The Gift That Keeps on Giving

There are a couple of elephants in the room we need to deal with before I take a look at how “accurate” the Not Buying It pdf is on the “sleaze”. Firstly is the statement made that Julie Bindel is an expert on striptease. The would be like saying I am an expert on Veganism while I stuff my face with a bacon butty. The report commissioned back in 2003 for Glasgow council saw Ms Bindel publish a book about striptease. The laughable thing about this is that when councils commission reports they nearly always tell the consultant the nd goal required and work backwards. How would I know this? I commissioned 6 IT project with consultants and every time I told them the end I wanted and they worked from there. Given Ms Bindel's stance on any for of sex work the result could have been written well before any research was actually done. So this claim of an expert may her been stretched a little and Ms Bindel's honesty about her study has been questioned about this before here and here. Ms Bindel's research has been criticized heavily on other work in the big brothel for the Poppy Project 27 academics and other researchers involved in research into prostitution, who complained that the study had been conducted without ethical approval or acknowledgement of existing sources, and had been co-written by a researcher with anti-prostitution views This was taken from wiki and immediately highlights the issue with her work.

Second elephant is the history of Not Buying It and their previous incarnation as Object Now Ltd. They had no issues either not telling the whole truth or giving the length of time they rammed Lilith down everyone's throat they they were quite happy uses resources that were not fact checked. We get the same in the previous blog entry where they identified two US venues as being in London. The sort of laziness brings everything they do into question. And we today look at the first screen shot which shows NBI busy talking about videoing by customers and state clearly they view it as revenge porn. Strange that they are busy denying that when challenge about their behaviour, at best it is two faced laziness and like many I view it as revenge porn unfortunately there is not enough money in NBIs bank to make it worthwhile pressing a claim.

From the mouth of babes

Not sure how this has anything to do with clubs as the guy has obviously been to places where you can't touch which is what NBI want

One thing I noticed was NBI try to paint the fantasy that a man holds as an issue with a strip venue. A man elects to hire a Working Girl and nothing is said about where and when but it is interesting to note that he clears states he wants to enact the situation at the club but to do what he would not be allowed to at the club by touching and more. Can anyone tell whart any club or dancer has done wrong at this point? It seems like a linkage by fantasy rather than any fact.

Women assualted for doing what NBI want

The fact that dancers refused customers any form of sexual contact and were assaulted for it is terrible, firstly that any customer has that level of entitlement and second NBI are busy blaming others for customers attitudes when the portrayal of venues by NBI increases the factors of entitlement and NBI are busy telling everyone clubs offer these services. It is obvious that at least 3 clubs don't and if NGOs stop portraying SEVs as bump and grind joints man would not feel the same level of entitlement.

Really This is what club's fault?

Now we see a guy asking for a recommendation of clubs that offer extras. The fact there was nothing else associated with the PunterNet request display indicates that no one recommended a venue with extras. You would think with the number of venues in London there would be plenty if the claims NBI make were anywhere near factual.

I suspect this was from the defunct Flying Scotsman which operated in the old red light district of Kings Cross

Now we look at the study from Ms Bindel where dancers were interviewed by who knows who without informing the dancer. So we get expectations that seem to marry up with the beliefs of NBI yet you can see by the answers that nothing extra is being offered and the expectation is set up by something else, quite possibly NGOs trying to shut strip venues. Perhaps if feminist stop the stigmatizing language the behaviour would minimise and stop affecting dancers.

Objectification Much?

Here we have something that is just pure assumption, it deny's the dancer any agency and more portrays the dancer as nothing more than a machine that cannot reason for themselves. One minute dancers are nothing more than tools of the patriarchy, then brain washed victims and also infantile humans who cannot recognise what is being done to them. All three would be labelled as objectification if done by a man yet not so it seems if other women do it.

Minimal sample size and how many were just bigging it up after many beers?

