View Full Version : Can a customer be a feminist
wednesday86
11-22-2014, 07:52 PM
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_differences_in_humans#Psychology
http://www.forbes.com/sites/markfidelman/2012/06/05/heres-the-real-reason-there-are-not-more-women-in-technology/
http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2012/04/16/its-time-that-we-end-the-equal-pay-myth/
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/02/01/no-women-don-t-make-less-money-than-men.html
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/2009-10-06-rape-decline_N.htm
http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/economic-intelligence/2013/10/24/statistics-dont-back-up-claims-about-rape-culture
Hopper
11-22-2014, 09:45 PM
What percentage would I guess would support a women's choice to be a stay-at-home mother? Well among the feminist I personally know then 100% would be 'pro' women having the choice to be stay-at-home mothers. The snag in our ability to communication seems to be your lack of understanding that the concept of feminism is like the concept of religion. If the majority of religious people don't agree with each other why would feminism do any better at it? You can't just group all feminist beliefs into one group structure any more then you can do it with all religious beliefs.
Yes, that is the snag - I don't understand that about feminism, because it is not true.
It is true that there are many factions within feminism, just as there are factions within other belief systems. It is also true that anyone can call himself a feminist and simply make his own mind up about what the term means.
However, I am talking about feminism as a movement: the organizational leaders, the policy and program makers, the opinion-makers, the people with the funding, positions and media access, the people in government, academic and industry positions. The people who actually run things, the people who get things done. The people, in short, who count. These people, despite their differences, share an agenda based on a definite, core set of tenets, which the movement as a whole has never deviated from.
Here are some quotes from feminists you probably don't personally know, though some of their names are probably familiar to you. The rest you can Wiki.
"Housewives [are] an endless array of 'horse-leech's' daughters, crying Give! Give! -- [a] parasite mate devouring even when she should most feed [and who has] the aspirations of an affectionate guinea pig." - Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Women and Economics: A Study of the Economic Relations Between Men and Women as a Factor in Social Evolution, 1898.
"A parasite sucking out the living strength of another organism...the [housewife's] labor does not even tend toward the creation of anything durable.... [W]oman's work within the home not directly useful to society, produces nothing. [The housewife] is subordinate, secondary, parasitic. It is for their common welfare that the situation must be altered by prohibiting marriage as a 'career' for woman." - Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1949.
"[Housewives] are mindless and thing-hungry...not people. [Housework] is peculiarly suited to the capacities of feeble-minded girls. [It] arrests their development at an infantile level, short of personal identity with an inevitably weak core of self.... [Housewives] are in as much danger as the millions who walked to their own death in the concentration camps. [The] conditions which destroyed the human identity of so many prisoners were not the torture and brutality, but conditions similar to those which destroy the identity of the American housewife." - Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique, 1963.
"[As long as the woman] is the primary caretaker of childhood, she is prevented from being a free human being." - Kate Millett, Sexual Politics, 1969.
"[Housewives] are dependent creatures who are still children...parasites." - Gloria Steinem, "What It Would Be Like If Women Win," Time, August 31, 1970.
"[A]s long as the family and the myth of the family and the myth of maternity and the maternal instinct are not destroyed, women will still be oppressed.... No woman should be authorized to stay at home and raise her children. Society should be totally different. Women should not have that choice, precisely because if there is such a choice, too many women will make that one. It is a way of forcing women in a certain direction." - Simone de Beauvoir, "Sex, Society, and the Female Dilemma," Saturday Review, June 14, 1975.
"[The] housewife is a nobody, and [housework] is a dead-end job. It may actually have a deteriorating effect on her mind...rendering her incapable of prolonged concentration on any single task. [She] comes to seem dumb as well as dull. eing a housewife makes women sick." - [B]Jessie Bernard, The Future of Marriage, 1982.
"Feminism was profoundly opposed to traditional conceptions of how families should be organized, [since] the very existence of full-time homemakers was incompatible with the women's movement.... [I]f even 10 percent of American women remain full-time homemakers, this will reinforce traditional views of what women ought to do and encourage other women to become full-time homemakers at least while their children are very young.... If women disproportionately take time off from their careers to have children, or if they work less hard than men at their careers while their children are young, this will put them at a competitive disadvantage vis-a-vis men, particularly men whose wives do all the homemaking and child care.... This means that no matter how any individual feminist might feel about child care and housework, the movement as a whole had reasons to discourage full-time homemaking." - Jane J. Mansbridge, Why We Lost the ERA, 1986.
[i]"I don't have any figures but many women probably do want a man to sweep them off of their feet, probably even some career women."
Whiskey-Tango-Foxtrot! If this is the core belief you are coming with then there is really nothing more to debate.
Belief in what? That women experience romance? Sorry if I was wrong, but that is not the core of my argument. You brought that up and I wondered what it even had to do with being a stay-home mother, except that a romantic encounter often (we would hope always) precedes motherhood.
charlotte.
11-22-2014, 09:51 PM
all of those quotes are 1st and 2nd wavers. they do not come even close to encapsuating present day feminism. also, lol @ there being a feminist organizational system.
Hopper
11-22-2014, 11:28 PM
all of those quotes are 1st and 2nd wavers. they do not come even close to encapsuating present day feminism.
Third-wave feminism has not rejected any of the tenets of second-wave feminism regarding the desired role of women in society. In fact, their task has largely been to deal with backlashes against second-wave feminism. Third waves is a continuation of second-wave, not a replacement of it. Third-wave has modified and even reversed some second-wave positions which served to break down certain obstacles in public opinion during that phase and were subsequently no longer necessary, and were not central to feminist social and political aims.
"Third Wave feminists have broadened their goals, focusing on ideas like queer theory, abolishing gender role expectations and stereotypes, and defending sex work, pornography, reproductive rights, and sex-positivity."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third-wave_feminism
Young women are increasingly choosing to be housewives and stay-home mothers.
"For the first time since the downturn of 2008, the percentage of stay-at-home mothers rose between 2010 and 2011 - and some of the biggest increases have been among younger mothers, aged 25 to 35."
