We Wish You A Merry Stripmas

So I haven't written for a few weeks, seems the battle has gone a bit quiet but I am still here and still ready to produce work. I went a couple of days ago to the Horns up by Old Street which has turned into my new haunt, needed one since the demise of the Queen Anne and this is starting to feel very comfortable. Wonderful girls who seem to enjoy their work especially at the busier time of year and have to thank especially the girls who did private dances for me, I wouldn't normally but it was a Christmas present from a friend. And there in lies one of the great mysteries on why some guys go, I saw a friend I haven't seen since the Queen Anne and we had an absolute blast catching up on old times. So it reminded me of why I write and what I write for and that is freedom of choice. Dancers and customers both are exploited in some ways by the industry, we know this, we accept this and we don't mind. I can choose to go and dancers can choose to work and if you have the money you can choose to open a club. Also I had a chance to catch up with Chasmal and we had an interesting discussion.

So in the last few months we have seen no activity from Object, facebook, twitter and tumblr have now been inactive over 4 months. Now I may go quiet for a few weeks at times but we are talking months and maybe we are seeing the end of the current spate of stupidity. Now don't get me wrong, the fight is not over, we will always find those that want to create a fuss and try and force their opinions on others especially when it comes to forcing their moral opinions on people. But for the time being the loudest voice against the clubs has been silenced and we can only be grateful for all those who stood up and stood against what was a reincarnation of National Viewers and Listeners Association. Only with a change of focus of course. We will remain vigilant and be ready to fight any and all who come forth with invalid arguments and lousy research.

York Town Hall, one wonders when the word will come out

Many of us will remember the fiascos in terms of consultations over the years. Hackney where the council ignored the two thirds of people who didn't want a nil policy and imposed anyway after a consultation. Tower Hamlets where after a succession of consultation, deliberations and craziness nothing happened including waiting for what seemed like forever for the results the council didn't like. And of course Leeds where when the first consultation was in favour of the clubs the council change the question style to a how many and used that to close clubs and enforce their moral opinion. And now we are waiting for York to come forth with their results, which after more than 3 months since the end of the consultation still are not available. This blog did raise the issue of the style of questions and did get in contact with people in York over this, which is why I am interested in the results as after posting on several forums I was told by more than a handful of people they would be completing the consultation. Now looking at the meetings and agendas etc. for the committee that would deal with the initial discussion about the results we are looking and mid Feb at the earliest which would be around 6 months after the consultation. I have asked the council for a quote about this but at present I haven't received a reply about why the delay, as/when and if this changes obviously I will be happy to let people know.

Apparently one of two beacon venues in Leeds

Now everyone remembers the issues we have had over the years with the constant fight to close clubs in Leeds. That is until now! It seems the renewal of Licenses for Purple Door and Liberte have gone through with absolutely no objections. Paddy Whur, an experienced licensing lawyer who represented Purple Door at the hearing, told committee members: “It’s the first time I have appeared before you without facing any objections. Those who have objected vociferously previously in this particular location have obviously decided this licence doesn't cause any offence.” Approving the application, sub-committee chairman Coun Jack Dunn said: “It would be wrong to probe or to find fault where technically, lawfully, there isn’t any.”. Which apart from the wording seems good news given the history of contentious behaviour in closing 3 venues down. With the failure of Lilith we are seeing the arguments being reduced to opinion pieces and even those have worn so thin that people seem to not want to voice them.

Second Beacon Venue would love to see what they are doing right!

So heading into the new year we have the fall of Object and the surprise of venues not facing objections. We can only hope that the fight we have fought over the last few years has started to ease, however I have no doubt there will be a new back lash in a few years when I am expecting the same tired arguments to resurface but to be honest we know that people will try to push their morals on others and cover that up with designer fad statements. And every time we see a consultation, a license renewal or campaign we will be there to fight. Now on a personal level I would like to see more done to standardise the industry and work to ensure the fair treatment of dancer and customers along with the protection of well run clubs.

Have a wonderful Christmas in case I don't get a chance to write another piece before hand.

TonyN (tonyprince@acdcfan.com)

Well Nothing Exciting Happened BUT

Firstly sorry for being so quiet, I have been working on a pet project that I thought was going to be easy and turns out it is the most impossible concept I have ever had. I will keep working at it but not sure I will ever get an answer that I will be comfortable with sharing. However I felt today I needed to put a couple of things out there, so it has got me back into the flow of things. It is nice to get my head back round the day to day stuff rather than trying to fix the world.

So firstly good luck to @ethicalstripper who is up for a sexual freedom award, this is for her work with ELSC to mobilise change for dancers. She recently gave a view to a parliamentary committee discussing this and other things including Decrim of sex work. Because of the issues with licensing and social stigma it has been almost impossible for dancers to stand with their sex worker sisters because of the stigma that attaches and would feed back to the clubs. In the UK the strip industry has become more and more challenged and a minority of very loud voices has created an environment where clubs cannot allow any touching so clubs police their dancers. On a personal level I would say that any choice a person makes should be treated as valid and not policed by the moral minority.

We should stand together and fight to achieve personal freedoms but the way the industry is policed it makes it a major challenge. I can't think of a dancer I have met over the the last 25 years who would go ewwww and look down on prostitutes but because they don't want to have issues with the clubs they can't come out and say it. All sex workers are stigmatised to one degree or another and many cannot come out and say what they feel because of the judgemental nature of society. So yes TonyN stands up for Decrim because the right for a person to decide what they do with their body is a human right in my very no so humble opinion. Society is busy trying to divide various aspects of the sexual entertainment /adult businesses because they are easier to control if they are fighting each other.

So to all those workers out there no matter what aspect of the sexual entertainment industry you are in remember a divide front is a lot easier to combat. It will put words into others mouths to create a situation where people who should share common ground are pushed apart.

The strip industry needs to have its business practices and regulations reviewed, how this might be affected by Decrim I don't know but both parties dancers and prostitutes share more common ground because of stigma and portrayal by the press and other forms of media. Supporting Decrim should not preclude supporting change in the strip industry given the regulations clubs and dancers currently face. And certainly supporting reviewing and changing the strip industry legislation should not preclude supporting Decrim. I am just a humble man who feels the world has changed but we are still guided by laws written in a time when the church and it's morals had way to much influence on society. If people want to follow a religion I would never deny them that right but society has changed and it is time we recognised that and moved forward.

TonyN (tonyprince@acdcfan.com)

Leeds Redux Mumsnet Strikes Back

So this was a piece I was intending to write after the ELSC exhibitions and performances. However certain feminists have been busy commenting on my flying penis avatar on twitter, which of course would be very easy for me to comment on and mock. But to be honest the way these feminists have been carrying on they need no help from me on creating a highly amusing set of comments. So who are these warriors of truth, justice and the feminist ways? Well it is our good friends on the Mumsnet feminist boards, you know the ones who raise a hue and cry based on beliefs rather that facts. No apologies for the length of this piece nor on the lack of images.

As people who read the blog regularly know I have a fascination with crime figures and when I did a comparison on the Lilith report with a control being Wandsworth and allowing for population changes which Lilith didn't do the figures changed a tad with rape falling over 12 years in Camden and increasing in the control being Wandsworth. So we were seeing pointers towards the fact that any claims of links to sexual violence were in fact a little off. Add to this the figures produced by a local paper in Newquay after a certain Inspector Drummond opened mouth and engaged foot and any claims about the fact that SEVs cause sexual violence seem to have disappeared. However facts can never keep a good Woozle down.

