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Strip clubs to be banned?


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9 hours ago, topcat(The most tip top) said:

I was at Glasgow University at the same time as Nicola Sturgeon and I can’t remember her ever trying to get off with me

Which fits in with this whole “Secret Lesbian” theory

I was in the same halls of residence and ditto.conclusive 

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Maybe they should take a look at the 10 utterly massive American sweet shops on Princes St that have about 5 customers a day yet somehow keep opening more outlets.
My favourite one in Edinburgh is the car dealer across the road from Wester Hailes Plaza with cars he's trying to "sell" literally parked in bushes.
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11 hours ago, topcat(The most tip top) said:

I was at Glasgow University at the same time as Nicola Sturgeon and I can’t remember her ever trying to get off with me

Which fits in with this whole “Secret Lesbian” theory

I was once in a train carriage with Alec Salmond for almost twenty minutes. Likewise.

He'll never know what he missed.

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  • 3 months later...

Don’t know if it’s new news or recycling what’s already been said but it’s seems Edinburgh Council have offered a way forward - dancers just need to keep their clothes on and stop being sexy. 
 

Spoiler

Keep your clothes on and stop being sexy, Scottish strippers told

Edinburgh Council is using new powers to effectively ban strip clubs ... but it has suggested ways around the venues being forced to close

ByDaniel Sanderson,  SCOTTISH CORRESPONDENT22 July 2022 • 4:04pm
 

Strip club in Edinburgh

Strippers who face losing their jobs because of a ban on adult venues will be able to continue working if they keep their clothes on and stop being sexy, a council has suggested.

Edinburgh Council is using new powers to effectively ban strip clubs in the Scottish capital, following claims they objectify and harm women, with the city’s four existing venues told they must shut down by April next year.

The move has prompted a backlash from the venues, who are planning a legal challenge, and some of the women who work as strippers, who say they face being forced out of lucrative and flexible work.

However, Mandy Watt, the deputy leader of the Labour-run council, claimed that the venues could remain open as long as women did not dance naked.

Sexual entertainment venues (SEV), which the ban applies to, are defined as places with live performances for profit and “for the sole purpose of sexual stimulation of the audience”. 

‘Dancers are not workers’

This is likely to mean that having scantily-clad but not naked dancers performing the same routines would not be enough to escape the ban, and suggests they would have to incorporate elements of dances which were not designed to sexually appealing.

“Dancers are not workers,” Ms Watt said. “It’s not work, they are performers and it is not in the council’s gift to confer workers’ rights on them. Most are self-employed.

“I understand concerns about people losing jobs but the venues could apply to stay open. All they need to do is not insist on women dancing naked. They don’t need to do that to operate.”

She added: “I believe the ban was the right decision because these clubs disempower women. They are not helpful for the view society has of women and their place in the world. I want to see women being treated with respect.”

Edinburgh Council voted in March to set the maximum number of SEVs at zero. Councillors rejected proposals to set the limit at four, meaning no more would be able to open but those that already existed could continue operating.

The Burke & Hare Lap Dancing and Strip Bar in Edinburgh
The Burke & Hare Lap Dancing and Strip Bar in EdinburghCREDIT: Alan Wilson / Alamy Stock Photo

If a legal challenge is not successful, it would be the death knell for the city’s infamous “pubic triangle”, where there are three strip clubs within close proximity to each other.

Campaigners who called for the venues to be shut down claimed there was a link between strip clubs and the abuse, rape and murder of women because they promoted the objectification of women. 

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However, Ms Watt’s comments caused a backlash from sex workers, with a union representing strippers also planning a legal challenge to the council ban.

‘She is doing nothing but pushing women into poverty’

Georgie, a dancer in the city, told the Edinburgh Evening News that stripping was “no different” to other jobs.

She challenged Ms Watt to suggest another job she could perform with the same “autonomy and freedom” and which she could “live off comfortably with a 12-hour week”.

She added: “Until she ensures that every single dancer that will be affected by the loss of Edinburgh’s strip clubs has this same equal and matched opportunity for work, in an industry of their choosing, she is doing nothing but pushing women into poverty and taking away their freedom of choice.