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2295236/Rise-happy-housewife-How-new-wave-feminists-giving-careers-stay-home-WANT-to.html
"Across different social and cultural groups, there's been a collective return to domesticity—the rise in educated stay-at-home moms, the obsession with traditional crafts, the mania for cooking and growing our own food, the decline in career ambition and the growing importance of family among the young."
http://www.theatlantic.com/sexes/archive/2013/03/the-complex-often-idealistic-reasons-feminists-become-housewives/274184/
The second article is a feminist commentary on this trend. (Feminists do admit that it exists.) The writer tries to avoid showing disapproval and instead tries to appear inclusive by recharacterizing this shift as a feminist, political move ("re-envisioned domesticity"), rather than simply a practical change of lifestyle in opposition to feminist aims.
"In this context, domesticity is reinvisioned as a valid, creative, politically powerful, even feminist choice. After all, we're not talking June Cleaver vacuuming in pearls here, we're talking about Saving the Environment and Reviving Healthy Food Culture and Giving the Finger to Corporate America. It's an entire philosophy of living, far more complex than the wealthy stay-at-home moms in the New York magazine story."
As if the original reason for wives working in the home was nothing to do with preparing healthy meals and the new housewives don't vacuum.
However, the writer recognizes that the real reasons for the shift are not feminist ones.
"But, as Miller's story illustrates, the belief in the power of homemaking too often overlaps with a weird brand of neo-gender essentialism. The women in her story, like many people I've met during my research, turned progressive sentiments about the value of "women's work" and the goodness of all things "natural" into an awfully conservative-seeming worldview in which women are "inherently" better parents than men, and it's "just natural" to cook from scratch, grind your own baby food, etc. rather than rely on modern labor-saving inventions like restaurants and chain supermarkets and daycares."
So now the "new domesticity" is about mass-produced food and household products, not "healthy food culture" and DIY? Is somebody having trouble keeping her lies straight?
The last paragraph of the article objects to the trend for solely women choosing to work in the home. She says an equal number of husbands should be stay-home parents and home-makers. It's not stay-home mothers she approves of, but "the new domesticity".
"As long as the return to domesticity continues to be a largely female prerogative, it's going to be on uneasy footing, gender equality-wise. So let's can the talk about women's inherent nurturing capabilities or men's natural need to bring home the bacon. Hopefully, one day not too far in the future, we'll be seeing a lot more feminist househusbands."
The fact is, however, that it is not husbands who are choosing to stay at home, but wives. It seems that feminists do still have a problem with women. Either they are going to have to make husbands start doing it or stop women from doing it. Either way, it will not be out of free choice.
also, lol @ there being a feminist organizational system.
I said "movement", not system. However, Western institutions are very feminist, increasingly so. Didn't you get the memo?
lynn2009
11-23-2014, 01:51 AM
I think you are missing the point. I am not arguing that rape isn't a problem. It's just that there isn't evidence that we live in a "rape culture." Until we live in Utopia horrible things like rape and murder are going to happen because there are evil people in the world...but at least we're moving in the right direction.
I did not miss the point, but too much in this thread already makes my head explode, so think what you will.
lol1337a
11-23-2014, 03:10 AM
I devoted years of my life studying sociology and many of my classes involved feminism. I'm trying to find better resources for the anti-feminists on here to engage with than wikipedia, forbes, etc, because these mass media outlets aren't exactly feminist friendly -- mass media skews toward the interests of power structure as a rule, and it certainly isn't being broken in this case. Unfortunately most of my classes' reading lists involve excerpts of books and journal articles that aren't available without a university subscription to databases. I'll keep looking for online-accessible readings, but can anyone else help here in the meantime?
I know it's probably too far gone at this point. It took a critical mass of carefully selected readings to open my eyes to an alarming number of sociological issues, and without a grade dangling over my head I never would have read anything. Regardless, it might be good to compile internet-friendly resources just in case someone here might give them a scan in order to search for flawed reasoning. Ideally something with metrics. Metrics first, theory second.
Published feminists are scholars, not just Tumblr preachers, or people who are quoted in mass media outlets. Sometimes they use exceptionally radicalized rhetoric to attract attention, just like many of the mass media (feminist unfriendly) articles linked here do. But should a feminist scholar be expected to unify the field in order to be given a chance anymore than physicists should propose a sound unification of physics to be heard?
The misconceptions posted here are just too deep for me to try to fix, so here's my crazy, religious, fanatic, feminist call to arms.
Hopper
11-23-2014, 03:39 AM
I devoted years of my life studying sociology and many of my classes involved feminism. I'm trying to find better resources for the anti-feminists on here to engage with than wikipedia, forbes, etc, because these mass media outlets aren't exactly feminist friendly -- mass media skews toward the interests of power structure as a rule, and it certainly isn't being broken in this case. Unfortunately most of my classes' reading lists involve excerpts of books and journal articles that aren't available without a university subscription to databases. I'll keep looking for online-accessible readings, but can anyone else help here in the meantime?
I know it's probably too far gone at this point. It took a critical mass of carefully selected readings to open my eyes to an alarming number of sociological issues, and without a grade dangling over my head I never would have read anything. Regardless, it might be good to compile internet-friendly resources just in case someone here might give them a scan in order to search for flawed reasoning. Ideally something with metrics. Metrics first, theory second.
http://finallyfeminism101.wordpress.com/
http://feminism.eserver.org/links/forums/
charlotte.
11-23-2014, 04:55 AM
http://finallyfeminism101.wordpress.com/
http://feminism.eserver.org/links/forums/
neither of these are links to a decent list of reading material. but i suppose better than your other link of the daily mail. lol.
ironically your earlier post of "quotes from feminists you probably dont know" was a fairly limited, but basic list of 1st and 2nd wave feminist texts. good to start out with to learn the history...if you actually read the entire texts and not just isolated quotes. but of course, we "probably dont know" any of them because, were strippers, or uneducated, or whatever.
if anyones truly interested in the history of feminism, foucault, hooks, butler, and lorde are necessary reads. not the daily mail. for the love of god."