So if people remember I produced figures around every single SEV in England and Wales back in 2012 for the year 2011. Now the methodology wasn't mine but one used by Bristol and Coventry feminists in the campaign against clubs in those areas. They took an arbitrary 50 metres around each club and assumed any and all violent and sexual crimes were linked to the SEV at the centre of the zone, now I have no idea why 50 metres but it does create an image of what happens around SEVs apparently. The methodology was created by Bristol and they passed the figures for Bristol to Coventry Women's Voices for them to use in their campaign. So I had figures for 2011 for the Headrow in Leeds where 2 clubs closed and now the clubs have been clubs long enough that I can do a comparative analysis of what has gone on since the 2 clubs in the area closed, the clubs were fairly close to each other and created overlapping fields of influence so I have taken the two as a single entity.

Looking back at 2011 we saw a grand total of 15 sexual and violent crimes whilst from August 2014 to July 2015 37 violent and sexual crimes in the same area. So 12 months and allowing for any residual impact of the clubs on the area I worked back from the latest date for one year. Not rocket science and to be perfectly honest I am not sure if proves much other than the claims made by radical feminists in an effort to close clubs are not based on any sort of reality. If I was a victim of sexual or violent crime in the Headrow area since the SEVs closed I would be questioning the council about the fact that no impact analysis was done on the closing on venues and losing bouncers and CCTV. I e-mailed the licensing committee to ask if anyone had thought to consider what might happen if the clubs closed and was told the licensing committee had no interest in doing an impact analysis as they could not see any possible reason. And this is where the ignorance created by claiming clubs cause Sexual Violence people will not think that losing CCTV and door staff could possibly have a negative impact.

The fact is after looking at every venue in England and Wales back in 2012 I can be certain that the only places that have localised issues with sexual and violent crimes are night clubs. So I am certain there will be a backlash from this after all this is only a blog and I don't get peer reviewed as I don't publish papers. What I do is look at claims pointing SEVs as being linked to sex crimes. The clubs are no more linked than banks or even women's centres. The claims were made and the fact is the claims have no bearing on reality, so please if you are going to make claims about the clubs please be aware I will be here to double check any claims. I could pick a woman's centre in a locality that has a lot of sexual and violent crimes close by and make the whole thing look incredibly edgy.

One thing that has had me laughing about Mumsnet boards is that one section of the feminists have basically ignored all evidence including Eaves withdrawing Lilith and still believe that SEVs cause localised sexual violence, this might be called cognitive dissonance? And on the other hand some being accepting of the facts are now trying to justify the attitude of close all clubs because they allow men to let off rabid misogyny and come out of the club worse than when they went in. Now apart from the fact there was almost two separate groups of radical feminists with diametrically opposed points of view the thing that I found most funny (apart from the fact I am supposedly crazy enough to post on mumsnet boards posing as a feminist) was that certain people on the board quoting Lilith and associated gems was on the board when Object were forced to remove Lilith from their resources (well played Sausage) so they surely knew what they were saying had no basis in fact but they just couldn't manage to hold back. So the fact that Leeds has such a dramatic change since the club closed it does raise a question why? I will be going back over my 2011 figures and comparing them to clubs that have closed elsewhere and see if the issue is consistent or does it take a large City for this sort of thing to happen?

Finally I know those who accept there isn't a direct link between clubs and sexual violence are already looking for ways to still blame clubs but now the club is a breeding ground of misogyny that will be brought out of the clubs and will affect women everywhere. Interesting that any time one argument fails there seems to be a rush to find another excuse to back the belief system that clubs are evil and need to be eradicated. I am amazed that the belief system refuses to die amongst those who want to close clubs and that claims still rattle out regularly because to actually realise the claims are based on nothing other than a belief and that clubs are not the evil they imagined.

TonyN (tonyprince@acdcfan.com) for flying penises everywhere!

It Is An Ex Lobby Group, It Has Ceased To Be?

Over the years that this blog has been running there has been one thing that has been more consistent than anything else. The fact that Object Now Ltd have been campaigning about striptease and "lapdancing", usually missing most of the facts, at every turn and about every venue. They even had toolkits full of misguided, ill informed and defamatory statements to send to councils. Well I will admit that I was expecting them to haunt every campaign ever since the Guardian framed Anna as the perfect radical feminist, but is seems motherhood changed her drive, either that or Object couldn't afford her any more.

However the existence of Object seems to be a thing of the past as I suppose all good (and bad) things must come to an end. Having looked at their webpages for many a year it was disappointing to go have a look to see what they were up to only to find what is basically an empty page with a log in for the webmaster, now we know that they haven't had much in the way of funding and the money from Joseph Roundtree which covered the money for the CEO ran out this year so what do you do? I was assuming the cost cutting would be so that Object could focus on communicating with the world via facebook and twitter, however twitter and facebook seem to have stopped at the 7th July. I not sure when their tumblr stopped as I have never really tried to figure out timelines on there.

Whoops, well that's not good.

So Object as a company have failed to file both their account and annual returns, the last two transactions were terminations of appointments as directors leaving Roz Hardie as CEO and Company Secretary. I am not sure if Roz has even realised that the accounts and returns are due but given the fact she seems to have sole responsibility for Object as a company I would suggest she is in trouble, not sure that using the same name in both roles apart from the addition of the name Boyd as a director really makes much difference. Does Object even have a future? I am sure that when this is read someone will try to make object look active but over the last couple of years they have had less and less impact and failed to deliver anything other than a jolly to Brazil for Roz, certainly hope that wasn't the last of the funds. And if I donated to Object in the past I would be stopping any standing orders.

Someone needs a new accountant

So who will pick up the slack and become the next object of ridicule? We have seen misleading reports and cherry picked results from various organisations but we are not sure if anyone will take that step forward to become the next voice of stupidity... errrr I mean the next voice of denying women the right to choose... errr the next group to make up stuff to create invalid arguments... errr the next group to running around shouting stuff.... you all get the point. I would put my money on UK Feminista which of course will be the death knell for it as the more object claims were countered the less people wanted to deal with them. The big thing now is all the MPs and councillors who followed Object are going to now wonder why it has ceased to be. Come on Roz make that effort for a couple of weeks. Pretend that Object has some validity left and please file your accounts and returns we dont want you in trouble we want you to lead your followers into battle and shout intelligent slogans like loser and w**ker.

Has Roz been cloning herself?

It is an ex lobby group it has ceased to be, well almost we are waiting on that last gasp.

TonyN (tonyprince@acdcfan.com)

Lets Support 'The Art of Stripping'...

I would be amazed if you haven't heard of the East London Strippers Collective, a group of women, who happen to be dancers, dedicated to fighting not only the negative public perception of the industry, but also highlighting the challenging nature of the work itself.

On 22nd October to 1st November 2015, the ELSC, in conjunction with the Red Gallery in Shoreditch are presenting the 'Art of Stripping, a large scale, multi media event that aims to shed light on the world in which they work. Activities will include....

Costume Making Workshops, Academic Symposium, Life Drawing Classes, Pole Dance Movement Workshop, a Photography Exhibition, Performance and Art Installations but most of all it's going to fun....

