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Thread: Exploitation and you...

  1. #1
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    Arrow Exploitation and you...

    I was reading an article the other day about exploitation, and it mentioned stripping over and over and over again... I wish I could remember the link.

    What I hear constantly from friends, men and women, that women in this professional are exploiting themselves. "it's so demeaning" or "it's soo sad"

    But aren't we all exploited in one way or another?? I work for a company that hired me because I have skills and talents they wanted to, essentially, exploit - use to their advantage... I use my skill on computers, with production, etc. to make money... but because dancers use their looks to make money, it's considered demeaning? I dunno... I guess I just find it somewhat two-faced.

    here's a definition by Donna Hughes of "sexual exploitation" - and note that stripping is put in the same category as battering, rape, and "trafficking"

    from: http://www.csun.edu/~sm60012/Group%2...%20Project.htm

    The following definition of sexual exploitation is offered by Donna Hughes, a well-known researcher in the area of Women’s Studies and woman’s advocate from the University of Rhode Island, she claims:

    “A practice by which a person achieves sexual gratification, financial gain or advancement through the abuse or exploitation of a person’s sexuality by abrogating that person’s human right to dignity, equality, autonomy, and physical and mental well-being; i.e. trafficking, prostitution, prostitution tourism, mail-order-bride trade, pornography, stripping, battering, incest, rape and sexual harassment. Sexual exploitation preys on women and children made vulnerable by poverty and economic development policies and practices; refugee and displaced persons; and on women in the migrating process. Sexual exploitation eroticizes women’s inequality and is a vehicle for racism and "first world" domination, disproportionately victimizing minority and "third world" women. Sexual exploitation violates the human rights of anyone subjected to it, whether female or male, adult or child, Northern or Southern.”

    So clearly Donna Hughes believes that managers/owners of strip clubs are sexually exploiting you for their financial gain by eliminating your "human right to dignity, equality, autonomy, and physical and mental well-being"..

    So, I'm just curious as to what both customers and dancers feel about this view, or what do you say to those you constantly say "it's so sad", or "it's so demeaning"... because, as an occasional customer, I take offense to it also.



    Note to Jay & FBR: I wasn't sure if this would be best posted here, or the lounge... so, if it's out of context, feel free to move. I won't scream and kick too much

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    Default Re: Exploitation and you...

    i don't feel exploited in a negative way at work. i love my job, i love dancing and meeting new people and having fun... and getting paid for it! i know that a lot of girls at my club feel that their work is degrading, but these are the same girls who are fired once a week for extras... those of us who keep it clean, don't get smashed on drugs or alcohol, and have a good time don't seem to have as much moral dilemnas with our job.

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    Default Re: Exploitation and you...

    Not feeling very exploited here.

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    Default Re: Exploitation and you...

    I've thought about this myself. I've heard people make comments about strippers being used for their body. Yet somehow those same people didn't find it insulting that she was being used to do data entry for 40 hours a week for a HELLUVA lot less money than she's making dancing.

    Given the choice between being used and well paid for it, and being used and given peanuts for wages, I'll take the high paying exploitation anyday.

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    Default Re: Exploitation and you...

    I beleive sexual exploitation only exists if a person is being forced to do something against their will. When a 12 year old girl in Costa Rica is sold into sex slavery that is sexual exploitation. If a grown woman decides to become an escort, controls her own money and no one is holding a gun to her head, she is not being exploited.

    Stripping can be a very hard job but I've never seen a woman dragged into a club off the street and forced to dance in a strip club. By nature of the business Club owners-usualy men- profit from a womans body. Since a woman needs a venue in order to participate in the profession being an exotic dancer this is unavoidable.

    As for the degradation or loss of respect, dignity, equality et al. I would submit that these are internal qualities that all people deal with on a personal level. Self respect is ours to nurture. Bosses, club owners, pimps, slave traders, not even authors with an axe to grind can take that away.

    I don't mean to oversimplify things here but I've known dozens of women in all aspects of the sex industry over the years and the vast majority of them where intelligent, well-adjusted, strong, and in control of their money and their destiny.
    Last edited by yoda57us; 12-17-2004 at 05:39 PM.
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    Default Re: Exploitation and you...