Now it is straight away clear that although knowing that the Flying Scotsman was a strip pub in the old red light area of Kings Cross it was often portrayed as a club with the same license conditions. The key thing that the linking to Bindel's report is a lot of the interviews were done by sight rather than questioning the interviewee so it becomes guess work by the people who did the interview rather than solid face. The concept that an interviewer could over loud music could guess what a man was asking a dancer seems ludicrous. We have no idea what interviewers asked male customers and did they deliberately select the most drunk men? The figures were never broken down so we cannot challenge the validity of them. Perhaps Ms Bindel could share the exact breakdown of the conduct of the research.

The US scene is totally different to the UK but hey thats just a fact

The fact that NBI are busy trying to make people view venues as the same as American explains why they are busy trying to use American figures and incidents as though they affect the UK in the same way they affect the USA. For me this is part of the NBI throw enough poop at things and something is bound to stick.

Now this is just one PDF and not even a full break down but I wanted to be as accurate as I can be. There are more documents and a lot more poorly thought out screen shots to entertain us. I call Ms Bindel's work for Glasgow a piece of fiction and if she wants to take me to court over my statements please do I have enough facts to feel that the claims made by Ms Bindel are not the truth and the report for Glasgow had an end result set out before the research even started.

 TonyN

tonyprince@acdcfan.com

The Woozle's have returned.

TonyN here, as Chasmal has said it seems we have gone full circle and issues we have debunked previously are either already in circulation or feel like they are likely to come back. I have happily, even joyously taken on the fact, figures and misinformation that has come out over the years even though projects like the crime figure (here) have taken many hundreds of hours. If it takes freedom of information request we do dig deep and check any figure that is put out there painting the industry as Satan. I put down what I used as tools to get the figures so anyone can recreate exactly how I worked things out for themselves. It is a matter of honour for this blog that we are honest in any statistics we produce check here for the crime stats based on the claims of Coventry Women's Voices!

Reader's of this blog that go back a few years will remember the woozle effect, what they were and how, no matter how debunked or wrong they were, they would return and be viewed as the whole truth. Well it seems that "Irene Gladdison" was quoted in the Independent and referred to resource material on a pdf. I actually read the article but laughed so hard at basic errors I never dug deeper. However a long term supporter of the blog and and the industry that has often pointed out issues that we may have missed, Brute, noticed the link to the PDF and seeing all the woozles there once again passed on the details. So Brute thanks for this! Just to add in the main article Irene quoted that Hackney has a Nil Policy as does Camden. And I can hear the sniggers in that Hackney has a nil policy but three clubs and the fact that Camden still has venues as well. You do have to wonder who was briefing poor Irene but given the woozles date back to Sasha Rakoff being in Object we could hazard a guess.

The PDF is produced by the women's support project which aims to support women and girls who are being abused, I mean I don't approve of any sort of violence so that we agree on. However the linking to any and everything as a root cause doesn't help because abusers don't need excuses unless they are being prosecuted and then the easy way out for them is to blame something. I have been going to strip venues since 1989 and I don't abuse, you would have thought I would have after so long exposed to the industry but hey facts are important here it seems. Anyway to the point, the PDF and before we even start the last page refers to resources including the defunct Object! So I am guessing the document has been around for a while and no has checked it.

Img hunting woozles

Tracking Woozles can be such fun

First fact was the Julie Bindel report claiming how poorly paid the industry is, and on a bad night it may be, but painted a picture of dancers working for less than the minimum wage. Now I can tell you that Bindel was quoting about the defunct Flying Scotsman strip pub. The last time I went there was on a Friday night and yes girls were getting a pound in the pot from each guy. However there were 40 men each putting a pound in the pot so every dance was earning around £40 to £50 pounds basic not including larger tips from the drunker members of the audience. The channel 4 documentary on the strip clubs of Glasgow was showing dancers earning between £200 and £500 a night. So whilst not wholly inaccurate it does seem Ms Bindel was selective about the truth she presented and certainly the truth plastered on the PDF. They also quote Lucy from the old Object resources page, and all I would say if you couldn't earn why would you continue to pay to work? Yes we know there are bad nights and there needs to be changes so not leaves out of pocket. However closing venues will cost thousands of women their lifestyle/study or put people into debt.