It is important to realise and understand that this is a dancer lead event and represents an opportunity for anyone to experience a slice of a cultural phenomenon that has been under attack by the government, by 'feminist' hate groups and by mainstream media as well.

Now, in the time this blog has been in existence, I have not asked anything of any of you. But I am going to now because the event needs sponsorship if it is to succeed. It appears that a number of people made a number of commitments that they were unable to meet and the costs associated with the exhibition have to be met, so I am going to ask you to pause for a minute and consider the following...

Do you support the striptease scene?
Do you support the right of dancers to choose how and when they make a living?
Are you prepared to stand up for your chance to go to one of the diminishing number of venues left in the East End?
Do you agree that the activities of the various 'feminist' groups that have been trying to destroy the scene are completely unacceptable?

If you have answered 'Yes' to any of the above questions, then I want you to follow this link, to an Indiegogo page where you can contribute anything from £2 upwards and help make the 'Art of Stripping' a success.

It is events like this that will help to ensure the pubs, clubs and dancers will remain a feature of the East End, so please make a contribution today. At the time of writing, the campaign has raised £255 out of a target of £8000 and if you think that is a lot, believe me it isn't. The exhibition is going to have the engage the services of a number of professional support services, none of which come cheap.

If you want to know more, you can visit the Red Gallery web page that details the event.

As I said, this blog has never solicited contributions from its readers and supporters. Today, for one time only, we are asking for your help. Let's make this a success and an event to remember...

Finally, in case you're wondering, yes I have made a contribution...

Thanks

Chasmal.

A Letter to a Dancer

I would like to say that this piece has given me more difficulties in writing for it than any other. Not for negative reasons but for the incredible message and image the video this is about shows. I got it wrong so many times and I still don't feel I have done it the justice it deserves. I hope our readers understand the where and why and take my words for the positive message I hope they send.

A fascinating video has appeared on Nowness (here) there is an interview underneath which I hope everyone will go and read.. The dancing shows the amazing physicality of dancers whilst the sound track is the reading of a letter written by a customer who favours a particular dancer. The emotional context of a customer expressing his reaction to the "beauty" of dancer does highlight several points from the first reaction and attraction to looking for understanding as a human being interacting with another and  how exposure to the environment and people inside strip clubs and the changes it makes to us and how we find an emotional maturity to deal with women as the sum of all of her rather than just the parts. Certainly people will question and want to deny that as a man I can look at a woman and see her as an individual with all that goes with it. The physical and the mental, of course the political rad fem would not want this to be true because it is nothing like the belief system they have built up. The entitlement attitude that we see in out twenties has been stripped out of us and forced us to change and grow. This does not apply to everyone and nor can I comment on all men who go to strip bars. Not all men grow up but strip bars and lap dancing clubs can really make us grow.

So I have listened to the video and taken it what is said and it resonates with me. I am now going to say a few things about myself because we need to move away from the labels that aspects of feminist theory put on us. I am not a pimp, rapist or any of the other labels that people want to call me as their ad hominien attacks. There are easier than dealing with the empirical data around the clubs so labelling and trying to stigmatise anyone who dares say different to aspects of feminist theory is standard. So lets look at me as a human being and what the clubs mean to me and how they have benefitted me with acceptance which has aided me in moving forward in my life. I started going to strip pubs in the late 80s and early 90s when it was normal for birthdays and leaving dos to be celebrated at strip bars. I didn't really understand it I was married with kids but this was seen as perfectly normal for people at work to go to the bars. On several occassions I went to bars with customers along with the salesman, I was there to make the customer understand this wasn't a random idea by the account manager but acceptable to the company. I wasn't regular but certainly went 2 or 3 times a year and I was going more frequently as the company downsized.

Over the years I started to go to clubs more frequently and made friends not just with other customers but the odd dancer and even a club owner or two. When I was single I would go more often than when I was dating but I always explained that I enjoyed striptease in any relationship I was in. I had realised that when through work I had to say nothing as certain customers would be uncomfortable if anyone talked about afternoon/evenings outs. The stigma associated with clubs and pubs existed even back then, yet each year over 2 million men will go to clubs from 21 year olds who still have the entitlement to a guy who once a month would come down from his nursing home who was into his late 80s. With that number of customers you will get just about everyone represented from the not my nigel brigade to those who pop in 2 or 3 times a week.

So what does this have to do with clubs and my interactions with dancers and other customers? One thing I have learned over the years is we are all human but the guys who are regular club goers are just as normal as everyone else, from government employees to customers who are a little shady the strip bar is full of people from all walks of life. The labels put on customers like pimp, rapist, trafficker and pedeophile are nothing like the truth but for those who stand against the clubs to acknowledge the humanity of a single customer will destroy their narrative.

I have had serious issues with body image, I am permanently in a wheelchair due to genetics. If I go out in the street people have to stop their kids from staring and people tend to try to ignore you because they are uncomfortable with who I have become. But when going to a strip bar I found not just the owner and my friends accepting me but the dancers had an incredible interaction with me which caused me to realise I was still human. Having to deal with a real negative was not so difficult when you are seen as the same as others, and here in lies the second part of the issue. Dancers are human, there is the good, the bad and the truly brilliant. I have had the luck over the years to get to know many aspects of the industry but the dancers have been a joy, just not for the expected reason. Yes they are sexy, sassy and intelligent but most of all they are human. I am guessing me making that statement will annoy aspects of the radical feminist community because I can't see a dancer as just body parts. Of course there are some guys who will view the woman as sexual, that is the animal in us but it is amazing how we progress and view dancers. I am rambling but listen to the words and you really get a feeling that both parties are anything but a simple equation.

I would like to thank Nowness for the production of this piece and the production crew, the White Horse and Julia. Also Sue at the White Horse for all the support she has given the dancers over the years especially for allowing the filming. Bronwen Parker-Rhodes you have produced a wonderful piece. And a special thanks to Edie for her support and help with this piece along with her support of the blog.

TonyN (tonyprince@acdcfan.com)

Get Out Your Scissors

Back in October 2013 (here) I wrote an open letter to councillors about the usual misconceptions they have/had about SEVs and how they are portrayed. After a discussion on twitter with a dancer about the fact dancers and customers need to mobilise and write in when licenses are being renewed rather than the usual apathy that is shown I have decided to bring up to date the arguments and suggest how dancers could word things for themselves along with customers. Clubs and dancers may not always agree but the one thing that you do both agree on is that clubs should not be targets for a moral minority. As an example Wrexham turned down a new venue after a petition of over 100 names signed against the club. In favour 1 e-mail of support and the person who wrote it did not come from Wrexham. Local press piece here but you see from the arguments there is nothing new against the clubs. Fact there are already two is the given reason and that is the limit that was set but lack of support is a killer of clubs.

So this will be long winded but I don't intend to write a template that the brain dead can just cut and paste. I have no doubt some people will but the intention is to make people think so when they write in they can personalise their arguments. Some of the research has been done by myself so no peer review as such but all my claims are backed either by the police.uk database of crime or freedom of information requests. Anything I claim in terms of mathematics can be tested, and I am sure some feminists have looked at my figures because I know that Object at least will look at this blog. Guess everyone checks what the opposition is up to.

