I had a tenant once who worked at a strip club. Nice girl, 21, very easy on the eyes, dumb as a bag of hair. She made $300-500 a night at the club. Boom, rent and all your bills paid in one night. This chic, if she hadn't been doing that, would be getting fired from one fast food job after another for not having the brains God gave a mop. She saw absolutely nothing wrong with what she did for a living, and neither did (do) I. I wouldn't call it an *easy way to make a living, but for those God blessed with the right attributes (or for those who had them added later) a little effort can pay a whole lot. And who am I to judge? (shrug)

Men are too more visually stimulated than women. I read it somewhere, and everything I read is true. Plus 99% of porn is bought, rented, and viewed by men. Okay, made that figure up, but I bet it's close. I've dated some women who like porn, but (sigh) "only if it's got a plot." If I accidentally download porn that has a plot, I use Windows Movie Maker to edit it out. Except that lesbian pirate movie, which is now my favorite movie ever.

Aren't you glad I don't stop by your blog more often?

Love you & miss you, babe.

R

R: You are infuriating. I'll bet most of the porno you watch portrays women in a way that makes men think that women are made for sex like an ax is made for chopping, therefore making rape acceptable, if not logical. I'll bet that when you see a girl on the street who looks like one of the girls you've watched in porno, you want to rape her.

Thus, I hope you get raped in the ass by five fat, sweaty bastards just to teach you a lesson. Now seeing THAT would give me visual stimulation.

Hello H:
Don't you all see that R is only trying to yank your chain? It only makes us (the unconverted) smile when you get hot under the collar ...
Also, it is assuming a great deal to think R wants to rape girls in the street.
Insulting an average joe type like R isn't going to win you any converts!
Diane, your self-important tone is hilarious.
Finally, regarding MEN who allegedly walk around fantasizing about "oppressing women" -- are you-all unaware that The Story of O was written by a woman? Or was she only a victim of "false consciousness"? How condescending.

Yep I have taught Story of O. Um, not to be self-important, but the name is Diana with an a.

Ummm, I'll call you whatever I feel like. Got it?

Sure. You're the man!

Have a nice evening.

Diana -

I've only read a few of your posts, but you are cracking me up. Not only do you hit the nail on the head, but your writing style is priceless. It's the best thing I've come across in a while.

Now - about these strip clubs. My ex-husband went to them ALOT!! I never could get it through his head that he was taking OUR money and giving it to some other woman to be naked for him!!

Being a comedian I am constantly on the road and have been into the occasional strip club. I know why I go there and it isn't to see boobs. Its the power. When men try to appoach and talk to women they have to ask them out and approach them and the women have the power to say no. At a strip club it is the exact opposite. Women come up to you and fight for your attention. (Ok i know they fight for money but we have good imagination). At a strip club a man has the power to say "No" to a woman knowing that another one will ask sooner or later. That is why I go but I'll be honest. The boobs don't hurt.

The boobs don't hurt unless capsular contraction has rendered them hard as stone! Har har. Thanks for the frank observation. It's absolutely about power, yes, and the way that we insist men feel powerful to be "men" in this culture creates the need to denigrate and objectify women. Free men from the punishing forms of masculinity currently propagated and we will be able to finally see women as people too! Then we can all just relax and have sex for free like god intended!

One of your commenters hit it right on the head. It has nothing at all to do with sexual turn on and everything to do with power, domination and control.

The phenomenon is the same with porn. In fact, Dr. Diana Russell has done some amazing work. Also, check out Hustling the Left for a look into the eye of the beast (NOT work safe).

Next OAG does a great job of showing the Myths of the Sex Industry

You're onto something here but you should check out these links about the sex industry. They're informative and eye opening. Particuarly OAG and Diana Russell. Hustling the Left does a great job of exposing pornography as the hate speech it is but the other two are more academic.

New reader, here, catching up on your posts. Help me understand this one, as I'm just starting to dig feminism. I've never had a problem with strip clubs or pornography. I'm not sure I grok why it hurts men or women. It seems to me to be relatively harmless. Why is a strip club necessarily mysogenistic (sp)? Is the same true for a male strip club (where hot semi-naked men are dancing about)?

You know it never ceases to amaze how clueless woman are when it comes to this topic.

Why do men go to strip clubs?

Because they like looking at naked women. The rest is just BS.

May be the better question is why don't women go in greater numbers assuming they like men.

And while they are pondering that great mystery of life, why not seek the answer to the age old question of...

Why does a dog lick his balls?

OUCH dr.! you seem to hate the "oppressors" so much...I wonder, do you hate your "oppressor" for giving women the same educational opportunities and lowering standards to gain employment, (especially in the military and law enforcement) afforded to women in 2006!Though there is still work to be done,our society has made a lot of progress. Can you give the "oppressors" a little credit?

I like what T Creator said. It's about the naked women. For me, a married man, it's about looking at naked women, knowing I'm not allowed to touch them, but feeling no pressure to do so because hey, I'm at a strip club, I'm not allowed to touch them anyway.