    What research pod beatniks like Ms. Hughes don't seem to understand is that "exploitation" doesn't mean a hill of beans to people who are trying to make ends meet. Precisely why this Macdworkin propaganda coming out of most university women's studies departments isn't worth the paper that its written on.

    I'm sure that the overwhelming majority of our gals here feel the monetary benefits that dancing has provided them more than compensate for the downsides of the business. Otherwise there would have been no purpose in dedicating a website to bettering themselves at it.
    Former SCJ now in rehab.

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    Default Re: Exploitation and you...

    see my answer under the blue site fem bot , objectification ect.
    Aut Pax Aut Bellum
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    Default Re: Exploitation and you...

    Someone please tell me I'm not the only one old enough to remember who Donna Hughes is best remembered for?

    I'll give the rest of you a hint; her maiden name was Rice.



    ( CO dons his dork, geek, history-magnate cap )
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    Default Re: Exploitation and you...

    LOL! Imagine Donna Rice writing something like that I guess the publicity she got eventually left a bad taste in her mouth? Or perhaps she didn't age well and could no longer use her sexuality to her advantage, so she decided that to do so is to be demeaned? LOL

    I dunno, I don't feel terribly expoloited as a stripper. I choose to do it, I set my own standards and use what I have (both physical and mental) to earn a damn good living and put myself in a financial position I never would have been otherwise, at least not at my age. There are negatives in this business, but there are negatives in any business. I have a hard time believing the negatives in this business are any worse than those in any other when looked at in perspective and compared objectively rather than subjectively.

    Quote Originally Posted by pheno View Post
    When you lead a nontraditional life don't try to measure it with traditional milestones.

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    Default Re: Exploitation and you...

    Quote Originally Posted by Bridgette
    I dunno, I don't feel terribly expoloited as a stripper.
    and conversely, I don't feel terribly exploited as a customer

    Quote Originally Posted by Bridgette
    I have a hard time believing the negatives in this business are any worse than those in any other when looked at in perspective and compared objectively rather than subjectively.
    Exactly my point

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    Default Re: Exploitation and you...

    Quote Originally Posted by Casual Observer
    Someone please tell me I'm not the only one old enough to remember who Donna Hughes is best remembered for?

    ( CO dons his dork, geek, history-magnate cap )
    lol CO... I should have guessed... the mental giant unveils his knowledge once again

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    Default Re: Exploitation and you...

    Quote Originally Posted by doc-catfish
    I'm sure that the overwhelming majority of our gals here feel the monetary benefits that dancing has provided them more than compensate for the downsides of the business. Otherwise there would have been no purpose in dedicating a website to bettering themselves at it.
    and my point is, there is a downside to every business.... the fact that the women (and men) in this business take off their clothes, makes them "exploited", whereas all us other working folk are "making ends meet", or "are successful"... seriously, why can't we get past the bible thumping theme of exploitation and realize that the core of any profession isn't any different? Yes, stripping is much more difficult than let's say construction, or fast food service, or management for that matter... but consequently, the pay I would imagine is proportional to the level of "difficulty"... si? verdad?

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    Default Re: Exploitation and you...

    I don't give a damn what she calls it. I am gettin' PAID.

    You wanna see exploitation of my sexuality? I was married to a man who would break things if I didn't have sex with him twice a day. THAT'S exploitation of my sexuality.

    When I was 5, my 15 year old male babysitter molested me repeatedly. THAT'S exploitation.

    Madison Avenue trying to sell cars or beer...telling women they should all be skinny as fuck...that's exploitation.

    Me sharing my time, my humor, my wisdom, and my beautiful body, BY CHOICE, with selected men who think enough of me to pay handsomely for my time? That's what I call having a career I love, and finally making choices about my sexuality.

    Funny, it's okay to give pussy away out of both drawer legs for free, but the minute you charge money for someone to even look at it, it's exploitation.

    I need to stop, I'm not making sense anymore. That chick pisses me off.
    You can create with words. It is as simple and as fast as that. Think it, say it and it will manifest according to your belief.~Iyanla Vanzant

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    Default Re: Exploitation and you...