Hopper
11-23-2014, 05:37 AM
neither of these are links to a decent list of reading material. but i suppose better than your other link of the daily mail. lol.
I'm sorry that a Women's Studies website created by MA students at the Carnegie Mellon University Women's Center does not meet your academic standards.
ironically your earlier post of "quotes from feminists you probably don't know" was a fairly limited, but basic list of 1st and 2nd wave feminist texts. good to start out with to learn the history...if you actually read the entire texts and not just isolated quotes.
Sure, only Simone de Beauvoir, Betty Friedan, Kate Millet, Gloria Steinem and a few other nobodies who third-wavers have no doubt completely forgotten. Sorry I couldn't quote the entire texts. Perhaps the following quote means something else in it's original context:
No woman should be authorized to stay at home and raise her children. Society should be totally different. Women should not have that choice, precisely because if there is such a choice, too many women will make that one. It is a way of forcing women in a certain direction.
Whatever she meant, do third-wavers agree or disagree with Beauvoir about gender roles?
but of course, we "probably dont know" any of them because, were strippers, or uneducated, or whatever.
That is misquoted and taken out of context. I'd expect better from a woman of your education.
if anyones truly interested in the history of feminism, foucault, hooks, butler, and lorde are necessary reads. not the daily mail. for the love of god."
I bet the dancers here will all read them thoroughly before continuing to post in this thread.
Say, why not actually respond to my arguments? They are so unsophisticated, it should be easy. Do you need to revise Foucault first?
unbeleavable
11-23-2014, 07:02 AM
Hopper what industry are you in & did your mom work? Your thought that women really want to taken care of at this time in life is crazy. I can tell you from my experience I've met the opposite & that's coming from dating a few women that didn't want children & a growing up with a mom that was a high profile stockbroker.
Naida
11-23-2014, 07:30 AM
Without getting into the argument of what feminism is, has done, etc, I'm just going to answer OP's question.
Yes, I believe a customer can be a male feminist.
No, I do not care what a customer's personal ideology is. If it managed to elicit any response from me, it would probably be quiet annoyance and a vocal, "that's great!" I honestly could give zero fucks if the customer is a feminist unless he's spending money and treating me with respect.
audritwo
11-23-2014, 10:40 AM
Hopper just wondering, do you know what red pill is?
audrey_k
11-23-2014, 11:41 AM
I don't think the OP was speaking about being some kind of hardcore, protesting feminist writing scholarly articles... seriously Hopper, you just love to come here and argue everything to death with us strippers, and it's bloody annoying. You are completely closed off and not interested in learning from any of the counter arguments presented on this forum.
Justanothercamgirl said it right in that feminism is like religion, there are many different facets of it, extremists and liberals, contradicting beliefs-- but you cannot argue that the core argument of feminism isn't a desire for equality and respect for women. If you look at the Oxford Dictionary the basic definition is "the advocacy of women’s rights on the ground of the equality of the sexes." The whole point of this thread is whether or not an SC customer can support basic feminist beliefs, and I don't see a contradiction.
I have no interest to go back and forth with you for 5 pages as you try to pull all my words apart, so I'm out.
MrMike1952
11-23-2014, 04:06 PM
I say right on and follow up with a high five!
Not all us feminist are terrible people, Wednesday. :P Most of us just want political, social, and economic equality to men! :D
Someone said that I should be called upon to provide a definition. While part of the reason for asking my question was, as Hopper suggested, to hear from the dancers what their definition of a feminist would be, I find this to be an excellent definition. If I may suggest, for a man, it involves treating women with respect - recognizing that they are human beings.
MrMike1952
11-23-2014, 04:10 PM
a feminist is somebody who believes that men and women should be treated equally and with respect…?? i would hope that most people on this board are actually feminist lol, and i would think its awesome!! men can be feminists as well, i think SO many people are really uneducated on what feminism actually is it makes my head hurt!!! no, i don't think its a contradiction at all. i consider myself a feminist, and i don't think its hypocritical of me to dance. i feel no shame and do not think its a contradiction at all. its MY choice to dance and MY body, and me making a choice without being shamed is what feminism is about.
I also think this is an excellent definition.
There can be times when the strip club environment can encourage disrespectful attitudes from the customer, but I also note that respect does seem to be the main thing that the dancers on this forum want from the customers.
Well, the second thing they want.
MrMike1952
11-23-2014, 04:22 PM
IDK ... I doubt a customer can be a feminist. Well maybe a small percentage like 20% but the majority are not.
The ones that I could remotely qualify feminist are the ones who pay full VIP price without haggling the price. They don't hassle for extras/phone numbers/dates etc. and ask before touching and do so respectfully. They get that we are someones mom or daughter and working hard to provide a standard of living and are generous with their cash without all the unnecessary strings attached. They don't ask personal questions. They enjoy watching a quality woman exude her femininity and sensuality and know she's worth being compensated for.
Thank you for your thoughts. I agree that most customers are not feminists and look down at dancers. That, I suppose, is part of the angst I experience that led to my question.
I don't think I can agree that a requirement should be to buy the highest price service available. One can be a feminist, go to strip clubs, but live under financial constraints. However, I agree that haggling the price is generally disrespectful, treating the dancer as a person iis absolutely a required, and never taking liberties that make the dancer uncomfortable or that she has not give permission for.
I do struggle with the not asking personal questions. I do see that message on here a lot. On the other hand, part of seeing a dancer as a human can be an interest in her as a human. And I generally get more enjoyment from a lap dance from a woman who I feel like I know something about - where there is some illusion of a personal connection.
And it does seem that at least some dancers are proud to talk about their children or their education or their plans.
MrMike1952
11-23-2014, 04:26 PM
my feminist belief system highlights the ways that class, race and citizenship interact with gender. so much crap from the past was white women fighting for their own rights, to paraphrase Toni Morrison that second wave ish left out all the domestic workers keeping the homes of newly 'liberated' women. In the first wave some white feminists actually advocated lynching to 'protect white womanhood'. I also see how issues some qualify as 'race-based' are also a feminist issue (https://twitter.com/umoveto), in that the sons of Black, Latino and Native women are routinely over-policed and over incarcerated. Racialized women are also over-policed and experience levels of unemployment far higher than white women. Raising a fist here for third and fourth wave feminism that acknowledges that white experience isn't the be all and end all.
to the OP: I'm a sex worker, a feminist and a consumer of adult services. Where I live every club I enjoy most is a strip club/bordello and I have no qualms in enjoying every moment I spend in em. I tip well, try to be the best client of their shift and that appreciation is reciprocated: gorgeous women flock to say hello every time my guy and I walk in.