The second big quote is it is just dancing, the project goes on to quote Holsopple who people may remember we debunked previously but just for clarity the report was written about American striptease around 30 years ago by a white middle class Christian group who were looking for more government funding. So no conflict therethen? So you can't claim the moral high ground about this based on a report that has nothing to do with UK never mind the UK under the current regulations. But never let factual accuracy worry you when you attack an industry that is a primary source of income for women especially dancers who study as well. Underneath is a quote from Bindel's report to Glasgow council where they deliberately interviewed drunk men without telling them that they are being interviewed. Apart from the appalling ethics in not telling someone they are being interviewed they chose to target men in a state that would give them the best possible outcome. However yes I can guess they can easily pick and choose what went into the report, not saying it was biased but Glasgow Council chose someone that was known for an anti opinion on strip venues. The other issue was accessing prostitution in Scotland via clubs. The big issue here is Bindel has never explained how the figures were obtained and exactly what was judged to be an offer and the structure of the interview leading to this point. a dancer trying to get a private dance from a customer may say things they never intend to go as far as or the interpretation by Bindel's unknown research that would judge by eyesight in some cases, well you can see how difficult it is to accept that work. To be honest if you wanted a fair report the one person you would not go to is Ms Bindel, you can read my previous pieces here  and here.

The issue of empowerment is not one I can answer as I am not a dancer therefore I have no idea, I have spoken to more dancers than I care to think about but all those I have gotten close to seemed comfortable and happy with the work. Interestingly Bindel is quoted on this page and no dancer was actually interviewed as such. They were approached by people wanting dances, one assumes the dancers did what they normally do to sell dances and that is act. Most dancers could make good actresses and social workers, without making it an open and honest interview with the questions and the structure available to review Bindel's quotes carry no weight. Remember I had to spread over two blog entries just some of the 62 issues I have with Bindel's report. You may want to compare what we publish on this blog to the standard of Ms Bindel's report. We always explain how we accessed the figures and how we got our results. Ms Bindel's vagueness would worry anyone producing work in this field.

Not Buying It finding out we are still awake?

And the best single woozle of them all women go to clubs to and they roll out the Lilith in all it's glory however they don't use the name Lilith. It is worded as Eaves 2003 lap dancing and striptease in the borough of Camden, you can see my the work we did are Lilith here. You can assign a different name to the source material but this blog took the figures and checked them, we went through freedom of information requests, we got population figures and we found a meaningful control council to compare with. To call a report a different name to hide the fact it has been debunked so thoroughly, in my mind, borders on dishonesty. I would ask the person who put this fact sheet together where they got the reference from in the first place as someone is being deliberately misleading. Of course using quotes from the defunct Object is a problem as a lot of the source material has disappeared, fortunately this blog has a lot of background on Object and their campaign of misinformation. Sasha is back but it appears that they are pointing the people in Sheffield at information that perhaps it would be best they confirm what other names the resource has been known as.

So long as the fight continues we will continue checking claims and information.

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)

Once Upon a Time Councils Were Less Lazy

TonyN here. Something I never got my head around was the disjointed way each council approaches dealing with SEVs, seeing recently the situation in Scotland where you would question the way they put their message out and how some peoples points of view were conveniently edited so it looks like everyone really wants nil policies. Certainly given the report by Julie Bindel that was done for Glasgow Council back in 2004 you would say certain sections of the political spectrum were busy justifying their approach to dealing with clubs even though any sane person would at least question the report's methodology and we certainly did here and here.

Normally I don't discuss the issues that crop up when dealing with councillors but I think the very brief "discussion" I had with Councillor Nevins of Southend highlights that the way a Councillor thinks is made up long before logic, reason and empirical evidence come into play. Once the original thoughts had been shown to be a misconception it is easier to ignore any future questions.