I want to discuss the claims that use to be made by many feminist groups that there is a link between SEVs and rape. The feminists have withdrawn the Lilith report on which this claim was made as when examined closely the figures are discovered to be cherry picked. This blog obtained the raw data for Camden and also for Wandsworth to use as a control, the Chelsea Reach was closed in Wandsworth in 1997 so a 12 year review was done based on this and in Camden the figures show a fall in rape whilst in the control where the SEV was closed rape increased. Add to this the claim made by Inspector Drummond about SEVs in Newquay where he claimed rape had increased because of the clubs. Instead under a freedom of information request by a local paper the figures show a 50% fall in rape and Inspector Drummond admitted he had just made an assumption without checking the facts. Finally Leeds recently closed 3 clubs, 2 were very close together. Since the closure sexual and violent crimes have increase 200%. Now none of these figures are claimed as causal effects but it does show that there is absolutely no link to rape or sexual crime because of clubs and it seems in fact the opposite could be true.

Of course there are claims of an increase in general crimes especially drunken and insulting behaviour. Whilst no one would ever claim this does not happen it is between 5 and 10 times less likely than outside an ordinary night club. The research done by Kent and Loughborough Universities show that people do not see clubs as causing a disturbance and they are much more likely to indicate a pub or restaurant as a nuisance than a SEV. It is noticeable how rarely the police raise issues with clubs when they apply for a license or a renewal, this should indicate to any right minded individual that SEVs do not cause issues in the way a nightclub might.

You often hear the ill informed make claims about SEVs and trafficking. This shows the person raising the issue has done no research and hasn't even thought it through. When you consider that both high profile investigations into Trafficking Pentameter I and II did not bring one charge against the clubs you realise just how stupid the claim of trafficking sounds. And into that the fact that the council can investigate dancers and clubs paperwork at any time and you realise that the claims sound more ridiculous than ever yet people will make this claim. And to add if I was a dancer writing a letter/e-mail I would add in here the years danced and the fact you have never seen a trafficked dancer.

And of course there is always the classic that dancers offer sex in the clubs. Now I will not claim that this has never taken place but the impression is that every dancer is offering services, part of the fault for this concept is the misuse of the words Lap Dancing? It implies grinding which under the current licensing regulations doesn't happen but because those people who make moral judgements want to close the clubs the use stigmatising language to create a web of deceit about what goes on in the clubs. Councils impose distances between customers and dancers and clubs have rules against dancers meeting customers outside of work which would be a pretty good reason why services don't occur. Of course dancers use suggestive language to encourage customers to have private dances which to the uninformed could sound like offers but this is a marketing ploy and not a reality.

Now everyone's favourite issue is the effect clubs will have on children, because people naturally want to protect children they assume the worst without performing any critical thinking. Children have no idea what goes on in the clubs up to a certain age and the fears that parents have that the clubs will corrupt the children are just superimposed issues from the parents own impression of the clubs. The statement how do I explain the SEV to my child makes an assumption the child will look at blacked out windows with x ray eyes because kids couldn't see in and wonder what is going on. Club operating hours are not exactly open during school hours. Kids can't get in either so the whole issue is down to the parent and their imaginary fears. Parents will imprint their moral views and judgements and use a statement that is in no way related to reality so councillors should realise the truth about these claims.

The press often create fears due to using the sexualisation of the clubs to sell papers or increase page clicks. Photos of scantily clad women will draw men to view the page and feminists to police the page. There are often no issues with license renewals from the police but a little scaremongering by the press can create issues that shouldn't exist. Millions of visits happen to clubs every year without any issues but that wouldn't sell anything so the press will often manipulate stories to create an image that can generate traffic to the web articles.  This is a deliberate scaremongering ploy but people will be suckered into it. hopefully sensible councillors will realise this.

And now I want to tackle objectification, this is messy at best because I am male and I can't answer for how dancers feel, certainly I have known dancers who have revelled in the attention, but I don't speak for the dancers, in any letter a dancer writes she will have to decide what she wants to include or not. Yesterday I wasted several hours of my life reading scholarly papers about Sexual Objectification and in my humble opinion a lot of it is dressing up natural reactions with big words to make it sound bad when in reality it is someone applying their moral standards to other people. I am personally use to being objectified, not in the same way but judged by others for my looks and also being judged for the size of my wallet, I accept it because human beings do these things subconsciously. As to the claim about objectification about policing women's bodies I would suggest those making those claims remember that dancers can work 4-6 hours a shift and with several shifts a week doing a very physically demanding job you will get a lot of exercise especially when working on the pole. I doubt that many other jobs are as physically demanding. Yet if you look at other jobs when body image is policed no one complains about that! Ballet dancers have to monitor their weight, sportswomen have to watch what their eat, drink and social activities. No one suggests that this is bad it only happens when people see the word sex and the dirty image it creates.

Finally there is the claims of exploitation and here is where the clubs may not be too pleased with what I am saying but yes we accept there are some exploitative practices in the industry but rather than just closing clubs and making lives difficult for those who people are talking about being exploited the councils should be working with clubs and dancers to create a better working experience, certainly this would make for a better experience all round and the customers would benefit from dancers that are even more happy. Leeds University research in 2009 showed that dancers enjoyed their worked and 87% had some form of higher education so we are talking about intelligent women making free choices and enjoying their work being policed by a moral minority. The research by Kent and Loughborough Universities showed only 3% of people felt there was no place for clubs so any claims of exploitation come from a small minority of people using terms to create a negative image. No job is perfect and many jobs are exploitative but the 2009 study showed that most dancers are satisfied or better with their work. Once again what we have is the use of language to conceal the moral outrage. If these people were truly concerned with exploitation they would be working with the dancers to improve conditions not shut down clubs.

I did say this would be a lot of verbal, but most of the answers to the objections that I could think of are here. If people want ideas of things that could be brought up when councils meet then this isn't a bad starting place. But we need dancers and customers writing in about every license renewal and if we hear of a new club then we should be supporting it. If clubs close it is not because the moral minority are write but the majority of us are lazy.

TonyN (tonyprince@acdcfan.com

Chester and the Rise of the Prickademics

There are a couple of things that have come up that I want to talk about. It has been a quiet time and all of a sudden you get hit by stupidity right in the face and you go just what the f***

So firstly I want to talk about Chester and the issues raised by the Council refusing to renew the license after 9 years of operating without any issues. Now I do find it strange that a handful of people managed to shut down a club the way it happened in Chester but you do feel that everything was being judged on moral standards rather than if the business was a problem. Certainly the police raised no issues and that to me is always a clue when an existing club is up for it's license renewal. Really you have to question what is behind this awful decision by the council. I hate to see this, where councillors morals creep into their representation of the public. I firmly believe that unless you can get 3% of the population of a borough or city council against a club you can't really feel that people are even bothered. And there in lies the problem, apathy by customers not to stand up for their clubs assuming the council will approve venues. We need to be active in the defence of the clubs, dancers you need to be pushing customers to write in. So long as you state that you do not want your details released the council cannot publish your details just a redacted print out of the letter/e-mail.

The local online paper (here) has noted the club intends to operate as a Burlesque bar with 11 full nude nights every year under the TENs regulations. Whilst reading the article I noticed that Debbie Lomas of the Rainforest Shop who has been at the forefront of trying to close the club pretend that her heart goes out to the "girls". No it doesn't you are busy applying your moral standards to other people and that is just wrong. And I would say that the dancers are no girls, you belittle them Ms Lomas while portray them as infantile and unable to make decisions. Now if a man calls gown women girls he is a misogynist so I can only assume that most feminists will see Ms Lomas's statement as Misogynistic.

