberals and conservatives.

Stop judging and insisting others judge on who a person chooses for a consentual sex partner.

Stop judging and insisting others judge on what medical procedures a person has, whether it is an abortion or a breast augmentation.

Stop judging and insisting others judge based on a persons choice of profession or self-expression.

Stop trying to tell people they can't die with dignity or live with machines.

It is none of your business.

If man or woman enjoys shaking his or her booty on stage, and there are people willing to pay to see it, then more power to them.

If a man or a woman wants to trade sex for money, and there are folks out there willing to pay, let them. As long as that person is of the age of consent and freely gives consent, stay out of it.

Just butt out.

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And it is far more physically and emotionally invasive that exotic dancing.

No security. Got to be hot. Got to be nice.

It's just sex work.

Jan VanDenBerg

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Where are the 'hot boys' stripping their way through college for hetero women like me to leer at?
I can't believe that this woman is the daughter of a feminist.

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Surely there is something out there other than waitressing and sex work.

Maybe if she hadn't been doing all that dancing, she would have gotten a BA and found a normal job.

There are other avenues out of poverty for working-class women.

I was born to a poor family, married at 18, divorced at 20, worked my way through college, got an MA from Stanford, became a real estate developer and now I'm rich.

I'm retired at 49. (Other than managing my assets, which will never end.)

Sure, you gotta have money, but if you don't make big mistakes like have kids you can't afford (and that IS the big one that keeps women poor) there are lots of ways out of poverty that don't entail exotic dancing.

Waiting tables or dancing on them? That is a false choice.

Jan VanDenBerg

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I guess this got everyone going.

I waited tables to put myself through college--and after college (when I graduated it was mid-economic downturn and there were no jobs). Waiting tables is an industry that feels the burn of a bad economy first. Tips suffered and i was nearly on the streets at times. I thought about stipping. I had ex-coworkers who had gone to it and were financially well off, while I was scraping by and still getting my ass slapped and leered at (with no bouncer around to kick them out.) I have had friends that where domi's and enjoyed their work.

A couple of years later, I moved to Japan working for a company teaching English. I lived in Osaka, but the pay was barely sustainable. I actually had higher living standards waiting tables. Once again, I was approached to work as an exotic western escort (on the other side of the world!).

I never did any of it, but i certainly do not fault anyone who has or does. If you have never found yourself in that position, good for you. And count yourself lucky that you haven't.

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I believe feminism is for ALL women, whether they be politicians, police officers, professors, or pole dancers. ALL women need to be treated with respect, and that includes those in the sex entertainment industry.

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I rather enjoyed reading this article because it challenged my ideas towards strippers. While I would not strip or dance for religious reasons the women who do strip are doing nothing but taking advantage of one thing that can allow women to narrow the economic gap between they and their male counterparts. Why shouldn't they take advantage of this avenue if they choose to? Especially considering that women are cheated in every other employment area by earning about 70 cents for every dollar a man makes from any other employer. If this were true for every area of our society women would never catch up with men in terms of potential income and power.

So, to those of you with the freedom and guts to take advantage of objectification, bravo.

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Having worked as a sex worker for many years I'm still on the fence about this issue. My response to this particular article is that it focuses on the author making more money than she did as a waitress as evidence that stripping is a valid choice. The fact that strippers make more money than waitresses is in itself not an argument either way. Secondly, there are many jobs that pay more than waitressing. If that is the measuring stick for feminist choices, why not focus on building a career that is satisfying AND pays the bills.

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Look! There is another feminist stripper memoir now. The only other two are the ones by Lily Burana and Elisabeth Eaves. However, both of them totally miss anything about postmodernity (like Eva Pendleton wrote about) or race (other than the superficial recognition that it's different for women of color). Stripping is NOT just about the politics of gender and sexuality, after all.

Also, the author of this new book stripped in the 90s, and I think strip clubs have really gone downhill since then. I stripped in strip clubs from 2003 to 2006. As stripping becomes increasingly socially acceptable, as strip clubs for conglomerates (like Hustler and Deja Vu), and as the U.S. moves further into being a service economy, the mythical material jackpot for strippers is eroded. The legendary high pay for stripping is the only thing that justifies the misogynist environment that would constitute the description of a "hostile environment" in sexual harassment public policy. As they said on the "20/20" expose about stripping a couple of years ago, strip clubs are more like used car dealerships today than they are like the best kept secret for the pink collar set.

Call me jaded, but I'm not very excited about this book. Next, please.

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Feminism, by name, no longer exists. It is part of the whole panapoly of post-modern "isms" that are now officially defunct. Just consider stripping a human rights, free speech and individual rights issue. Women have the right to strip, like men do, but like a lot of things we have the right to do, it may not be healthy for the one doing the act, and those watching. It's neither good or bad - its up to you. I never go to strip clubs, but if women feel empowered by it, great. If you feel oppressed and subjegated by it, why do it? Quit, go back to Burger World. Alternet wastes too much ink on "feminism," stuck in som mid-70s mind set, promoting colonialist Western ideas around the world.

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Another perspective:
I also think there is a racist component to it all. As an unemployed Asian man seen as being economically unviable, socially invisible, and stereotyped as being asexual in a white society even though I am college educated, "healthy and fit" - even if I sold out, I doubt I could command as much money as a white, female stripper/sex worker. White women are expected to have a certain lifestyle they can afford. They brainwash themselves into think that they need free time to write a book, nap and eat out to feel like they're fighting for a cause from a higher plane.
Please, spare me the pseudo-feminist rhetoric. Either way you slice no amount of attention and money will ever satisfy such women. And all those who subscribe to her rationalizations take a leap back thirty years.