This sort of highlights the issues we have when dealing with "elected members" they don't have to explain what they think on every subject they may have to vote on. So green reflected a lot of things on how I view the world but some have very strong religious beliefs and this they bring to the table when discussing SEVs even though moral objections should be ignored. So why are we now having all the confusion about what is right and what is wrong. I have at the time of writing this had no reply from Nevins about if she had even bothered to read the links I sent her. The first was Lilith and the second was the crime figures from 2011 for England and Wales which would show that her electorate should have no issues with clubs (except probably in their minds.

So we have a complete mess in that no council has an even handed procedure, the approach of each council is such that they operate on complete random structures and worse no one knows who is being fair and who is judging on a moral basis. We know that crime is less likely around SEVs from my study in 2011, we know that there is no link to rape so we know there is no empirical data that would cause councillors to feel they can judge what clubs are like without even looking at proposals. We have seen how some councillors have pushed and manipulated situations like Rebecca Charlwood in Leeds and her "working Group" that had all but one of it's members against clubs and no input from clubs or dancers (and customers don't count).

So what am I asking for? A standard approach to how councils deal with club renewals, a standard approach to how councils deal with new applications. The concept of nil policy abandoned and each case judged on its merits, if there are issues then there should be no reason a council cannot turn down a club. This has been shown in Birmingham that a council can say we feel the club would be inappropriate. So why is it necessary for a council to say they have a nil policy? Basically that says the licensing committee don't want to have to think and that they are judging that the venues are linked to crime in their heads. The number of renewals that I have heard of where the police have no issues because there are no problems is massive and yet we have this situation where councils are fixed on issues that don't actually exist. Yes we know that certain organisations are happy to scaremonger as they try to take the livelihood away from dancers which is obviously an aspect of feminism I never understood that making women who are exercising free choice lose that free choice.

I want to see license fees fixed so clubs know what they are paying and can't use a massive license as an excuse to justify high house fees. If a club doesn't tow the line and breaks the rules then fines/restrictions/loss of license on a sliding scale. One thing that does annoy me is that when you have a population of 200,000 you find 8 or 9 people with complaints (usually based on the fictions trotted out and debunked in the past) and that should not be enough to have an effect. The number of times I have read that the populace is up in arms in an online local "newspaper" only to find that it is a tiny handful just shouting very loudly and giving the press a chance to put up stock photos with scaremongering headlines. There is no trafficking, there are no links to rape and no link to violent crime around venues. We know this, it is time the press and the councils stopped putting their heads in the sand and living in their little fantasies of what they think. Maybe a bit of mandatory research would stop discussions and me needing to e-mail/tweet councillors with the facts they have not discovered. I will mail councillors and/or tweet them from now on if I see the issue of zombie stats or tiny minorities. And I need my readers to point them out to me.

TonyN (tonyprince@acdcfan.com)

Object's Resources on Lap Dancing, Not Really Improving

So this week saw an interesting turn of events when Object decided to re-promote themselves via Mumsnet by writing a piece about the Channel 4 programme Strippers. Now I am not going to write about the programme as the superb Plastic Dolls Head blog has written about them here and here and as a former dancer the blog has great validity talking from inside the real world rather than the fantasy that Object thinks exists. What I do want to discuss is the result of Object posting on Mumsnet.

Well the usual attitude from the usual crowd so I wasn't expecting much, however a liberal feminist who is on Mumsnet, and has a neighbour who is a dancer, also posts in the feminist section of Mumsnet decided to ask a question. Sausage (screen name) has swapped e-mails with myself and reads the blog so when Object tried to big themselves up she asked why there was still dead links on their lap dancing resources page including the dead Lilith report. Now I tweeted etc at Object back at the beginning of August 2013 about the issues with their page and surprise surprise I was ignored. If does seem though that if the feminist section of Mumsnet ask questions then finally a response in that they have updated their page twice in the last 4 days. The first time they deleted the Lilith report from their resources as it does not exist and they had the dead links removed. Object has also done a second up date to find new links for the reports that were dead so now I intend to look at what after all the time trying to help them that links had died we see what they now think is relevant.

So at the top of list is that joke of a report by Julie Bindel which has been commented on here and here.

The we have the Mindy Bradley report which focuses on the poor and women of colour working in American Clubs which as we know have a different set of rules. Importantly she is not worried about women overall just a specific demographic in the industry.