Nice to see that personal attacks are a thing of the past.

Now onto twitter which I continue to have a love/hate relationship with. But I did spot an absolute classic in a snippet between our statistics heroine Julie Bindel and Gail Dines. In the photo you will see the lovely terminology that is being used by these two lovely ladies to judge others just because the research done by these "Prickdemics" (had to add that to the dictionary) shows that the views held by radical feminists may not be as accurate as they would hope. It sort of shows that blanket ad hominem attacks can and will be used when any research dares challenge the articles of faith of radical feminism. Now if I was to attack the two ladies using this language I would no doubt be called troll or even accused of using threatening behaviour which I have never and in now way ever condone. I would challenge Ms Bindel on her "research" for her report for Glasgow council which I have done in the past and to Ms Dines I have read your thesis and sometimes a cartoon is just a cartoon. But I would never consider attacking their personalities or who they are, I just challenge the facts as they see them.

I was going to come up with amusing words to describe radical feminist journalists and academics but this would be sinking to their level and I have no need to do that as the facts are the facts and insulting those who produce them via peer reviewed research does not change the end results.

TonyN (tonyprince@acdcfan.com)

Seeing the Same Old Same Old

Sorry people been quiet and distracted, I would say also there hasn't been much going on so it wasn't much to write about. However I do have a couple of things that are now doing the rounds. Object have been been quiet just the odd tweet or retweet, they have become a bit of a non entity.

So first I want to talk about a consultation being done in York about should they take a nil policy stance and if not how many venues should the clubs be limited to. If you live in York or the surrounding area you can complete the consultation here. Having looked at how the consultation is structured anyone with half a brain cell would question the bias of the questionnaire, I am going to do a FoI about how the questionnaire was put together as I am thinking whoever wrote the questions and structured the choices in the response options was just a tiny bit biased.

I would say if I didn't know better I would assume that someone had taken the last SEV consultation in Leeds and just changed the locations. I mean no one would be that lazy and biased would they? Any just so people who are not filling it in have some idea the questions are put together in such a way that it assumes the person filling the consultation is against the SEVs and really wants none. Now I understand that consultations are hard work but really this one just says we hate clubs.

Over in Chester the Platinum lounge is back up for license renewal, which means after all the issues previously I am not holding out much hope for a fair decision, more a case of bias by the council. What I do wonder is of the people who are objecting just how many are working on the basis of a moral opinion? I expect that this will require another FoI to find out just what was said, obviously don't care about the who unless they are not locals. The whole business has been complete but nothing like a council to create a situation that no one can get their head round. Of course nothing ois ever simple as apparently the local residents sent in secret shoppers who got all sorts of offers that are not with in the bounds of the club license. Now I am not sure how much I would trust an observer who has an agenda to give an honest an accurate report and they may have just misunderstood the marketing tactics of the dancers to get more dances.

However given the fact the council had already tried to close the lounge I fear that moral watchdogs will once again succeed to express their beliefs in getting the venue closed. I hope I am wrong and I am happy that are people standing up for the club, maybe common sense will prevail but I am not holding my breath.

Finally as a quick aside Magic Mike XXL is doing the rounds now and I hear that many female friends have enjoyed  what was on offer. Could you imagine the outrage if the film was Magic Mary? Of course there would be the usually issues and cries of sexism and objectification but guess most feminists will not watch this film and will decry it for perpetuating the gender stereotypes? When will some people realise people enjoy imagery and there is nothing wrong or unnatural about it? Time to move on and let adults make money how they want. Live and let live!

TonyN (tonyprince@acdcfan.com)

Whats Another Year

So Roz has been CEO of Object Now for a year tomorrow (thanks Brute for pointing this out and the some of the "fails" that are a part of this piece). The first part of this is a bit of fun at the expense of Object and I will finish with something that has been playing on my mind.

So what has Object achieved in terms of tangible things that they have done this year, not talking about talks or events that they have been invited to but actual campaigns that they have run by themselves and delivered this year....... I saw the campaign against the Escort ads that Vivastreet had put out but not sure you led on on it Object, the same as the bus adverts for ride around on me for £3 all day. Okay guess that this was going to be a short list anyway. Roz has been a rent-a-quote for the press when they need to be disapproving even though the papers are the centre of media sexism. Wonder if anyone from the outside might consider that a little 2 faced?

Roz did get to go to Brazil and speak at a conference about violence against women, I believe her focus was the media and it's impact on this. No idea who paid for the trip, if I was a paying member of Object I would be really upset if I had paid for it. But the weather is always nice and I know a lot of the guys on the London strip scene will know one or two Brazilian dancers.

So lets now consider what Roz and co has campaigned on this year that interests this blog and consider how successful on each they were.

No More Page 3, this was led by UK Feminista and they were all cheering when the Sun stopped page 3 for a couple of days and were a little upset when the paper brought it back. Like with Lads Mags the campaign claims victory but the platform has changed with social media and the internet delivering them now.
Spearmint Rhino, this is an annual thing where Object complain about the license renewal and in real terms achieve nothing apart from to make the dancers lives harder.
The fight against Entice in Sounthend which even though they got a couple of councillors to attend the presentation with Essex Feminist Collective in once again they failed as the club opened.

Fun in the Changing Rooms? 

I have gone over a very long set of tweets and retweets to see things where Object are the Lead Organisation and apart from the campaign from Hull on Strip Venues this year has been pretty much a year of riding other peoples coat tails. That and turning up to protest against magazines and porn which I believe they intend to do again this year. So we may well see more videos of them making fools of themselves.

So I have a suggestion for you, one you will laugh at probably because the concept of actually trying to deliver something is strange.

Roz, assuming your back from Brazil there have been murmors from yourselves about pushing for even more regulations and controls. Well perhaps before you go rambling off trying to create mayhem (from my point of view) perhaps you should do one thing. Engage with the people involved.... not talking about club owners, I know your opinions of them, not talking about the dirty mac brigade as you no doubt see the customers... I am talking about engaging with the dancers and the unions involved to see what can be done to create a better environment for the dancers without making them fight to earn a living. Go speak to those people whose lives you try to destroy most with your attacks on the industry.

And Roz lets be honest by attacking the industry in the UK you don't hurt anyone but the dancers. As a customer I can find other venues if you close one or I can hope on a train to Paris or a ferry to Amsterdam, there are always alternatives for me. Are you hurting club owners? A little but they can always open a night club where sexual violence is much more likely to be associated with it. So who ends up losing out? Dancers who may struggle to find work that fits in with their needs with study, childcare or even work that allows them to perform and express themselves. There is a lot of other people who lose out but the people you hurt most are the people that Object said when they started out that they were there to protect/support.

Perhaps if dancers dressed like this Object would be happy?

So you can e-mail me if you can't find anyone to engage with but it is about time you looked at what Object was created to do and what you are doing now. Your numbers have fallen off and twitter SJWs are fine but they won't come out on a cold November night and stand by your sides. You can call Object a human rights organisation but if you have read this blog previously you would have seen how laughable that claim looks in the cold light of day. Stopping the hate and resentment would be a fantastic opportunity to actually do something positive. Roz  you have been CEO for a year and that in itself is something but if you want to make an impact in your second year then work with the people your organisation was suppose to! Creating stigma benefits no one.