I love it. I love women but I'm a workoholic so I barely have time for my own husband sometimes, let alone cultivating a side relationship. Dance/strip clubs are an outlet, a release, and as long as we pay well, overtip, never push past boundaries and enjoy every moment we all end up happy. I think I understand the pleasure of great clients more because I'm a sex worker myself; my fun and appreciative great guys will never know it but I light up whenever one of them messages me for a show. Every time I go out dancing my aim is to provide a similar reaction, that's an integral aspect of the pleasure of the experience for me.
'objectification' is hilarious to me. in my off cam life I design websites, do research and promote a development here in my new home. is my mind being exploited? you're starting from a false premise imo, a chica taking off her clothes or grinding on you isn't debasing her humanity, she's simply availing herself of all the tool and resources at her disposal. If you can recognize that while naked she's simultaneously a human being worthy of respect and appreciation, you're in the right head space- however you choose to define it.
tl;dr pay well, strive to be the best client of her night and enjoy. don't make things more complicated than they need to be.
Very thoughtful and impressive.
You sound like a fascinating person.
Can I ask how you come down on the issue of asking the dancers about their lives and interests?
rickdugan
11-23-2014, 04:29 PM
I also don't think a man can be a feminist in a SC.
I agree, at least insofar as one subscribes to some of the crazier doctrines of "feminism" floating around out there, including the belief that adult entertainers are really just oppressed victims.
But, of course, one is not a misogynist just because he doesn't fall into the most extreme category of "feminist." I treat the dancers with whom I interact with kindness and respect and many of my favorites become so because they are worthy of that respect. IME there are many other customers who do the same, even if clubs also attract their share of misogynists and other problem types.
MrMike1952
11-23-2014, 04:34 PM
I don't think it's hypocritical or crazy at all to label yourself, as either a sex worker or a customer of sex work, as a feminist. If you respect yourself as a woman and what you are doing and are doing it from choice, and believe that all other women have the right to make their own choices regarding their sexuality and what they want to do with it - for profit or not - then you're a feminist. If you respect the women who are doing it with the same mindset as a customer, then you're a feminist. I need to quote someone from my facebook friends, because it fits so perfectly: "A woman sexualizing her own body on her own terms is not the same as someone else sexualizing a woman's body at her expense. It is false equivalency to say one is the same as the other." If I choose to get naked on stage or grind on someone during a lapdance, and I have certain boundaries for how they tip me onstage or behave during a lapdance, and they follow them, I am not being exploited and they are not exploiting or disrespecting me. If they cross those boundaries, they are being disrespectful and "non-feminist." But I'm still not inherently "asking for it" by "degrading" myself in the first place by thinking that I can choose to do something with my sexuality, setting boundaries with it, and expecting them to be respected.
If I choose to escort and have sex with my clients, I'm fine with that, I don't feel exploited or disrespected, and the men I deal with generally don't cross boundaries and are very respectful of me as a fellow human being. However, if I'm in a SC, and I've only agreed to a lapdance, trying to lick my nipples in that scenario is NOT ok.
Or, for a more real-world, recent example: Taking nude pictures of yourself is not inherently degrading. Sharing it with those you choose to, whether that's your SO or the whole internet, is not inherently degrading, because you are wanting to share that sexuality with others. Someone else taking those pictures without your permission and sharing them with others that you did not approve of, is not ok.
Bottom line being that choosing to sexualize yourself in a certain way and share it with certain people, or choosing to be one of the people they share it with while respecting the boundaries they've set in whatever the situation is, is not contradictory to women's equality. In fact, it's the very definition of believing that people - even women - should be allowed to do what they want with their own body and have control over the situation without shame or punishment.
I doubt anyone would say that you're "not feminist" if you believe that a woman should be able to have casual sex but be not labeled a slut or "setting women back," and that her actions don't mean that she can't be raped because of some weird view of being a "loose woman anyway." (Or, people would never say that a man who has casual sex with a woman is "not feminist" because he's participating in her "degrading" herself). I don't know why people get so hung up on the sex industry and thinking it's so much different and contradictory to say that you can take your clothes off for money but that doesn't mean that you're inherently degrading the view of women or can't expect respect of boundaries from men even in that situation. (Or that men who follow those boundaries and everyone is happy, are still "degrading" women by participating anyway). Same damn thing.
Extra thanks for this post.
I especially appreciate this quotation:
"A woman sexualizing her own body on her own terms is not the same as someone else sexualizing a woman's body at her expense. It is false equivalency to say one is the same as the other."
The other side of the argument, I guess, would be that women who believe that they choose to sexualize their bodies for profit are responding to societal pressures and stereotypes, and are not making an authentic choice. I do not believe that, myself, so I guess it follows that I can be a feminist, as long as I treat the performers with respect.
Thank you.
MrMike1952
11-23-2014, 04:37 PM
^Well, having respect for women and their rights in any environment, strip club or otherwise, is great. But, if someone said this to me inside the club I would probably dismiss it as a passing comment, much in the same way I dismiss men saying things like "I'm a lesbian" as a joke/passing comment.
I don't think I would ask the question in a club.
OliveJardin
11-23-2014, 04:45 PM
I'm really sad to see so many people saying it's impossible for men to be feminists. Why is it impossible for men to be supportive of women?
^It's not impossible for men to be supportive of women, pro-feminism or pro-women's rights at all. It's just the term "feminist" kind of excludes men as society doesn't recognise non females as "feminists" (much in the same way people often argue that sex workers can't be feminists due to their line of work. It's not impossible for us to be pro-women's right, society just doesn't group the two together).