    Quote Originally Posted by Flame
    Me sharing my time, my humor, my wisdom, and my beautiful body, BY CHOICE, with selected men who think enough of me to pay handsomely for my time? That's what I call having a career I love, and finally making choices about my sexuality.

    Funny, it's okay to give pussy away out of both drawer legs for free, but the minute you charge money for someone to even look at it, it's exploitation.
    Hell yeah

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    Default Re: Exploitation and you...

    ^ JZ makes me feel OK about it though. Us senior citizen SCJers have to hang together--or we get lost in the mall.

    What I hear constantly from friends, men and women, that women in this professional are exploiting themselves.
    But that's the thing, isn't it? If these supposed "womens' advocates" viewed women as exploiting a resource or capability that they themselves possessed, they wouldn't be complaining. Otherwise, I think B hit the target, and I'll paraphrase it with one of my favorite observations about women:

    The only thing women hate more than being a sexual object is not being a sexual object.
    Idealism is fine, but as it approaches reality, the costs become prohibitive.

    William F. Buckley, Jr.

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    Default Re: Exploitation and you...

    Quote Originally Posted by Casual Observer
    Someone please tell me I'm not the only one old enough to remember who Donna Hughes is best remembered for?

    I'll give the rest of you a hint; her maiden name was Rice.



    ( CO dons his dork, geek, history-magnate cap )
    Oh for the love of pete!!! So it's okay to whore for Guess jeans and Gary Hart, and not okay to whore for yourself?( Figuratively speaking of course, I am aware we are talking about strippers and not pros, but I feel the same way about any woman in charge of her money and her pussy. Am I making any sense? I am tired as hell today.)
    You can create with words. It is as simple and as fast as that. Think it, say it and it will manifest according to your belief.~Iyanla Vanzant

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    Default Re: Exploitation and you...

    Quote Originally Posted by A_Guy
    Hell yeah
    I'm going to make a t-shirt that says "I am my own pimp"
    You can create with words. It is as simple and as fast as that. Think it, say it and it will manifest according to your belief.~Iyanla Vanzant

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    Default Re: Exploitation and you...

    Quote Originally Posted by Flame
    I'm going to make a t-shirt that says "I am my own pimp"
    Tight! I want one

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    Default Re: Exploitation and you...

    LOL! I think I'd like one that just says "PIMP". LOL

    Quote Originally Posted by pheno View Post
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    Default Re: Exploitation and you...

    I used to think that dancers, on average, exploited the customers to a small degree, and that management, on average, exploited the dancers to a small degree.

    Now I realize that it's not quite that simple.

    I'm glad everyone here feels so confident they are in charge of their own bodies--I wouldn't have expected anything less. Unfortunately, from what I have seen, the dancers and customers here are a lot more enlightened than a lot of people out there, and thus more easily able to resist what "exploitation", or whatever you want to call it, does sometimes occur in the world of stripping.

    I have known managers who hit and physically roughed up dancers (fortunately never in my presence--though one guy came close enough to it, largely in his own defense, to make me realize he eventually would. He wound up giving a dancer friend of mine a black eye while trying to punch his girlfriend, a waitress in the club). I worked with a manager who tried to rape a dancer, and two who knowingly hired underage girls--whom it should be said thought they knew what they were doing, even when they were fucking lots of various guys for drugs.

    Two of the clubs I worked in were owned to a large extent by major motorcycle gangs, a third had a tacit understanding with one and was treated as a secondary gang 'clubhouse' during special events. The dancers who were involved with the bikers had to wear T-shirts that said "PROPERTY OF... (insert name of gang here)".

    The front owner for two of the clubs suggested through the manager that one of the day managers who was female should blow him once a week for 150$ a week. Presumeably she would have been exploiting him, had she taken him up on it, as many others no doubt had. the manager was under investigation in Jacksonville for running a prostitution ring, something I am pretty sure he was doing with a select few of the dancers in our club, though I had no concrete evidence.

    My girlfriend here in Detroit has worked in a club with Russian dancers who are picked up and dropped off by guys who do not seem terribly nice. I have had friends who worked in Miami, and a friend who was manager of several clubs in verious parts of Florida, who were very familiar with the phenomenon of Eastern European women being brought over here, put up in hotels, and closely chaperoned to strip clubs and back. They don't keep their own earnings.