“She may believe she is doing the right thing, but she is at best misguided and at worst using personal bias and morality to speak over the lived experience of women.”

The SNP Government handed Scottish councils new powers to set a minimum number of SEVs, after officially classifying stripping as a “form of violence against women and girls”.

Nicola Sturgeon has backed councils who want to use the powers to ban venues, claiming the “dignity and treatment of women” must be respected.

 

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Agree with above. I couldn't argue with someone like that in a professional capacity because by immediate "who the f**k do you think you are?" Would be treated smugly as aggression and hence argument lost.

The reality is these sorts need to be absolutely roasted by someone, and possibly given at least 1 hiding.

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3 hours ago, carpetmonster said:

I wonder if he was worried about the photographs being published:

Committee chairman Labour Cllr Marley Bennett said he had “agonised” over the decision during sleepless nights

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42 minutes ago, Boo Khaki said:

Hud oan...

Dancing with your clothes on = work

Dancing with your clothes off = not work

How do they come to that conclusion?

Because it's puritanical nonsense.

If you do not wish to see "exotic dancers" then simply do not visit a strip club.

Banning (or at least trying to ban) something because you do not agree with the morality of it should not be entertained.

It's obviously important to make sure the likes of modern slavery or people trafficking is not involved in forcing the dancers to work, but if someone wants to earn money by dancing round a pole in their knickers then they should be able to do so in a safe, regulated environment.

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Councils are weird. I lived near Bromley in the Nineties and there was a front-page scandal in the local paper about the council having to block the opening of a sex shop in the high street - a place where children could be found!  :o

Turned out it would've been a branch of Ann Summers.

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Because it's puritanical nonsense.
If you do not wish to see "exotic dancers" then simply do not visit a strip club.
Banning (or at least trying to ban) something because you do not agree with the morality of it should not be entertained.
It's obviously important to make sure the likes of modern slavery or people trafficking is not involved in forcing the dancers to work, but if someone wants to earn money by dancing round a pole in their knickers then they should be able to do so in a safe, regulated environment.
Seems to be the new way in Scotland at least. Don't bother policing the people who step put of line whilst doing thing, just ban thing for everyone.

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An outbreak of common sense in Bristol. Could it catch on?

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/07/28/dancers-screaming-crying-throwing-joy-bristols-strip-clubs-stay/

Spoiler

Dancers ‘screaming, crying, throwing up with joy’, as Bristol’s strip clubs here to stay

Labour councillors and women's rights groups have long campaigned for the city to follow in Edinburgh's footsteps and prohibit such venues

By Patrick Sawer, Senior News Reporter 28 July 2022 • 9:36pm
Women opposing Bristol council's proposed ban on strip clubs celebrate after it was rejected
Women opposing Bristol council's proposed ban on strip clubs celebrate after it was rejected Credit: ELLIE PIPE/bristol247.com

For years campaigners - including Labour councillors, police and feminist groups - have urged Bristol council to protect women by shutting down the city’s strip clubs.

The only problem for this progressive coalition was that the strippers themselves wanted to carry on shedding their clothes for the entertainment of others.

Adult performers were on Thursday night celebrating after persuading a majority of the city’s council to reject the proposed ban on strip clubs and other sex entertainment venues.

One self-described exotic dancer told the council’s licensing committee that she had taken up work in a strip club when she was unable to make ends meet as a circus performer.

“Stripping has allowed me to have a flexible enough schedule to pursue my dream career while simultaneously enabling me to live a comfortable life - not living in constant stress due to living from paycheck to paycheck,” she said.

Another performer, who gave her name only as Scarlett, said she suffered from chronic pain and fatigue, but stripping had given her a future.

Dancers pictured at Urban Tiger in Bristol. Their livelihoods came under threat after years of campaigning by Labour councillors and women's rights groups to have the city's strip clubs shut down
Dancers pictured at Urban Tiger in Bristol. Their livelihoods came under threat after years of campaigning by Labour councillors and women's rights groups to have the city's strip clubs shut down Credit: Simon Chapman/LNP

“I have never seen a future for myself that didn’t end in poverty, hospitalisation or suicide, because I never thought I would be able to survive in a world designed for neurotypical, mentally well, able-bodied people,” she said.