You are right though, feminism does receive a bad rap (people don't take it seriously, which is a shame) and Emma Watson's speech was very powerful and necessary.
OliveJardin
11-23-2014, 04:51 PM
I don't think I would ask the question in a club.
^OP, I was honestly unsure about how "serious" your question was when I replied. But, it's not a topic you can't mention in a conversation. If you have rapport with the dancer the topic wouldn't be unacceptable seeing as your question wasn't offensive etc.
MrMike1952
11-23-2014, 05:07 PM
^OP, I was honestly unsure about how "serious" your question was when I replied. But, it's not a topic you can't mention in a conversation. If you have rapport with the dancer the topic wouldn't be unacceptable seeing as your question wasn't offensive etc.
I think I would have to have gotten to know the dancer awfully well. And I actually cannot think of any strippers I've gotten to know who would self-identify as feminists.
The ones I like are very effective at demanding respect, though.
But even if you have a good rapport, I think it would be a difficult question for a dancer to answer. She has to be careful not to say something that loses a good paying customer, after all.
I did have a version of the conversation with a bartender who is also a physics major, but that's a different relationship.
I am surprised at the conflict I seem to have stirred up, but I appreciate all who have tried to give me thoughtful answers.
miss.a.p1600
11-23-2014, 06:06 PM
I don't think I can agree that a requirement should be to buy the highest price service available. One can be a feminist, go to strip clubs, but live under financial constraints.
I totally understand not every guy is well of financially. So it's better to spend in line with what one can afford even if that means only 1 dance vs. being miserly in the club.
I am open to negotiating my prices. I have a range so when a customer asks for a dance below my negotiation range, then tries to convince me others are dancing for bottom basement prices is when I start to get irritated and exit the conversation. Thats what I mean by haggling the price.
I do struggle with the not asking personal questions. I do see that message on here a lot. On the other hand, part of seeing a dancer as a human can be an interest in her as a human. And I generally get more enjoyment from a lap dance from a woman who I feel like I know something about - where there is some illusion of a personal connection.
And it does seem that at least some dancers are proud to talk about their children or their education or their plans.
Makes sense here too. Its okay to ask questions during conversation that help build connection But I mean the guys who ask personal data questions that can be used to discover real identity like "so....whats your REAL name?" or 'Where do you live?" or "what school does your kid go to?" like stalker-type questions.
pinups4
11-23-2014, 06:11 PM
I am not a feminist in that sense....but I am personally proud of my dancer friends, amazed by them!
They don't believe it, even the ones I'm close with. I understand, it's hard to see a guy come in and spend money to see boobs and then say he's a gentleman, but...it can be true. In my case, I'd tip (some of them) even without the dances, because I like them.
Whether they like me for real, well, case by case I guess. lol
MrMike1952
11-23-2014, 06:33 PM
I totally understand not every guy is well of financially. So it's better to spend in line with what one can afford even if that means only 1 dance vs. being miserly in the club.
I don't mind spending, but I read the post as saying I had to buy a VIP. I usually spend at least a hundred on lap dances, or more depending on my money situation. But I'm never going to be the biggest spender.
I am open to negotiating my prices. I have a range so when a customer asks for a dance below my negotiation range, then tries to convince me others are dancing for bottom basement prices is when I start to get irritated and exit the conversation. Thats what I mean by haggling the price.
I can certainly understand that citing other discount dancers would be particularly offensive. I don't mind paying the standard rate, which is $20 for a lapdance in my favorite club. I almost always leave add a tip.
Makes sense here too. Its okay to ask questions during conversation that help build connection But I mean the guys who ask personal data questions that can be used to discover real identity like "so....whats your REAL name?" or 'Where do you live?" or "what school does your kid go to?" like stalker-type questions.
I understand
Hopper
11-23-2014, 07:30 PM
Hopper what industry are you in & did your mom work? Your thought that women really want to taken care of at this time in life is crazy. I can tell you from my experience I've met the opposite & that's coming from dating a few women that didn't want children & a growing up with a mom that was a high profile stockbroker.
My mother worked in our family's business and also did the housework.
I am not saying that women want to be taken care of, I am saying they want to take care of their families and their homes. The husband works outside the home to earn the family's income and the wife works at home directly taking care of the family and home. Some people say the opposite: Women stay at home so they can take care of their husbands and kids. Both are wrong: Husband and wife both take care of each other.
I'm not talking about my own ideas. I'm talking about what women are doing and what feminists say about it. This is not all women. I said that a minority of women now are choosing to be stay-home mothers and that the number has recently been increasing.
Hopper just wondering, do you know what red pill is?
Yes. A website for male feminists. From the site's Introduction:
Feminism was inevitable. Equal rights are something I strongly am in support of. For men and women.
Women have the right to pursue happiness. Nobody should tell them otherwise. Maximizing happiness is the goal of every living creature on this planet.
Men, we need to recognize that since women are rightfully seeking out happiness, evolutionary psychology is more relevant today than ever in the past century. (and possibly longer). We no longer run the show. And I, for one, don't disagree that marriage had to change if we were to see equal rights.
http://www.reddit.com/r/TheRedPill/comments/12v1hf/almost_a_hundred_subscribers_welcome_newcomers/
I don't think the OP was speaking about being some kind of hardcore, protesting feminist writing scholarly articles...
I wasn't addressing the OP. It was the sociologists here who told me that I can't understand feminism unless I am a sociologist too, though they don't think the feminists responding to the OP have to be sociologists to BE feminists.
seriously Hopper, you just love to come here and argue everything to death with us strippers, and it's bloody annoying. You are completely closed off and not interested in learning from any of the counter arguments presented on this forum.
I have not argued with every feminist dancer who posted here. The ones I did respond to responded to my comments first. A few times, they asked me to respond.
BTW, it takes two to argue.
Justanothercamgirl said it right in that feminism is like religion, there are many different facets of it, extremists and liberals, contradicting beliefs--
I'm not talking about the extremists. The feminists I quoted regarding housewives are mainstream.
but you cannot argue that the core argument of feminism isn't a desire for equality and respect for women. If you look at the Oxford Dictionary the basic definition is "the advocacy of women’s rights on the ground of the equality of the sexes." The whole point of this thread is whether or not an SC customer can support basic feminist beliefs, and I don't see a contradiction.