And frankly, the only time I go anymore is with my wife, who likes going a lot, especially cause of how much I like going.

Most strippers are happy to tell you their real names and talk. So many of the guys who go into those places aren't interested in anything other than another piece of meat. It's refreshing to meet clients who are nice, young, and interested in finding out the story of a person who decided to be a stripper.

So, having said all that, strip clubs exist because there is an instinct that's existed for millions of years for a male of the species to seek out sex. Even in cases where a herd is serviced by few (or one) males, the male is expected to seek out the females in heat and mount them to procreate. A strip club is a place where a man can get his blood pumping and feel like he's gonna get ready and do his duty, and it can really make you feel stimulated. Plus, because of the rules and laws we set up, the man can get all this without feeling like he's doing anything wrong, cause he didn't come within 4 feet or whatever.

You can't forget about the number of people who do things (drink, drugs) just to feel different. These same people sometimes go to strip clubs because of how it makes them feel different than normal.

Years ago I used to visit strip clubs quite regularly. The reason was simple: to see bare breasts, which could not necessarily be seen easily otherwise. Nowadays, with pictures of the breasts of yourself (not to mention about ten million other women) available for free on the internet, there is no reason to visit strip clubs anymore. There is no reason to pay good money for that which is available for free. The power issue may have existed in strip clubs but that wasn't why I went.

Your rhetoric consistently casts females as victims and males (ALL MALES) as oppressors. In this way, despite your repeated self-congratulatory assertions that you are interested in changing the world for the better by showing young women how to think for themselves (because, you imply, they cannot do so now) you actually seem to be working very hard to perpetuate the stereotypical gender roles you claim to be working against.

For example, you (condescendingly) "wish all women had [the] luxury" of seeking their own sexual pleasure. (For you, apparently, it is a "right." I assume this is because you are no longer one of the mindless robots who haven't "read deeply" the same books you have read.) The "women" in the world you've created in these sentences are being victimized, are trapped. They do not "have the luxury" of seeking their own pleasure--it has not yet been given to them.

Furthermore, you "wish that women having [this luxury] was something that men cared about." And here you've given men the undeserved power over women's sexuality that you were striving to take away. You are suggesting that individual women are incapable of simply "seeking their own pleasure," but they must be granted the luxury of doing so, and this will never happen without the cooperation of men. (By the way, do you have any qualifiers on hand at all? Why do you find it so easy to make sweeping judgements of an entire gender? Either gender?)

I'm not writing this to start a debate or to insult you. I'm sure you're a smart enough person. I don't care a bit about your boobs. But you are a teacher, and you profess yourself a champion of feminist interests, and you seem to have a real and admirable desire to help other women feel absurdly good about themselves.

Because I do admire this drive, and share, to some extent, similar aspirations, I feel it is my duty to tell you that you are making matters worse. You are alienating men from the discussion of gender issues, and you are also alienating females.

You are telling your students that they are stupid and have been duped, and that they are at war; that to the list of all their seemingly superficial insecuritiess about hair and clothes and make-up they must now add the fact that they are weak-minded and petty for even having those concerns.

You are hurting people.

You should not tell people they are stupid and then ask them to learn. You should not congratulate yourself for rescuing your students from the limited world view that has been foisted on them by "my culture" and then foisting another, equally limited world view on them in its place. You cannot teach students to think for themselves by telling them to think like you.

Your rhetoric perpetuates the "victimization" and "oppression" of women. It is the rhetoric of the underdog. It is appealing, in that respect--a dash of self-pity, a cup full of the revolutionary spirit, and every bit of pathos that a long, drawn-out, losing battle can evoke in a spectator, or even a participant, provided no lasting pain is involved.

It's like Rocky (and Rocky II and Rocky III.)

I believe it is true that "the men who are really into power" fear change, as you suggest. But I wonder whether you are just as scared of it. If only because when "the change" you seem to waiting and "fighting" for does come about, you will have nothing more to say.

I hope you take what I say seriously into consideration. You have some amount of power now and, like many exotic dancers, you are taking advantage of the desire people have (for myriad reasons) to look at your bare body. You seem intent on using your new power not only for monetary gain, but to do some lasting good.

I think you can, but you might want to watch your language.

I mean well,

TS

I don't know why we like looking at naked women but we do.

In my journey to try to understand myself and men in general I've come up with some starting points.

One is the reminder it gives us of comfort. Looking makes us feel comforted. I know that when I am lonely or sad, that is when I most long for the sight of a woman. For right or wrong we idealise women as nurturers.

The second is related to the first. As boys we never learn to talk about how we feel about women. We can talk about cars, engines, sport, technology all day long. But we don't learn to talk about how we feel about anything - let alone talk about the strongest feelings we experience - those associated with women.

So we suppress how we feel. We learn that it is regarded as weakness to say we thought a girl was pretty and we thought her face, neck, breasts, hips or legs were pretty. In one way it is weakness - we are overwhelmed by your beauty. So we learn to use the locker room language to speak about you and the staring to diminish you in a pathetic attempt to restore our power.