    In the nicest club in the city, if a friend of the owner wants to fuck a dancer and she turns him down, she is fired. A dancer was told by this paragon of virtue that she needed a nose job. She got one from the same surgeon the owner recommended. He took one look at the results the next time he saw her, and fired her immediately.

    In the club my girlfriend is currently working, three of the male employees tried to grab her ass in one night. One was a manager, who has repeatedly tried to hustle her since, though she glared at him and moved away when he tried it. One of the bouncers, after she asked him recently on a slow night who in the club might be spending more, said "The reason you aren't making money is that you aren't giving this up." While he was uttering this profound bit of wisdom he made a serious grab for her cookie, which would have been entirely successful if she hadn't leaped aside.

    His attitude is very common in Detroit, and I'm sure in many places across the country.

    Stupid customers do exist, like the guy who took out a second mortgage on his house to give the money to a dancer I knew (whom it must be said repeatedly asked him if he was sure he isn't spending too much on her, and told him he wasn't going to get to lick her tits or touch them like the other girls in the club do). He was a nasty little pervert, even if he didn't get to slobber on her like he wanted to. She earned every penny trying to fight the guy off her.

    Some customers, as well as dancers, could be being "manipulated", or "exploited". Drugs often play a central role in these power machinations. Like the dancer who paid out several thousand dollars in trumped up fines in the first club I worked in, in the space of about 6 months. She made a lot anyways. The money went right up that manager's nose.

    Girls like the ones my girlfriend and I have both seen, who were fired for fucking (literally) customers more or less openly in VIP, may be "exploiting" the customers, and being "exploited" by the managers who accept "tips", or BJs, to get their jobs back.

    To be sure, the conditions like those that exist on the streets of most major American cities, where prostitutes are forced to turn over their earnings to pimps or get the shit kicked out them, are quite rare in the stripclubs--other than the small minority of Eastern European women dancers in this basic situation, and a smattering of biker girlfriends who are also basically in the same boat.

    And thank the deity of your choice that the vast majority of SW members are in full command of their lives and the conditions of their employment.

    So Donna Rice has gotten bitter and decided that men aren't always so nice, and sometimes use women, especially in certain professions. Just because she used to be a bimbo, and is making a mockery of scientific research, doesn't mean this is a nice business where women are always treated fairly, and always treat their customers fairly in return. Some women are smart enough to turn the flirtation for money game to their advantage. Some aren't.

    This is not always a nice business. Women are often treated as commodities, as are many customers. People use each other far more than in any other business I have been involved in. Call it what you will...
    Last edited by Djoser; 12-18-2004 at 08:21 AM.
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  29. #21
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    Default Re: Exploitation and you...

    I hear people in every industry bitching about being treated as commodities rather than humans. In college business classes, employees are regularly and systematically referred to as "human capital", both in text books and in lectures.

    Personally, this piece of human capital prefers being able to set my own hours, choose my own customers, set my own limits and work where I want. I'll take stripping any day over the alternatives and I still think Ms Donna is full of shit.

    Quote Originally Posted by pheno View Post
    When you lead a nontraditional life don't try to measure it with traditional milestones.

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    Default Re: Exploitation and you...

    Quote Originally Posted by Bridgette
    and I still think Ms Donna is full of shit.
    Brilliantly dismissive, Bridgette.

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    Default Re: Exploitation and you...

    I think it's helpful to keep in mind that all jobs entail doing things that we'd rather not do. That why it's called work. So in a sense, we're all prostituting ourselves. Unless of course, like me, you don't work.
    Friends Of Naked Dancing Ladies (FONDL)

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    Default Re: Exploitation and you...

    So what the heck is wrong with mutual exploitation? I dont spend any money I dont want to. And dancers are there to relieve me of said dollars presumably guilt-free. I think sometimes people make the strip club experience too complicated.

    FBR
    Once again I have embraced my addiction and have put off the moral dilemma to another day.

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    Default Re: Exploitation and you...

    Quote Originally Posted by FBR
    I think sometimes people make the strip club experience too complicated.
    Exactly.

    I just want to go, relax, have a good time, then leave... period

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