We still have the report It’s just like going to the Supermarket: Men buying sex in East London which is a study on street prostitution in Tower Hamlets. Having read the report there is nothing referring to sex in clubs just a vague passing reference to the fact that some men who go to SEVs may pay for an Escort. Interestingly they do not comment on the number of men who may not and given how the sample was obtained by adverts in papers the response would be tainted by the type of person who would respond to that.

Okay Holsopple I have said before and will say again the report has no relevance to SEVs in the UK in 2014 but as Lilith is dead they have to hold on to this to try for the claims of violence.

Now on to the Industrial Vagina by Sheila Jefferies, which merges so many arguments that the message is all adult entertainment is wrong. Having not read the book don't know what she says about UK SEVs though. However not expecting much reference at all to the current UK position.

The next two links both go to a page on Spinifex that has nothing to do with Striptease, guess someone didn't check their page editing.

And on again to Raphael and Shapiro dealing with the violence of prostitution in America. Still can't see the relevance to the clubs but there is this desperate attempt to link violence to SEVs even though the figures show that this is not the case.

Scottish Executive report which is the rehash of the disaster that in Bindel's 2004 "work" (and I use the word work in the loosest possible terms). Reads a bit better given the quality of its foundation.

Next is suppose to be a link to work by Rebecca Stark next but links to an ethics book on Prostitution and Pornography which is a moral judgement if it is the work they meant.

Finally Jennifer K. Wesley work in West Florida dealing with dancers who were/are abused, but doesn't identify the percentage of dancers who have this issue and thus implies it is the whole industry. Standard practice to create an image by using specific target research data to create a squiffy view of the industry. And of course this is Florida so we can see how it applies to the UK.

To be honest it looks like Object are not really any better off and the whole of the UK argument hinges on the appalling work by Bindel. The rest is an attempt to imply violence and prostitution inside UK SEVs. So even after removing the car crash that was Lilith the page still  has all sorts of rubbish with no relevance to today's clubs.

TonyN (tonyprince@acdcfan.com)

No Time For A Wee Dram?

And soon could be no chance for the clubs in Glasgow. Alex Salmond's Government Plans for next year include a change in the licensing bill. Which will see councils moving more towards the licensing under the England and Wales 2003 act. And this would give the councils the right to set nil limits and would probably see the same fiascos as we have had south of the border with councils with no clubs setting nil policies because it makes them look good.

Trouble is Glasgow has called for the power and based on the way they view the clubs (remember they commissioned Julie Bindel's swiss cheese like report) we could expect a zero limit and the existing clubs facing legal battles. Sandra White has been campaigning for stricter controls and has a belief that clubs are linked to violence. I tweeted her the question which report is she basing that claim on but so far no reply.

So I am now asking that anyone who has contact with the clubs named in the Bindel Report please get them to contact me. I know that you see each other as competition but unless the clubs in Glasgow start kicking off now with the council there is a chance they will be railroaded at a later date. I have tweeted at one club and e-mailed another but there has been a lack of response from the clubs. I am not after money or working for some club, I am a fanboy that wants dancers to have the right to choose how they earn a living. Which means I will fight tooth and nail to support the clubs that are properly managed. I would quite happily help run out of town clubs that aren't.

Anyway point being is the Bindel report is under a section marked prostitution (here) which implies the council believe you are running prostitutes out of your clubs. Not sure if this how you want to market your clubs but unless you start to redress the balance the chances are you are going to find that will haunt you next year. The report also references the Tottenham Court Road Branch of Spearmint Rhino and the Flying Scotsman. With the Scottie expected to drop striptease next year I contacted SPR but have not heard back yet. I also e-mailed Jim Coleman about the report but had no reply as he wrote the Foreward.

So will the clubs roll over and play dead or will we see the battle lines drawn? Not sure but with Lilith dead it seems that all the Glasgow arguments are based on a report which I have questioned and poked. If that is taken out of the frame then the arguments are not based on any claimed empirical evidence but is just made up beliefs.