I often make jokes about Object and I probably will again (very soon) but you can make me look a bit foolish if you choose to reach out. I would be happy to apologise if you worked to better the lives of the dancers, I know I am probably going nowhere with this but I want people to understand the issue I have with Object is that they are busy hurting the one group of people that they should be working with instead. 

TonyN (tonyprince@acdcfan.com)

And The Crowds Were Bitterly Disappointed

Been a quiet time leading up to the election although I noted on Object's facebook page that they praised our Friends in the Essex Feminist Collective for their work in trying to block the opening of Entice, a new SEV in Southend. Remembering this include a very pretty slide show presented by Roz echoing her beliefs but the only evidence that she presented was anecdotal. However Object suggested that now the election is finished that they may look at what they can do to increase the ability of a few objectors to create havoc rather than let those who know the law and represent the public make decisions based on the law rather than one or two people trying to create false fears.

And you have to credit Object with some guts after the failure last year in terms of turn out for the Paul Raymond awards they have started early this year and have already created a facebook event for people to say they are going and then not turn up because they struggle deciding if they should be shouting rapist or loser. However reading the event I had to bite my tongue as whoever created the event has decided to make reference to a couple of "porn stars" being photographed topless in the street during the early hours of the morning. Now this is nothing unusual in any town or city on a Friday or Saturday night so my gut reaction is disgust at this attempt to "slut shame" which your average feminist is usually against. If you go off and read quotes about "slut shaming" you realise that often it is radical feminists who struggle with the concepts around nudity and dress.

Feminists point out (and rightly) women should be allowed to dress how they want without fear of sexual assault or rape and yet we have radical feminists slut shaming and putting the blame on rape for men seeing women with little or nothing on as though men have no self control but of course they must have self control because women should be able to wear what they like. I would like to quote “Any regulated dress code from bikinis to burqas assumes that men are weak, impulsive, and untrustworthy.Yet, we know men can be strong, disciplined and trustworthy. Dressing for success is dressing without this sexism.” ― Christyl Rivers.

And lets think about public behaviour especially the night Object protested outside Xbiz using vile and abusive language and being photographed intoxicated. Just what does Object think they are doing if they believe they can comment on other peoples' behaviour when they cannot keep their own house in order. So if enough people turn up to the protest I do hope they remember that in all probability they will be photographed, videoed and written about. And whatever Object do to campaign about SEVs this blog will be there ready to counter anything that is not 100% factual.

TonyN (tonyprince@acdcfan.com)

Leeds: The Final Act (for now)!

We have written pieces about Leeds for the last few years and to be honest I sometimes feel like I am bashing my head against a brick wall. The chances are that no matter what the actual truth is there are people out there who have made their minds up and no matter what will push their agenda to get their moral attitude into everyone else's lives. I have got to the point where this will be the last major post till either someone tries to drive through another change or a major story breaks about Leeds. I want to briefly sum up a few points as I will be tweeting at Leeds MP and Councillor this blog has seen as the original driving force including shaping the working group. This entry is a personal opinion but the statements about crime are based on a 2012 study by myself into crime around SEVs using the Police.UK database, no dragging figures out of thin air. Also I spent 4 years as a senior professional officer in a council and I have seen how councillors can influence officers to operate against their own better judgement, I know because I have done it in covering up for a councillor.

This could turn into a massive rant so I will try to keep the piece as short as possible whilst covering the issues. I will include a couple of responses to FoI requests from Leeds Council, I wont timeline the events rather I will try to use the issues as I see them to guide me in the way I word this.

Leeds Council what responsibility do they take?

Firstly I want to cover the response I got about if anyone checked if there would be any impact to crime in the area when the buildings closed. The response was that as the venues were closed on locality and proximity to sensitive premises (jokes in the comments about this will be fine). The statement was the clubs were not closed because of crime so they didn't analysis it. Which makes the assumption that the venues are the cause rather than a resource that will provide security to the area it is based in. The fact sexual and violent crime has doubled during 6 months in The Headrow in comparison to when the venue were open with security and CCTV running does suggests councils HAVE to take responsibility for the increase because they only view clubs as an issue and failed to acknowledge that the external security for clubs would have an impact in stopping crime. This is something that all councils should be aware of and if I was a victim of crime in the area I would be blaming the council. However no doubt as the Council points out they just didn't have any idea that closing venues could have such a negative impact which suggests a very blinkered attitude.

Leeds Night Life losing something?

Now I want to cover some of the issues that came out of the consultation and citizen panel. The consultation was based on the City of London questionnaire but had been adjusted to be quantitative rather than qualitative. Which is strange as when you look at the figures 48% wanted 4 SEVs or less and 52% wanted 5 or more SEVs, for me if you were going to set a figure then surely the arithmetic mean would be the correct point which would mean there should be 5 clubs rather than 4. The numbers ranged from 1 to 8 or more which is no surprise as the first consultation showed that people DID NOT want a complete ban. Now the e-mail from the council says the information was analysed by the council officer in charge of the citizen panel. This would be a person who would probably be a professional grade rather than management and having been there myself you do feel exposed should councillors decide to flex their muscles, no proof that anything happened just a feeling.

Part of the input into the questionnaire was based on the "Working Group". The working group had Object, a lobby group, represented and no representatives of the actually industry. The two police officers one was a child exploitation officer who was seen as a stakeholder (really that is stupid) and one representing the City Centre which is interesting as the police haven't raised issues about the clubs for child exploitation or that the clubs should be closed. It is therefore even more surprising no one thought of the risks in losing cctv and feet on the street. Section 3.1 said the licensing board put together the working group but tweets from Reeves and Charlwood at the time suggest a heavy involvement.The walk around town discussions with club management which clubs and where? The whole working group issue is one that makes me seethe just a little and I feel for Rosie being stuck in a group that had taken legal advice to ensure that their agenda could be pushed through (not exact wording of course).

After all the research the council still drive their own agenda.

We saw claims be made as a result of the citizen panel, Claims that 85% of the citizen panel was against clubs is a bit misleading as only 32% were against clubs in the city centre. The whole work has been to mislead and drive an agenda. When you add to that the fact that in the consultation there was a standard response template that was used quite a bit. 52 responses (39% of the response used the template). There is no point in the document that I can find that refers to the standard letter being one that the council provided so this would have be provided by Object or another feminist lobby group. Knowing that the consultation could easily be manipulated so that one person could easily make multiple responses the template presents a danger to the democracy. So long as someone clears their cookies in the cache of their web browser then there was nothing that would stop a simple cut and paste and repeat. Yet at no point was this even mentioned, I would have hoped that the Council would have had their eyes opened about these sort of risks of flooding by a handful of moral objectors. Remember one council actually spotted one person sending in multiple letters with different signatures because a template was used so any use of a template could be because of a single individual using the flaw in the council's system.

Finally to keep this reasonably short Having read the response from those against the clubs there is a constant reference to violence against women which there is no proof of in any shape of form in the UK. In section 3.27 the council seem to suggest that they took the Lilith research as valid but ignored press stories. They also mention the West Yorkshire Hollaback as a valid source it seems which I would question the site as it was based around street harassment and it is difficult because a lot of the claims have never been reported to the police so how do we judge how valid the "research" is and of course Hollaback has disappeared from the web so there is no way to check claims and Hollaback was only ever anecdotal evidence. So really the only thing it seemed that the claims were based on was Lilith and as we know that report has been withdrawn and in fact the figures show a drop in rape over 12 years rather than just the 3 years Lilith highlighted (once again based on figures obtained by this blog under FoI).