Most people think that feminism is only about giving women who want careers the right have them. Feminist leaders have also have often couched their demands in these terms. Yet at the same time feminist commentary has always consistently implied, and often explicitly stated, that the role of housewife is inherently oppressive. They don't just want women to have the right to enter careers, they think women should enter careers. Women already do have the right to enter careers. Feminists are complaining that not enough women choose to have careers.
The quotes I posted from some of the founders of the feminist movement indicate that mainstream feminism has a specific concept of rights and equality for women which requires them all to leave the home and enter the workplace. The Economist articles I mentioned make the same assumption (though it's not stated). They imply that all women need to enter the workplace. At the time of writing, women were 50% of the workforce.
The responses from feminists in this thread back it up too. I mentioned that there is a trend for more women to become housewives and the feminists here couldn't believe it. (Unbeleavable said I am crazy, probably because my mother isn't a stockbroker.) Presumably they thought that there is something fundamentally wrong with being a housewife.
This is the source of the confusion: The feminists here believe that the role of housewife is oppressive, yet they have also been led to believe that feminism is about freedom for women. So when proof is provided that some women want to be housewives, they go into conflict. They don't want to disrespect a woman's choice, because that would be anti-feminist. So they back up and switch to denying that feminists ever had a problem with women being housewives, even though they did themselves up until thirty seconds prior, and accuse me of not understanding feminism.
I have no interest to go back and forth with you for 5 pages as you try to pull all my words apart, so I'm out.
Thank you anyway for stopping to pull my words apart.
unbeleavable
11-23-2014, 08:06 PM
Hopper why are you trying to put up stats if you are speaking about a minority? Divorce rates are at it's all time high & women that I talk to don't want to rely on a man.
Hopper
11-23-2014, 08:37 PM
Hopper why are you trying to put up stats if you are speaking about a minority? Divorce rates are at it's all time high & women that I talk to don't want to rely on a man.
The women who wish to be housewives are in the minority, but the number is increasing. Hence women may be swinging back toward domesticity. Don't forget that for several generations now, young women have been educated to believe that the role of housewife is undesirable and have been encouraged from high-school age to enter careers.
My only argument is that the role of housewife and stay-home mother is both a practical and potentially fulfilling one. I am not saying anything about how many women should choose to be housewives.
However, we got off of the housewife issue and onto debating feminist ideology.
If a husband doesn't make a sufficient income, the woman may have to get a job or replace him as income-earner. It is not a reason not to marry or have children at all.
The rate of successful marriages is another issue.
unbeleavable
11-23-2014, 08:57 PM
I think we can agree to disagree about your numbers but we can agree that an equal rights for women is the definition.
loveshooks
11-23-2014, 11:10 PM
Can I ask how you come down on the issue of asking the dancers about their lives and interests?
again, I suspect you might be overthinking your approach a little. if in your day to day life you don't have issues with people finding you intrusive or offensive you'll do just fine in the club.
I love talking, so while in the club I'm there mostly to dance (and have chicas dance for me), sometimes on weekends my husband, a local friend who shares my proclivities and I take our favs out to the beach. There, yeah, I get into some wicked on-the-clock convos. I wish I could do more of that tbh, but most of the dancers and escorts here are from the DR and many don't speak english. My spanish is still a work in progress :( I prefer dancers from JA for that reason, I want to be able to talk to the chica who's helping to make my night awesome.
the women here who work the clubs are all from neighboring islands. They arrive and work for a couple of months before returning home, so I don't get the chance to see the chicas I really vibe with all that much before they leave. That means every few months it's brand new all over again though, so I'm totally accustomed to the 'interacting with new dancers' thing. It's a little different going in as a couple so my experience in that regard may not be all that relevant to you, but as a sex worker myself I can offer a few tips. If you're concerned about boundaries when it comes to talking, I'd suggest prob the three top questions to avoid with a chica (particularly with one you're just getting to know) are the following:
1) what's your real name? (if she wanted to tell you she would, asking that just forces her to insult your intelligence by making up a new lie)
2) does your husband/boyfriend know you do this? (she may not want to discuss her personal life, beyond that it's a cliche that she hears every. damn. minute.)
3) do you have any kids? (I actually ask this one a lot, as the chicas tend to ask that of me first. It would feel rude not to respond with equal interest so I do, but to me there's just something odd about a dude asking about kids in a sexual environment. I get skeeved out when a brand new client asks me if I have kids; why is he thinking about children while his dick is hard?!? with a long term client it's a different story of course)
Beyond that, recognize that her time has a value and that what you're paying her for isn't an 'act' per se but her company. If she's entertaining you with her conversation that's a service of value, a service worth paying for.
for real Mike, stop analyzing and just go have some fun :)
as an aside, holy fuck this thread contains some wicked writing. uppity chicas for the win
michaelleeweb
11-24-2014, 02:02 AM
away some pic
MrMike1952
11-24-2014, 08:51 PM
again, I suspect you might be overthinking your approach a little. if in your day to day life you don't have issues with people finding you intrusive or offensive you'll do just fine in the club.
I love talking, so while in the club I'm there mostly to dance (and have chicas dance for me), sometimes on weekends my husband, a local friend who shares my proclivities and I take our favs out to the beach. There, yeah, I get into some wicked on-the-clock convos. I wish I could do more of that tbh, but most of the dancers and escorts here are from the DR and many don't speak english. My spanish is still a work in progress :( I prefer dancers from JA for that reason, I want to be able to talk to the chica who's helping to make my night awesome.
the women here who work the clubs are all from neighboring islands. They arrive and work for a couple of months before returning home, so I don't get the chance to see the chicas I really vibe with all that much before they leave. That means every few months it's brand new all over again though, so I'm totally accustomed to the 'interacting with new dancers' thing. It's a little different going in as a couple so my experience in that regard may not be all that relevant to you, but as a sex worker myself I can offer a few tips. If you're concerned about boundaries when it comes to talking, I'd suggest prob the three top questions to avoid with a chica (particularly with one you're just getting to know) are the following:
1) what's your real name? (if she wanted to tell you she would, asking that just forces her to insult your intelligence by making up a new lie)
2) does your husband/boyfriend know you do this? (she may not want to discuss her personal life, beyond that it's a cliche that she hears every. damn. minute.)