TonyN (tonyprince@acdcfan.com)

A Bit More Bindel

Most people who read this blog know I get much more enthused in writing when defending venues and the right for each case to be judge on merit rather than blanket bans which are the current flavour of the month for councils who don't have venues. Or when defending the right to choose for individuals within the law. However as my last couple of pieces have been addressing the tools used by those who cry wolf and decide that every issue should be laid at the door of the strip industry. So I want to go further with the report by Bindel for Glasgow. I have to edit this due to the strange nature of twitter which hides tweets from conversations after 7 days. So JB still stands by her report which is brave considering the things we are pointing out.

So back to that document from Bindel and firstly I want to draw on her methodology. The covert interviews with both customers and dancers has some ethical questions as to why dancers could not be interviewed face to face? Certainly Saunder and Hardy did that in their work and reflected exactly what the dancers said. Was there a worry about the dancers saying things that would not reflect the direction the report wanted to point? So we have now look at how the dancers and customers were selected? Was there a demographic reflected in the work? A totally random sample of 20 customers and dancers should have thrown up a wider range of answers. It appears that the selection may have been on a criteria that was given to the interviewers and we have no idea why any were selected. The worry I have is that no customer was interviewed in Spearmint Rhino in London, the reason given was the customers were unapproachable. I would love to know what that means and how it was decided a customer was approachable. The structure of the methodology for the covert interviews raises questions on how and why people were targeted. This also applies to people interviewed outside the clubs as the use of the word random raises questions. If you are going to interview 20 people then 10 of each sex would seem appropriate but we are not even sure of that.

There was a diagram (figure 1) which is suppose to show the drivers that "cause" the possibility of prostitution. As no study was done in the research about the average earnings of dancers the diagram is a generalization that has no facts to back it up. In fact when you look at the research in 2009 by Leeds University and the earning power of the average dancer of £232 per shift after paying fees the indication is that dancers are quite capable of earning over £4k a month. This makes the claims in figure 1 seem rather invalid, one can only assume that dancers gave the interviewers the I am going to earn nothing story to try and get the interviewer to spend money, as no validation seems to have been done by the interviewers and we cannot assume no dancers were earning from working. So the drivers given by JB are assumptions and we all know what ASSumption are.

Now to look at table 2 again, there is an awful lot of not knowns, in fact I would estimate 50% of that table is not known. And even better is the no special conditions for Legs and Co where the table makes it appear that under 18s could get into the venue even though standard licensing laws would preclude that. And to be honest that truly is a misrepresentation of the club as the report acts as though no licensing laws apply to venues when as they sell alcohol they obviously are governed by licensing laws.

Interestingly the report make claims that the clubs are run by criminals. However licensing laws would preclude people with unpsent criminal convictions from obtaining a license. There could of course be people who are suspected of being criminals which are being referred to, but nice to see innocent till proven guilty being applied (not) if this is the case. Police have the ability to stop alcohol licenses and if a criminal applied they could easily stop the issue of licenses. Ignoring the police's abilities and yet making claims about crime you wonder just how the police is seen by the author? Certainly with freedom of information the public can easily find out about crime around the clubs if it exists.

Bindel does offer some support for dancers when she states “There is little doubt that improving working conditions and contractual arrangements for the dancers would, nevertheless, be of benefit, at least in the short term.”. Why the short term you ask? Well I would take a wild stab in the dark that someone expected venues to close in the longer term. It is a shame there wasn't more support of those women who choose to dance from the radical feminists along these lines rather than the close the clubs and don't worry about the impact it would have on female employment. Interestingly not every feminist has that view including a lot of dancers who see themselves as feminists but are being told that they can't be feminists because they don't fit in with the radical feminists belief in how the world should be.