In all this we are confused. We love you yet we diminish you. Why do we do that? We want you to be close to us but we push you away. Why do we do that?

Having no avenue to talk about these things (and growing up as we do, talking about them seems like the scariest thing we could possibly do) we continue doing what we know how to do - pushing you away with our crudeness and rudeness.

Strip-clubs are our fantasy world. A world where we fantasy that we haven't pushed you away. A world where we fantasy that you want to be close to us in the only way we know closeness. Where we fantasy that you (at least some of you) take pity on our pour souls and give us a brief moment of enjoyment in our fantasy world.

it doesn't make sense, but fantasies never do.

I don't know what a strip club has to do with seeing women as nurturers. Treating women like animated blow-up dolls that exist for visual pleasure is pretty much the polar opposite of the kind of emotional connection between a woman and a person she nurtures.

Nathaniel said, "Plus, because of the rules and laws we set up, the man can get all this without feeling like he's doing anything wrong, cause he didn't come within 4 feet or whatever." If you can go treat women as bodies instead of as people, purchase the use of women's bodies for your consumption, then I would sure hope you don't feel like you're doing nothing wrong. It is deeply wrong. In doing so, you are reinforcing a relationship between genders where women are the prey of men, and men's sexual appetites are the main concern of sexuality. This kind of gender relations is exactly what makes rape so prevalent - if woman's role is to service man's sexual needs, then a man would surely feel entitled to use a woman's body for sex, with or without her permission. After all, as observed by "Brad Williams" above, "women have the power to say no. At a strip club it is the exact opposite." Wanting women to not have the choice to "say no" is the mentality behind rape. I don't believe strip club patrons are commiting rape by enjoying these twisted and immoral power relations, but most men who rape have histories of spending time in strip clubs and consuming harmful pornography. Strip clubs are to rape what marijuana is to heroine. It's not neccesarily a "gateway", but it's an unhealthy addiction at two different levels.

If your wife goes to watch other women degrade themselves because you like it, please don't assume that it's because she enjoys it. It's more likely that she's trying desperately to include herself in your sexual routine, which includes paying women for sexual services. Going to a strip club is the non-contact version of picking up a hooker. You're cheating on your wife when you do it, even if she's come to accept it. Why don't you look at HER body, have HER dance for you? Why don't you turn the tables and dance for her? Does it all have to revolve around YOUR desires?

And PS - to all who said it was about seeing naked women: then why do they wear such ridiculous getups that practically mock female sexual organs? Why do you feel so certain that your desire to see women's sexuality as existing for YOU is acceptable?

I think men who go to strip clubs are pathetic. They need to get the guts to find a woman with whom to share sexuality in a healthy, reciprocal way. When sex is mutually enjoyed between partners, it is beautiful. When it is something a woman must sell out of economic hardship to a man who sees her as purchaseable, it is tragic.

Men, you can be better than this. You can consume cheap, ugly sexuality in a strip club, or enjoy sexuality in unison with intimacy on other levels, making the sex meaningful and fulfilling, instead of quick, shallow, and degrading to another person. Learning to enjoy women as people too will make your life better, and you won't have to leave a wad of bills in any hot pink G-strings.

You can't be 16804 serious?!?

What does the 16804 mean?

Diana I think you should be doing something better with that PhD than writing sexist blogs on the net. At least write a sexist book, maybe you'll make a few million bucks.

Your observations could use a little more thought, Ms. Philosopher. First of all, has it occurred to you that NOT ALL MALES CAN GET FEMALES?!?! ding ding ding! The entire background of human evolution. It has nothing to do with "society today". On the contrary, it's the explanation for everything that has ever happened in human history.

The fact is that if people are "free to choose who to have sex with" women will naturally drift toward their preferred males. Sure, women's individual preferences are diverse, and about 70% of males would be accomidated. So now you have 100% of the females having sex with 70% of the males. What about the other 30%?

Let me put it this way. Would you like to be the one who never gets laid?

NO!!! You wouldn't! There we have it. And there we have war, family, technology, art, and society.

Tsk tsk... why don't men control their sex drives? Why do those 30% care if they have sex?

Well why do you care if I tell you to keep quiet and raise my kids? People want things. And you're right when you say that doing what you want implies freedom. The ability for that 30% to use their abilities to obtain mates is the exact essence of human freedom, and in a classical sense, since it is responsible for war, family, technology, art, and society, it's exactly what makes us human.

On a side note, there are more ways than one for a man to gain power...

Well i must say that my husband has attended strip clubs behind my back against my wishes. I am not jealous and I know that I am a beautiful woman because I get told so on almost a daily basis, yet I was not beautiful enough to keep my husband from going to a strip club. You men need to realize that most women are offended by their husbands gawking at other naked women. I feel that a man should only desire to see the one he lays down with and if he can't do that, he doesn't need to be married!

In America, women are only oppressed if they let themselves be. There are equal opprotunity benefits and rules, which prevents sexism. America is a country for the fittest. A stripper, and the customer are citizens who finds the easiest way out of life.