So to sum up, the whole thing seems to be taking figures and manipulating them. The fact only 32% of people were against clubs in the City Centre and that the mid point of the consultation was 5 clubs rather than 4 hints that people were not adverse to ignoring the public and that the agenda behind closing the 3 venues did not worry about any impact that the closure would make on anything. Sensitive premises would have benefited from CCTV and bouncers but now those protections for the public have been removed and people are suffering an impact of more sexual and violent crime with the blame laying at the feet of the architects behind the closure Rachel Reeves and Rebecca Charlwood in my humble and simple opinion.

TonyN (tonyprince@acdcfan.com).

Repeat, Repeat and Repeat Again

So my life can be very boring it seems as I was sitting through a live update on the license application for Chronicles in Reading to get its SEV. All seemed very normal no police objections, 8 letters sent in and only one objector turn up to speak against and that was a worry about noise which he venue covered but at the end when all was discussed the license was refused based on the demeanour of the area. So I started writing this piece about the stupidity of closing venues or stopping new licenses based on an area when there are no objections or at east no really valid objections that are not covered by the application. I was going to post this a couple of days ago but health issues, a family birthday and trying to find out details of a couple of things meant this piece is 3 days late.

No SEV because of the area apparently

Anyway yesterday morning I was checking my mail and a google alert flagged an article in the Yorkshire Evening Post about the 3 closed venues in Leeds and how they have remained empty since they were forced to close. Anyone reading my posts will know that they has been an increase in violent and sexual crimes since the venues closed and my got reaction was they must have opened night clubs or similar but it turns out the building are just empty. Which raises the issue when do morals migrate into excuses? We know that Leeds forced the issue hiding behind the Tour de France starting in the Headrow with two clubs right by the start. So to the rest of Leeds there was this facade that the campaign was all about image rather than morals which we know councils shouldn't raise in these debates.

So we see yet again the stupidity about location. Is there a school near by? Probably in most towns but since when do most schools operate in the middle of the night? We have said again and again this what about the kiddies thing is stupid. How many parents let their kids out in the middle of the night? So long as the clubs use discreet signage and avoid overt language in the names kids won't take a blind bit of notice. The real issue is some parents are imposing their own morality onto the club and this causes unfounded fears. The research is out there, Professor Hubbard's research showed that many people could actually walk past the clubs without even knowing they were there. However this has been ignored by councils who now play the moral guardian game and doing the thinking for the public.

I do get annoyed by having the same stupidity occur again and again. If it was Object and their ilk then yes I can understand it as they will not read up on any research that may show their thinking is wrong in the same way that they wont engage with dancers because the possibility that some real people who know the industry disagree with their paid for ex dancer who co wrote their book that they quote and quote. So if you see a councillor in the press getting on his or her high horse then we must show them that the facts are out there. It becomes a really simple question/message why are councils ignoring academic work? It plays like they are pushing their own agendas which never sits right for me.

Finally just before I was going to publish this I stumbled on an article in a local Barnsley Online Newspaper about a man being attacked near Wildcats. You will note it is near Wildcats not UK Pizza, Sizzlers, The Shakespeare or even Hope House School. The article doesn't claim that the attack was anything to do with the club, which it may be, but it could be anywhere else in the area. Just seems it makes a good story assigning blame without actually being sure who is to blame or why, just no need when a SEV is close by as it it brings a little sex to the story rather than actually trying to report just the facts. This is not the first time we have seen this style of reporting where the first instinct of a reporter is to create a scare about a club without having proof to back this up.

TonyN (tonyprince@acdcfan.com)

The Dancer and the Politician No Crime Committed!

I would like to thank Brute for pointing the article in the daily mail (here) out to me that has got me writing again. My health hasn't been as good as I would like but I needed to get back to writing and seeing the article it sort of get me in the mood to say a few things. And it was nice to see all this happening in Tower Hamlets just to rub salt into the wound.

Firstly I would like to explain I have no problems with anyone going to a club even a politician providing they are not campaigning to close them in public, two facedness while a politician (or prospective politician) is expected but to say one thing and do another is going to be an issue for me around the clubs. So if it isn't the fact a guy went to a club on his stag, got drunk and forgot (ignored) the rules what is. I guess for me it is the fact he has been a spokesperson on religious matters and at one point an extremist who is now seeming to be the exact opposite. So I want to split this into two parts now. Firstly the poor behaviour by Nawaz and then I want to pick up on the issue of the daily mail and highlight the case of stigmatisation of someone doing something that is not illegal and that many guys do every weekend (hopefully with more self control).

So your having a private dance in a booth/room with CCTV, your best man has got you reasonably loaded but the fact is the UK is a non contact environment, every time a rad fem claims about bumping and grinding we all know they are lying because we have had a lot of years go past since contact in private dancing was allowed. Seeing the dancer point to the CCTV camera shows she explained the rules and it was Nawaz who was trying desperately to break them. With Nawaz trying to get the contact details of the dancer we run into the issue that rad fems would claim that the details were exchanged to arrange the selling of sexual services. I have had dancer friends who I would go to coffee with just to discuss issues about venues, music, babysitting and a few other problems but nowadays no matter how much of a connection I may feel to a dancer even if we have a hobby in common you can't exchange personal details as no doubt how innocent it may be the imaginative minds of sections of the feminist movement will imagine the trafficking, rape and selling of sexual services no matter how far from the truth it is.

So really the issue here is the breaking of club etiquette which occurs more than we would like usually by guys who are not regulars and who don't really get the why we have to avoid this sort of behaviour. Tell me something an hour ago throw in a couple of drinks and I am not sure that I would remember something I haven't heard other than on one occasion. Perhaps here it would be wise to suggest that unless a customer is a known regular he is reminded of etiquette each time he has a private dance. I would have liked to have seen Nawaz ejected but if it is a stag do we have no idea how large the party was so how much income was at risk if the centre of the stag party was asked to leave. To the club owner/manager who sold the footage I would say bad form on you for selling anything to the daily mail. Finally Nawaz claims to be a feminist and I don't see the issue here except that the terminology is wrong. Equality issomething we all have a right to and the right to choose our employment (if we can). The blog has said in the past over 2 million guys go to clubs each year and I am sure a lot more of us believe in equality than the religious groups who preach sex is a sin. As a quick aside on that point BBC2 in the UK has a 3 part series on sex and the church and part one was well worth watching.

So do I have issues with the Daily Mail? Damn right I do, the wording of the article was so biased you could feel the whole of middle england draw in it's collective breath and breathe a huge sigh. At the start of the article they point out that Nawaz is now married but you only find out digging deeper into the article it was before he got married and he was on his stag. Once again we see the fervour that comes from the traditional religious patriarchy that radical feminism so keenly supports creating a stigma around a perfectly legal evening. The church, and by this I mean all religions that apply moral codes, has guidelines that many of us break and I offer you odds that most of the mail reporters couldn't give a damn about observing religious practices unless it means a free holiday. Yet here we have a right wing "christian" paper commenting on someone not observing a religious holiday, so what, I have seen myself guys who drink, club and gamble when their religion says they shouldn't but here we have an effort by a paper to target someone for doing something legal. So long as the public allow papers to stigmatise a legal profession we are basically supporting the old structure that radical feminism claim they want to break down but in reality they reinforce.

