"Central to the film is the fallacy that yesterday's headbangers had a crazier (and therefore cooler) lifestyle than today's young musicians, and that the music was, if not better, more extroverted and vital."

I don't think it's a fallacy, and as a member of the 'younger' generation I'm certainly not offended by it. Fuck "extroverted and vital". Yes, it's SUCH a shame that today's rock bands sing about things other than sex and booze, and try to make art rather than simply making a spectacle of themselves. I can't wait until the collapse of the music industry is complete, the final nail put into the coffin of the vapid, bloated rock/pop star, and the only bands that survive will eke out a living touring and selling t-shirts while striving to make music that people will actually want to hear.

...I'm sorry, I had to go there.

I know what fallacy means. If you read my first sentence again, you will see that there are two points. One is that I do think it's true that today's rock is less 'extroverted and vital'. Two is that I don't think this is a bad thing. Unfortunately, a dictionary won't help your reading comprehension.

I'm not sure why it was relevant that she's one of Hilary's staunchest supporters, but I can predict that someone's fingers are just itching to make some snarky remark. If this describes you, just stop and think for a second whether you have any decency left.

Well, I mean it is. But let's talk about the johns for a second. I've made this point several times before. Hipster girls are always prattling on about how being a stripper or a prostitute is empowering, etc. Yet the description of the john in this article, and the girl's reaction pretty much tells you all that you need to know.

If we took a cross-section of strip club patrons or johns, what kinds of men would we find? It breaks down into three types: lonely pathetic losers, frat guys, or cocky douchebag business types who have neither the time nor the inclination for real relationships. I realize this probably makes up a majority of the male population. In fact, it probably describes most of our beloved trolls. But from my experience, educated guys with normal self-esteem and at least moderately progressive will maybe go a couple of times as a rite of passage when they turn 18, and afterwards come to view the whole thing as kind of silly and skeezy. Not just because it degrades women, but because it degrades the men who willingly admit that they have to spend money to get satisfaction.

All of the guys in the first group would readily admit that they view the strippers as objects, not as "empowered, liberated women". Now, you may say who cares what they think as long as I feel empowered. But you are participating in and perpetuating this sort of culture. Your individual power comes at the expense of women (and men), and gender relations in general.

Don't get me wrong, I never said we should 'ban' anything. I'm categorically against the sort of cultural studies approach where the key to fixing everything is supposedly making companies put more women in action movies or protesting certain kinds of Barbies. These are symptoms, not causes. I'm just saying that intelligent women who have a choice of whether or not to go into this kind of work should stop deceiving themselves into thinking it's empowering.

As for the analogies with lipstick and heels, I think there's still a difference. Yes, I suppose one could say that they help to objectify women, but then one could say that for anything that people do to look better, like combing their hair. At the end of the day, a woman wearing lipstick can still choose to engage with a man on a human and more or less equal level. Sartre wrote that the validation we seek from others can only be possible on the condition that the others are free to give or withhold it. In the hooker/stripper scenario, neither party is free.

By the way, to clear up any misconceptions, I am not some angry lesbian feminist caricature, but a dude of the non-strip club-going variety.

Also, I feel kind of bad that my post ended up right below Al Bania's. I was speaking in general terms. But Al, I am really curious as to why someone who is self-aware enough to realize the contradictions and mutual degradation at play would frequent prostitutes. Is it really worth that feeling?

Knecht, the simple response to your question would be 'no'. If you were abused as a child AND needed the money to boot, far be it from me to judge your decision. My scorn is reserved for the comfortably upper-middle-class hipster girls who parrot the empowering line without ever acknowledging the downsides that you pointed out. I think what you define as empowerment in terms of working through your trauma is a pretty different concept from what they choose to glamorize it as. Either way I'm glad you got your issues straightened out and were able to achieve some stability.

And aaron, I think you might be somewhat right. My first post was hastily written. But still: having been a shy, awkward, introvert with similarly afflicted friends through most of high school and college, the idea of going to a prostitute never even occurred to any of us. Partly because it probably would have been even more terrifying than just talking to a girl, but I suppose it was also that we weren't quite so badly off as to have forsaken all hope for normal interaction. I suppose if someone thinks he simply has no other choice, it's possible for him to hire a prostitute without necessarily having a degraded view of women. But in that case, it's still just a really sad situation all around, hardly fun or empowering like the pro-sex crowd claims.