3) do you have any kids? (I actually ask this one a lot, as the chicas tend to ask that of me first. It would feel rude not to respond with equal interest so I do, but to me there's just something odd about a dude asking about kids in a sexual environment. I get skeeved out when a brand new client asks me if I have kids; why is he thinking about children while his dick is hard?!? with a long term client it's a different story of course)
Beyond that, recognize that her time has a value and that what you're paying her for isn't an 'act' per se but her company. If she's entertaining you with her conversation that's a service of value, a service worth paying for.
for real Mike, stop analyzing and just go have some fun :)
as an aside, holy fuck this thread contains some wicked writing. uppity chicas for the win
You sound like a lot of fun. And smart
I get it about the first two questions, although I always thought its the customers who need the fake names.
As for the kids, well, I talk about my grandson.
audrey_k
11-25-2014, 08:57 AM
^It's not impossible for men to be supportive of women, pro-feminism or pro-women's rights at all. It's just the term "feminist" kind of excludes men as society doesn't recognise non females as "feminists" (much in the same way people often argue that sex workers can't be feminists due to their line of work. It's not impossible for us to be pro-women's right, society just doesn't group the two together).
You are right though, feminism does receive a bad rap (people don't take it seriously, which is a shame) and Emma Watson's speech was very powerful and necessary.
39763
kirakonstantin
11-26-2014, 06:12 AM
Not a feminist myself. I used to be until I realized that the current wave doesn't support sex workers, trans women or women who make choices they don't like, in regard to religion and politics. They're more interested in yelling about their preferred pronouns than actually helping a woman.
I don't care if a customer is a feminist. I care that he has money and wants to spend it on me
unbeleavable
11-26-2014, 06:28 AM
It is interesting to see definitions from women. I talk to another that was a feminist until she had 2 boys. She wants her boys to have chivalry towards women & She thinks the movement lost that.
Hopper
11-26-2014, 06:40 AM
^It's not impossible for men to be supportive of women, pro-feminism or pro-women's rights at all. It's just the term "feminist" kind of excludes men as society doesn't recognise non females as "feminists" (much in the same way people often argue that sex workers can't be feminists due to their line of work. It's not impossible for us to be pro-women's right, society just doesn't group the two together).
Men wrote the book on feminism.
William Thompson (with Anna Wheeler), Appeal of One Half the Human Race, Women, Against the Pretensions of the Other Half, Men, to Retain Them in Political, and thence in Civil and Domestic Slavery, 1825
(Title speaks for itself. Thompson was an influence on Karl Marx.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Thompson_%28philosopher%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Wheeler_%28author%29
Karl Marx and Frederich Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848 ), Chapter II:
"Abolition of the family! Even the most radical flare up at this infamous proposal of the Communists. ...
The bourgeois sees his wife a mere instrument of production. He hears that the instruments of production are to be exploited in common, and, naturally, can come to no other conclusion that the lot of being common to all will likewise fall to the women.
He has not even a suspicion that the real point aimed at is to do away with the status of women as mere instruments of production."
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch01.htm#007
John Stuart Mill, The Subjection of Women, 1869:
"I deny that any one knows or can know, the nature of the two sexes, as long as they have only been seen in their present relation to one another. Until conditions of equality exist, no one can possibly assess the natural differences between women and men, distorted as they have been. What is natural to the two sexes can only be found out by allowing both to develop and use their faculties freely."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Subjection_of_Women
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Subjection_of_Women
Frederich Engels, The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State, 1884
Primitive communism was based in the matrilineal clan where women lived with their classificatory sisters – applying the principle that "my sister’s child is my child". This kinship solidarity empowered women to take action against uncooperative males. Engels identified the "world historic defeat of the female sex" – the switch from what he called "mother-right" to "father-right" – with the onset of farming and pastoralism. This shift from matrilocality to patrilocality manifested itself in men's increased control in the home. Engels wrote: "The man took command in the home also."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Origin_of_the_Family,_Private_Property_and_the _State
V.I. Lenin, The Task of the Working Women's Movement in the Soviet Republic, 1919:
" We must now say proudly and without any exaggeration that apart from Soviet Russia, there is not a country in the world where women enjoy full equality and where women are not placed in the humiliating position felt particularly in day-to-day family life. This is one of our first and most important tasks.... Housework is the most unproductive, the most barbarous and the most arduous work a woman can do. It is exceptionally petty and does not include anything that would in any way promote the development of the woman...The building of socialism will begin only when we have achieved the complete equality of women and when we undertake the new work together with women who have been emancipated from that petty stultifying, unproductive work.... We are setting up model institutions, dining-rooms and nurseries, that will emancipate women from housework.... These institutions that liberate women from their position as household slaves are springing up where it is in any way possible."
V.I. Lenin, International Working Women's Day Speech , 1920:
"The chief thing is to get women to take part in socially productive labor, to liberate them from 'domestic slavery,' to free them from their stupefying and humiliating subjugation to the eternal drudgery of the kitchen and the nursery. This struggle will be a long one, and it demands a radical reconstruction, both of social technique and of morale. But it will end in the complete triumph of Communism."
William Z. Foster, Toward Soviet America (1932), Chapter V, Section 8:
"The so-called freedom of the American woman is a myth. Either she is a gilded butterfly bourgeois parasite or she is an oppressed slave.
The life of the working class woman and poor farmer’s wife is one of drudgery and exploitation. Capitalism sees in her mainly a breeder of wage slaves and soldiers. The boasted American home, enslaving the woman through her economic inferiority and her children, makes her dependent upon her husband."
http://www.marxists.org/archive/foster/1932/toward/
kirakonstantin
11-26-2014, 06:49 AM
Hopper... are you fucking kidding me?
rickdugan
11-26-2014, 07:13 AM
Hopper... are you fucking kidding me?