“Working in strip clubs has made me realise I do have the means to survive, and not only just survive, but provide myself stability and opportunities for the future.”

Such was the strength of feeling among the female dancers and performers that Guy Poultney, a Green Party councillor, received a round of applause when he accused women’s rights groups of arguing that “we should discount the voices of some women in order to empower them and to restrict their choices in the name of equality and take away their jobs for their own good”.

He also said they were acting “as if some women can’t be trusted to make choices for themselves”.

A consortium of women’s rights organisations and community groups had long campaigned for Bristol to follow in the footsteps of Edinburgh and impose a blanket ban on strip clubs.

The city currently has a cap of three strip clubs in the centre, although only two - Urban Tiger and Central Chambers - are currently operating.

Tuesday’s vote was the culmination of a review and two public consultations stretching back three years, with more than 17,000 submissions received by the council.

Katy Taylor, a director at Bristol Women’s Voice, argued that strip clubs and similar venues act as a “gateway into further areas of the sex industry, including prostitution”.

She said they can also be a gateway for men to buy sex, adding: “Research shows that men who buy sex are more likely to hold negative attitudes towards women and to perpetrate sexual and domestic violence.”

Central Chambers
Central Chambers, one of just two strip clubs operating in the city

A representative of a trust set up in memory of Hollie Gazzard, a hairdresser who was stabbed to death by her ex-partner while she was working in 2014, said strip clubs promote “sexist attitudes that can lead to tragic results”.

In the end the council’s licensing committee voted nine to one to maintain the current cap of three licenced sexual entertainment venues (SE), with some councillors arguing that it was better for dancers to have well-regulated establishments rather than forcing strip clubs underground.

The only committee member in favour was Labour’s Philippa Hulme, who said there was a “huge weight of evidence” that strip clubs objectified women and that this was linked to violence against females.

Steve Pearce, the council’s Labour group leader, split with those in his own party backing the ban, stating: “I cannot see how these voices can be speaking for women in this city. The evidence suggests you are more at risk in a city centre pub or club than you are in one of these premises, and evidence would suggest that up until fairly recently you were more at risk in the Oval Office than in one of these clubs.”

Several dancers burst into tears

There was a loud cheer after the motion to maintain the current limit was passed, with several dancers in the public gallery bursting into tears with relief.

Bristol Women’s Collective condemned the council’s decision, stating: “SEVs promote and profit from the sexist culture that underpins male violence. We cannot tackle male violence without addressing this culture.

“Today’s decision gives Bristol’s two strip clubs the green light to exploit the cost-of-living crisis and recruit more young women into the sex industry, and to open the door to sex buying to future generations of young men.”

But the Bristol Sex Worker’s Collective said its members were “screaming, crying, throwing up with joy”.

The group said: “Our members have been organising against this despite precarious working conditions, COVID-19 poverty, and a hostile system that set us up to fail.

“It should never be this difficult for a group of workers to defend our right to safe working conditions.”

It added: “The dancers have been put through an incredible amount of stress over the last two years, not only having to defend their work rights but their humanity.

“They have had to listen while they were blamed for gendered violence. We hope going forward Bristol Council takes this into consideration, and collaborates with the workers to create an SEVs licensing policy that supports their rights, instead of hindering them. Up the f—--- workers.”

 

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Banning (or at least trying to ban) something because you do not agree with the morality of it should not be entertained.

I get where you're coming from, but there are a great many uncontroversial laws in place because we think the activities are immoral. The difference here is that these people's morality is different from yours.
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18 minutes ago, DiegoDiego said:


 


I get where you're coming from, but there are a great many uncontroversial laws in place because we think the activities are immoral. The difference here is that these people's morality is different from yours.

Yeah. CEC should really concentrate on the big injustices if they want to act as morality police. Like why takeaway outlets in the city are still permitted to pander to deviants who ask for pineapple on pizza.

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