It's time to grow up and address real life issues besides this watered down, nay, poisoned version of "feminism", issues like war, pollution, starvation, democracy and a real working economy that doesn't force us to adopt un"whole"y values. Approaching sex worker issues is like addressing dandruff when there is something wrong with your endocrine system. The culture of disrespect is symptomatic of something more far reaching in its effects. When basic needs are addressed, taking care of gender issues will be easy. It'll be such a non-issue that to even mention it would be to stress aamoot point.

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yes, i am sort of replying to my own comment (how sad!)

I just wanted to add that I have held my own informal survey asking female servers I do and have worked with if they ever considered being a stripper. Nine out of 10 said yes--when they were in their twenties (even the 52 year old said she thought about it at one time.) One said she had instead considered dealing pot.

As one woman I talked to said: "That's a slippery slope. I think every waitress has proably considered in in their early twenties. You look good and you feel that you can make some pretty good cash. Some women--well, they have had the world shit on them and they let the business drag them down, I've seen others use it to lift themselves up. I think feminism is just one aspect of the larger issue of having the freedom of choice. Just as much, I hear 'feminists' tear down those who choose to be mothers and stay at home. That is her choice just as much as it is the strippers to work in the sex industry. We all just want the ability to choose our own path and find our way--whatever form that takes."

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i'll tell you what stripping is, it is a disgraceful act, an act of morraly bankrupt people, who are most often supporting a drug habit, or have severe sexual dysfunctions

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This is very appropriate. Most men are really not to be trusted. Why because, they lack any serious sexual identity. What few skills they get all come by the time they are 14 or 15. Monkey sex can be seen in most the zoos, but you wouldn't know we had any relationship to monkey behavior these days! The only place men and women have to learn about their own sexuality is in bars, rock concerts, TV, movies coed institutions and mutual groping spots.

The Reagan era and AIDS had nothing to do with Sex positive behavior right? Most old school feminists had good reason to hate men. We truly are nothing more than dogs in heat. Its our society's power structure that gives us pedestals. How about electro shocks for Napoleonic penis's or republicans who think their's should be licked in public!

Sorry, but there's a whole lot of really damaged men out there that have no clue about how to relate to their sexuality. How are you going to fix this problem? This is something that our consumer society has done to men. women still don't seem to understand just how damaging this culture is to men.

So where do men go to deal with their real sexual pressures? Strip Clubs or the street. Hmm. This doesn't seem to be new. Where could we start fixing this? At the point where men look to meet their real sexual needs.

The Lapdance subculture could have become an institution where people find an organized resource to explore their sexuality. In the Bay Area, men single or married could find skilled women to help deepen their understanding of their own sex needs. Back 15 years ago the San Francisco lapdance industry had a chance at moving in a sex positive direction, but was killed off when women tried to unionize by the owners of the clubs and an ignorant culture that lost a chance to change the mess we are in.

Lapdancing clubs was probably the only place where very lonely men with poor relationship skills could go to have any kind of contact with women. Shameless? No Very, Very Sad.

Its all about living in the dark ages. Don't expect a bloody thing out of this place until it really learns just how sex, territory and power are integrated into what makes a good consumer. All bodies are not created equally, and Hugh Hefner and ABC has seen to it, that fulfillment is consumption based.

Why is it that America is so caught up in nuclear relationships?
What's happening to the sophisticated relatives of the chimpanzee? Who can you reach out to for help when you know things aren't right? What does it mean to have a mature and viable sex life today? Isn't that a code word for being a terrorist or the devil?

We are living in the dark ages and will continue to do so until sexuality becomes something we can share publicly without being treated like devils or angels. Last time I checked, I could still cut myself, bleed and die just like all the other animals out there.

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May I ask all the ladies here, what does it mean to be feminist?
Does it mean you want to be treated equally, just like another one of the guys? Or does it mean you want to be treated as a female or a lady? Which way do you want it? I grew up with 6 sisters, no 2 of them are alike in their thinking on this matter.
Carry a card that says what you choose, and give it to the guys you meet, talk to or date, you will either go to dinner and show, or end up down at the bowling alley drinking beer and telling dirty jokes with the guys.
Men and women will never be truly 100% equal, one with always have something over the other.
Sex is just the most powerful leverage that women have over men. It is about mans weakest point. He will do almost anything for some, just ask one. There has to be some sort of compromise here.
Wives, think of the power and control you can have over your husbands, just dress like a stripper when you are alone with him, he will do about anything you ask him just for a "little action". You'll keep him home more and put the strip joints out of business, he will mow the lawn take out the trash, and clean out the garage for some of that. All that exercise will help to get rid of his disgusting beer belly too. You get what you want every time. You want him to pay attention to you so don't wear that floral moo-moo and curlers to bed, do what you can to maintain that figure he was first drawn to, he will do the same. You are your husbands sex object, as he is yours. That is equality, too.
If you don't want to be treated as a sex object, she should wear a flour sack dress, a veil and not use perfume, he should wear bib overalls, a flannel shirt, a big hat and never take a bath. Don't forget the moo-moo.

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So the writer makes a living by stripping, then makes a living by writing about stripping -- and the number of comments on this article (mine included) suggests that there is a market for the writer's strip. In that sense this person should be compared not to sexworkers (and certainly not feminists) but to those whose writerly ethos resides in the revelation of some aspect of the self. You know, those who sell books about having been drunk or on Prozac or recently retired from the Bush Administration. In stripper nation, even the writers strip.

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