The use of drugs is something that has me scratching my head, the report says some dancers use drugs and yet I can point out that some doctors use drugs, some investment bankers use drugs, some academic staff use drugs. I know a couple of dancers that will smoke pot but club owners are very aware of the damage drugs being found on the premise would have for their license so they are very against drugs. Certainly I haven't seen any epidemic among dancers in the 20 plus years I have been on the circuit. No doubt there will be the cry they use drugs to dull their sense or they couldn't dance, given that an estimated one in three adults have used drugs at some point in their lives then sorry if you tried to close every industry that used drugs they would be no industries. And how many feminists use drugs? Should we ban feminism because some feminists use drugs? Lets be honest woman found with joint doesn't look like getting a headline but if it was lap dancer found with joint suddenly the whole thing changes. It does show the very two faced nature of these sort of claims.

Still more gems are buried in Bindel's report and all I can say is that in my opinion it has no value now. It may have had a little value in 2004 and that would be generous but in 2013 the report bears no reflection on the current state of the industry in the UK and some of the bibliography quoted in 2004 has even less value. Certainly with Lilith being withdrawn there is now a spate of documents that were previously supporting the radical feminists have lost their importance. Anyone using the Bindel report in 2013 as a resource for the trying to close clubs needs to have a serious rethink!!!!!! I look forward to the chance to debate the validity of the report with anyone who believes it is worth defending.

TonyN (tonyprince@acdcfan.com)

Bindel's 2004 Report to Glasgow Council

This is a review of Julie Bindel's (JB from here on in) 2004 report for Glasgow and it's relative value in 2013. Couple of things first before I get into this, firstly this is just my personal take on it shaped by 20 years plus exposure to the industry, 4 years in local government and 4 years in pre sales/marketing. Secondly this was a 64 page report and I have 62 observations and comments running into over 6 pages in abbreviated form, if I wrote this up as a report it would run into 12 to 15 pages without a bibliography. I would also point out that JB did answer me via twitter that she stands by this report  as valid for the UK in 2013.

Okay this is just a general observation in the use of language, grammar and punctuation. Throughout the report JB uses the term evidence with the meaning signs or indication, however the use of the word evidence in Local Government is for indicating whether a belief or proposition is true or valid. Obviously this could shape the belief that rather that being a sign it is a fact. This is interpretational but experience in Local Government would lead the reader to believe fact rather than supposition. Also within the report there is usage of speech marks to indicate a possible second meaning. This is to create another supposition based on belief rather than knowledge, for example I believe that JB intention was to "encourage" a belief in line with her personal views. See what I did there? This happens throughout the document especially with reference to dancers in the "interviews".

Now this will be amusing to any London club fans as Spearmint Rhino and Flying Scotsman are compared as a like for like through most of the report and it is only in a small quick paragraph that the Scottie is acknowledge as a strip pub and even then the "observer" in the venue failed to notice that the dancers collected before going on stage but stated that they collected after -1 for observation. There is table 2 which seems to indicate that private dancing takes place in the Scottie and only later does it concede that no private dancing takes place. For some reason the report forgets to inform readers that the dancing takes place on a stage. I was amused that the "Observer" was pointed to a pimp in the club as someone once pointed me out to staff as a drug dealer simply because I was monopolising the attention of his favourite dancer. I have even left the Scottie at the same time as a dancer I knew as a friend as she lived on my way home so I would drop her off. This does not mean prostitution just that I had a good friendship with that dancer. I would point out that also in 2004 that several pubs in the area (for those that don't know the Scottie is in Kings cross) would be visited by prostitutes close to closing time looking for customers. This wasn't anything about the Scottie apart from the fact there were men there which applied to several other pubs. Useful though using the locality to help paint the picture.

Now lets move to the covert interviews most especially with dancers as obviously there was little structure which is acknowledged in a table that part of the interview was done covertly. Now the issue is the dancers believe that the interviewer is a customer and approaches her as such using different marketing ploys to encourage her to spend money. From I love my job to woe is me I am going to make no money tonight, these are tools of the trade. I also wonder what guidelines were given to the interviewers as people can shape discussions and lead them in certain directions. I have had training in Pre Sales to do this and know how simple it is to get people to not only discuss what you want them to but also to use language to shape answers. Not saying this was the case but pointing out as woe is me answer could be dancer marketing, interviewer shaping the discussion or just woe is me. TBH though I know how well dancers do so guessing it is marketing. There is a classic line in the report that had me wondering just how naïve the author is? “There are indications that the dancers would attempt to maximise their earnings by extracting as much as possible from each customer they had contact with.” I am sorry but dancers earn their living from the payment by customers for their performance why wouldn't anyone want to maximise their earnings?