LOL. Sadly, I don't think that he is.
Now I haven't seen things in Russia firsthand, but the things that I've heard and read lead me to believe that women's rights are not much of a priority there.
Hopper
11-26-2014, 07:14 AM
Jeremy Bentham
The English utilitarian and classical liberal philosopher Jeremy Bentham said that it was the placing of women in a legally inferior position that made him choose the career of a reformist at the age of eleven. Bentham spoke for complete equality between sexes including the rights to vote and to participate in government. He opposed the asymmetrical sexual moral standards between men and women.
In his Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (1781), Bentham strongly condemned many countries' common practice to deny women's rights due to allegedly inferior minds. Bentham gave many examples of able female regents.
Marquis de Condorcet
Nicolas de Condorcet was a mathematician, classical liberal politician, leading French revolutionary, republican, and Voltairean anti-clericalist. He was also a fierce defender of human rights, including the equality of women and the abolition of slavery, unusual for the 1780s. He advocated for women's suffrage in the new government in 1790 with De l'admission des femmes au droit de cité (For the Admission to the Rights of Citizenship For Women) and an article for Journal de la Société de 1789.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_feminism
Hopper
11-26-2014, 07:19 AM
LOL. Sadly, I don't think that he is.
Now I haven't seen things in Russia firsthand, but the things that I've heard and read lead me to believe that women's rights are not much of a priority there.
I didn't say it works in practice. I'm not a feminist.
kirakonstantin
11-26-2014, 07:24 AM
I have. Communist feminism was designed to remove women from unproductive domestic labor and force them into productive labor for the state. Let's not kid ourselves that women worked in offices either... It also separated children from parents earlier, allowing the government to begin indoctrinating them at an earlier age.
kirakonstantin
11-26-2014, 07:25 AM
There's a LOT of things you're not, dude.
Hopper
11-26-2014, 07:43 AM
I have. Communist feminism was designed to remove women from unproductive domestic labor and force them into productive labor for the state. Let's not kid ourselves that women worked in offices either... It also separated children from parents earlier, allowing the government to begin indoctrinating them at an earlier age.
Western governments or corporations would never want to do that.
It's probably just a coincidence then that Betty Friedan was a an active member of the CPUSA until her mid-30's (mid-1950's).
http://www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/50s/friedan-per-horowitz.html
kirakonstantin
11-26-2014, 07:47 AM
Western governments or corporations would never want to do that.
They certainly aren't making it illegal not to have a job. Seriously, that was a thing. You missed too much work or lost your job and they'd send you to gulag.
Hopper
11-26-2014, 07:57 AM
They certainly aren't making it illegal not to have a job. Seriously, that was a thing. You missed too much work or lost your job and they'd send you to gulag.
There are other forms of coercion besides force, such as social conditioning, which is what feminism is used for. Result: Women now make up 50% of the workforce.
Feminists reduced tax breaks for single-income families and eliminated the "family wage", i.e. higher wages for sole-earner family members. They introduced "no-fault" divorce laws, making it easier for husbands to divorce their wives, forcing them to work to support themselves.
Is it such a coincidence that the first feminists were men? Feminism has been good for us.
kirakonstantin
11-26-2014, 08:13 AM
Oh Hopper. My apologies for not realizing how truly oppressed you are. My God in heaven... They took a tax break away and didn't reward you for being so privileged to afford to raise a family on one income. My uncle, who ended up nearly dying because he was afraid to take time off of work as a miner when he had pneumonia, has nothing on you. Nor do those families who didn't have the luxury of a secondary education, got outsourced or downsized, etc. and both parents have to work to make ends meet.
Dude, you totally win the Opression Olympics.
SweetJulia
11-26-2014, 08:16 AM
I've gotta stop reading Customer Conversation threads...................
Hopper
11-26-2014, 08:21 AM
Oh Hopper. My apologies for not realizing how truly oppressed you are. My God in heaven... They took a tax break away and didn't reward you for being so privileged to afford to raise a family on one income. My uncle, who ended up nearly dying because he was afraid to take time off of work as a miner when he had pneumonia, has nothing on you. Nor do those families who didn't have the luxury of a secondary education, got outsourced or downsized, etc. and both parents have to work to make ends meet.
Dude, you totally win the Opression Olympics.
I'm not saying men are oppressed. You missed the point: Tax breaks for single-income families make it easier for wives to work at home if they choose to. But eh, if you think no woman would choose that, then perhaps the Soviets didn't need the gulags.
Simone de Beauvoir, pioneer of second-wave feminism:
"A parasite sucking out the living strength of another organism...the [housewife's] labor does not even tend toward the creation of anything durable.... [W]oman's work within the home [is] not directly useful to society, produces nothing. [The housewife] is subordinate, secondary, parasitic. It is for their common welfare that the situation must be altered by prohibiting marriage as a 'career' for woman." - Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1949.
"[A]s long as the family and the myth of the family and the myth of maternity and the maternal instinct are not destroyed, women will still be oppressed.... No woman should be authorized to stay at home and raise her children. Society should be totally different. Women should not have that choice, precisely because if there is such a choice, too many women will make that one. It is a way of forcing women in a certain direction." - Simone de Beauvoir, "Sex, Society, and the Female Dilemma," Saturday Review, June 14, 1975.
Sounds a bit like Western feminists do agree with the Soviets. Simone de Beauvoir was a socialist.
rickdugan
11-26-2014, 08:25 AM
Hopper, I believe that Kira's point was that the authors that you quoted were not advocating the same brand of feminism as commonly sought by the feminists here in the good ol' US of A. Their versions seemed more like propaganda really designed to shift subjugation of women from their households/families to the state, rather than any true liberation of those women.
But I'll also admit that many of the more vocal feminists that I've met were also very left leaning in their ideologies. Truth be told this boggles my mind. After all, the very reason why they have the freedom to press their causes forward, openly and without fear of retaliation, is because they live in a free and open society where they have a say in who governs them. Perhaps they don't truly understand what it's like to be a woman in a place where the government controls so many aspects of their everyday lives? Idk.