I could go on about the hypocrisy of the daily mail and the breaching of Club etiquette by Nawaz but the guy is as human as the rest of us and the mail is built around supporting the Selfservatives so nothing I can do but bemoan the fact that having ago about a legal but stigmatised job is par for the course in medieval, I mean modern Britain.

TonyN
tonyprince@acdcfan.com

Councils Talk About Impact Analysis?

TonyN here continuing with the research into the impact of closing Venues, I spoke recently with Chasmal and this was going to have a flash graph but I don't think there is any real need for a graph to show what has happened. And I am going to focus on Leeds and the impact on crime of losing three venues and ask the question was any impact analysis done by the council on what happens when councillors and a MP push a personal agenda. As I pointed out on my previous piece councils and more important councillors have to have some idea of what happens when you move from clubs with people wanting to enjoy and pay for private dances to people in restuarants, fast food joints and most importantly the sort of £1 a pint pre loaded drinkers that wouldn't get into a SEV.

First I want to explain that I have e-mailed both Rachel Reeves and Rebecca Charlwood to ask them about their time line and what they expected to happen when clubs closed especially around violent and sexual crime. At the time of writing this entry I have had no response and I will be honest I wasn't expecting any. After all what would they say? That they were either ill informed and therefore had no idea of what would happen or that they knew and they just didn't care? Neither message is that impressive so lets start with the time line of the pressure to close venues and we can then look at the results.

1. Question put to Citizen Panel, which is not a formal consultation process and is formed of people who are vocal on their opinion which is interesting because it seems 70% of them did not bother when the first consultation came out.

2. First Consultation took place which was a very black or white situation in yes or no to SEVs. The result was in favour of SEVs which I believe both of you were unhappy about.

3. A “working group” was established of supposed key stakeholders including an anti striptease lobby group. There was a token academic and no representation of dancers or clubs which presents the view that the only reason for the working group was to find ways to close clubs.

4. Second consultation takes place with a much more structured format designed to provide the best opportunity to get the result required by splitting the pro striptease vote between those for the 7 clubs being the correct number and those who are more interested in the free market approach of as many clubs as the city can support financially in terms of customers. No option for people to say zero.

Having spent several years in local government I have seen the use of structured questionnaires and consultations to get the end result required. So merging the opinion of those against clubs with those who want a small number of clubs was clever.

Now lets move on to the impact of closing the 3 venues in Leeds in terms of violent and sexual crime, remembering the research this blog did in 2011 we have figures for all the clubs operating in Leeds and we can now compare them to the 6 months from August 2014 to Jan 2015 and in another 6 months I will be able to compare a year's data with a year's data. This is really in two parts the first and almost minor one is around Deep Blue where back in 2011 there was no violent and sexual crime in the surrounding area around the club. Yet in 6 months there have been 3 incidents, as I said it is minor and no one is going to blink an eye except the victims of course who might want to question would they have been attacked if Deep Blue was open?

There were two venues in the Headrow that were closed Red Leopard and Wildcats which had overlaying areas of influence so I have had to combine them in terms of results. Now this is the one that is a sore point with me as the 2 clubs combined saw a grand total of 12 violent and/or sexual crimes in a year back in 2011, now move forward to 2014/5 and we have 26 violent and/or sexual crimes in 6 months. So we have moved from averaging 1 a month to 4.5 a month. Now I am sure Leeds will point out there are worse places in Leeds but for the victims that doesn't really give answers.

So the question remains did the council not bother researching what might happen or did the pressure from certain quarters push through an action where councillors had an idea what would happen but just didn't care. Not sure which is actually worse but closing established venues without adjusting for the lack of bouncers and and cctv by not increasing the police presence seems a recipe for disaster and we can only feel for those people who may not have been victims if the clubs had of stayed open.

TonyN (tonyprince@acdcfan.com)

Are Councillors in Favour of Violent or Sexual Crimes?

First apologies for the delay in getting this out but I wanted to double check the figures and I have been struggling a little health wise but nothing keeps me down for long. Secondly this is not full of funny remarks, the facts whilst very dry are important so trying to be serious on this.

I have been revisiting the crime figures that we did in 2012 relating to sexual and violent crimes in the proximity of venues. We could only use venues that had closed before January 2014 and that data in 2012 research that covered a full year. This gave us 11 venues that fitted the base requirements in terms of previous data and a full year of data where the club was no longer open. As some clubs had fought to stay open we had less data than we had hoped but the figures were never going to be conclusive anyway.

So of the 11 we had 7 venues that saw increases to violent crime figures, 3 that saw drops and 1 that was the same. However of the 10 venues that saw a change two had a change of two or less (one was up and one was down) so realistically we had 8 venues that saw variences that were quite pronounced. So 75% of the venues that saw some real change saw increases to violent and sexual crimes, in and of itself not much to get people excited but I was glancing at other venues that have closed that would be valid next year and the ones I looked at would suggest that the increase in violent and sexual crimes will occur in places where venues have closed.

I do have one sticking point on one venue that saw a fall as the night club that was located in close proximity and had been the centre of the issues in the previous research has been closed. It was hard to separate out the crime previously so I would be wary of 12.5% of the data. But I never try and hide things because that would come back and bite me in the backside. So at least we have some idea of what has happened when councils or finances have shut venues. And whilst it is not a good thought for any of us males we have to question why the increase and will this be reflected more and more over the next few years as venues close and no new venues open?

So what in the environment in and around clubs would encourage people not to commit crimes? Well feet on the street? We have bouncers outside venues and they know that the clubs could be closed IF violent and sexual crimes occur close to the club so they are probably more watchful than bouncers at nightclubs. And the Eyes in the Sky? Clubs have CCTV outside as part of their operating conditions so people would think twice knowing there is a chance they would be on camera.

And finally the clubs in a lot of ways teach people to respect and view people as human beings in ways you would never see at nightclubs. The alpha male issue that night clubs have is displaced in SEVs as everyone is equal, a person of limited funds, who isn't good looking, who may be socially awkward is accepted just as much as anyone else if they are willing to spend money on dances. I have seen some guys come in and flash money but never spend it on the dancers more than the bare minimum to keep the club happy. So certain types of behaviour within clubs generates better treatment which in turn decreases resentment of entitlement that some may feel because of issues such as social awkwardness.

I would say when you look at the numbers there is not enough data points to establish a trend BUT I have looked at one or two venues that if we do this next year will certainly be on the list. Looking at Leeds certain councillors will have some questions to answer as two months worth of data produced results that were almost double of a year with the clubs. I would think carefully about trying to explain how my morals were more important than the number of victims of violent and sexual crimes if I was a certain Leeds councillor,

I am not a sociologist so I can't explain the proper terms for it nor do I have a big enough data sample to truly show anything other than blips. However looking at locations for next year and just glancing at the figures seeing over a years worth of crime in two months suggests that there is something that people with degrees need to be looking at because the figures do seem to be pointing at something going on after clubs closing. Wonder how many people would vote for councillors who increase violent crime in their local area because of moral judgments? And I would ask anyone in the research field of crime and adult entertainment there may be some value in researching if closing venues does increase crime especially looking at venues being re-purposed as night clubs! Remember the research that showed most people thought night clubs and even restaurants were more likely to be a nuisance so this just continues that theme.

TonyN (tonyprince@acdcfan.com)