The report references a story from the Scottish Daily Record in 1997 where it is claimed 3 women were deported that were part of a trafficking ring. Unfortunately having looked under various versions of the description in Google there seems to be no reference to the case although even if there was one case both Pentameter and Pentameter II had no raids on any clubs throughout the UK. Certainly with the more stringent checks in England and Wales of dancers by councils it would be almost impossible for a dancer to be a victim of trafficking. If the one case is valid then that in over 20 years of my exposure to the industry is the only case that I have ever heard of.

Now jump to chapter A Front for Prostitution? This is a big chapter and to be honest it is hard to know where to start. The question of physical contact and dancers touching themselves during performances were raised however in 2004 there were no standard practises or guidelines for clubs so Lap Dancing obviously in clubs involved physical contact. With the changes in council regulations dancers are not allowed to touch customers nor customers touch dancers. In fact even a kiss on the cheek or walking the customer hand in hand to the private dance area has been stopped by some venues to ensure that council rules cannot be misinterpreted. The section on prostitution contains a lot of suggestions of selling sex yet no actual proof is offered on any of the 6 venues. With the much more stringent regulations councils are putting in place and the concern venues have for keeping their licenses I would suggest that the chances of prostitution are slim. Not saying that it would never happen but from my knowledge of the London scene of 20 years I can only think of one dancer who would arrange to meet customers at hotels etc and she was fired from 4 venues that I know of. However dancers do make friends with customers and sometimes you meet for coffee or a birthday drink that does not mean that sex is being sold just that normal social interaction is taking place.

Now lets jump to clubs in context: The claim of widespread opposition to clubs is strange as the research recently by Professor Phil Hubbard indicated whilst there were issues agreeing locations only 3% of the 941 people surveyed said there was no place for these clubs and then it just turned into NIMBY from some of those surveyed. As the numbers surveyed far exceed the numbers in the 2004 paper that were interviewed the results are more likely to reflect true public opinion. I note that an interviewee in London claimed issues with Spearmint Rhino and noise levels. Has this person never heard of environmental health? If the noise level was truly unbearable then the person could easily have had the venue even closed for repeat offences. Having worked in Local Government the club could have been shut if the noise was that bad. There is also the quote of one person who is local who is embarrassed by the club being near. That reflect a persons moral objection, I could easily say I would be over the moon to be near a club. My opinion would be described as irrelevant by those who oppose clubs and yet the statement that one individual is embarrassed is given weight as it reflects the author's opinion.

I could go on and on and on. I will point out that since the report was written we have had multiple academic researches done using much larger and more diverse samples. Leeds interviewed 200 dancers, Kent had over 900 individuals involved! Also JB has Lilith in the report which has been removed from the Eaves website and the freedom of information requests from Newquay, Camden and Wandsworth which suggests that the idea that clubs encourage sexual violence is in fact a fallacy. I have seen how wording can shape belief and how belief can shape wording especially in Local Government. The choice by Glasgow council of who to write the report suggests they had an intended end game and employed the person most likely to reflect their beliefs. This is nothing new in Local Government, I have done it myself on a couple of occasions and deliberately employed the consultant whose report would reflect the result I wanted. Certainly people would know of JB's beliefs before employing her and this would then bring into question how objective the report was ever going to be.

I am starting to realise that this is going to be longer than intended and I do apologise, there was so much to pick and choose from and trying to get those bits I wanted from my subjective opinion. Still anyone who refers to this report as valid for 2013 would also need to acknowledge that the Leeds and Kent researches are larger and more recent and have researchers who are much more objective. I would say that I have enough issues from the report to Glasgow that I would question in usefulness in the strongest terms.

TonyN tonyprince@acdcfan.com