To whom it may concern,
I have been a lap dancer for quite some time now. I work in Portsmouth as I live here and it would be inconvenient for me to travel to other cities on regular basis (however this would happen if you shut the strip clubs in Portsmouth). I am a student at University of Portsmouth and as most people know the tuition fees are high as well as the accommodation and the life is hard when you cannot get support from your parents or the government. Being a lap dancer made my education possible, because working as a bar staff or having any other job wouldn't provide for all the expenses I have. Also I choose how many nights and hours to work so I can still attend the lectures during daytime.
If the strip clubs in Portsmouth shut that would make everything so difficult. I will most probably have to go work in other cities doing the same job, it won't stop me. If I do not have this job this means I have to drop university wasting all that time and efforts I've put in so far. I don't even want to think about this possibility because it would be ridiculous. I think of myself as a smart and intelligent girl. I am not embarrassed from my job because I don't think it is something bad or that it harms anyone. Men come to strip clubs for fun and they know there is nothing else they can get except from a dance, which does not even include any form of physical contact.
I like my job not only because of the financial part but also because I meet so many different people and enjoy some nice conversation. I've learnt so many new things, broadened my knowledge on different topics, this is something that I've never imagined or expected before I started doing this job and perhaps no one would understand that until they actually get involved in this job ... any may be this is the reason everyone judge us even though they don't know what is really going on ...
I can confirm and declare that none of the girls I've met since I've been doing this job are forced to do it. It is our own choice and we all have our reasons to do it. Even some of the girls are happily married with kids and they do this job because the hours and financial part are convenient. Girls support their families or just their children due to different circumstances, others do it to support their education or just for a bit of extra money. The important thing is that we all want to be lap dancers and this is our full or part time job. If we lose our jobs in Portsmouth won't stop us being lap dancers most of us will just move to work in other strip clubs in the country but it will just make it so inconvenient.
Please save out jobs, we like what we are doing, we are not forced to do it, strip clubs don't harm anyone and our jobs are important for us!!!
Best regards,
Its a good letter and once again illustrates the lies and outright hysteria that play an integral part in so many Object and locally Solent Feminist Network Campaigns.
Discussion about Object on the Guardian website today.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/apr/15/anna-van-heeswijk-page-three-tabloid?commentpage=last#end-of-comments
This comment from someone called Imbo shows how dancers' testimony is irrelevant to these people.
"The problem is that when you're working a degrading, traumatic and humiliating job that you have been compelled to take up for money, you're naturally going to find ways of not having to face up to how awful it is so that you can keep going into work every day.
So studies that take into account the opinions of women who are still stuck in the industry are highly suspect because so many will be in denial about how traumatised they are and how that trauma manifests itself. This is something we're beginning to take account of in the military, why not the sex industry?"
Yeah, they've got 'Stockholm Syndrome' and can't help themselves, so that is why the sisters must intervene and rescue them for their own good. The scales are falling from my eyes.
DeleteBit of a circular argument, eh? The underlying assumption is that working as a stripper is automatically degrading, traumatic and humiliating; how then do they explain the presence of female graduates who've already had other careers, but have CHOSEN to become strippers in preference to their previous work? Or those who continue to strip after graduating on a part-time basis, alongside a full-time job, as a matter of personal fulfillment rather than economic necessity?
ReplyDeleteOh, and whilst I'm on the subject: if members of Object and UK Feminista are genuinely concerned about the welfare of strippers, why have they gone out their way to avoid dialogues with the GMB and Equity, who represent their interests as workers?
If 'feminists' of Anna van Heeswijk's ilk want everyday examples of work which is degrading, traumatic and humiliating, they'd be better off focusing on call centres and customer service departments.
Well I have got to the point where I am facing people who refuse to accept anything other than their view. Guessing Object and UK feminista have had to take action as they are seeing their pin ups get battered.
ReplyDeleteYes its a huge 'TonyN' alert, but is seems to me that things aren't exactly going their way, at least in terms of this article.
DeleteConsidering the groundswell of popular support that Object would have one believe they enjoy, Heeswijk & Co haven't managed to mobilise anyone capable of arguing his/her way out of a wet paper bag!
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