Letters to the Editor
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Not a good time to discuss what's important to you
If I was disrespectful and rude, I would say that since someone is being raped every two minutes http://www.rainn.org/get-information/statistics/frequency-of-sexual-assault
baby seals really should not be a priority right now.
However, I think everyone should talk about and work for what they believe in at any given time.
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Please stop with the blanket statements about strippers!
I am a 32-year old vegetarian, feminist, burlesque dancer and pin-up model with a graduate degree. That’s right! I take my clothes off on stage and for cameras and I have a great time doing it!! I have many, many friends who are highly intelligent, vegetarian (or not) and also take their clothes off in public on a regular basis on stage, be it in a regular nightclub or in a regular strip club. I have a friend who works at Johnny Diablo when she is in Seattle and thinks it’s a damn fun place to work, primarily because (gasp!) the atmosphere is very respectful and a bit quirky.
I get so incredibly sick of the tired, worn out generalization that women getting naked in public for money, for fun, for a cause that they believe in--or for any reason whatsoever--is always about exploitation. I would bet that the Vegan Vixens are a bunch of extremely kick ass ladies who came up with the act on their own, rehearse a lot, spend a lot of money on costumes, and are damn proud of what they are doing—entertaining audiences. Just like the World Famous Pontani Sisters, the Hot Pink Feathers, or the Fat-Bottom Revue (a fantastic plus-sized burlesque troupe). I have never ever once felt exploited for my own nudity. In fact, it has had the opposite reaction of making me feel more comfortable with myself, and I ain’t got a Barbie body. I love my audiences and I love coming up with new acts.
In the world of striptease politics are often an issue—even in regular strip clubs. I’ve seen gals do antiwar acts, environmental acts, et al. Why can’t strippers or nude models bring their politics to work without it being an issue of “exploiting themselves” for their cause? I don’t know many who would see a conflict of interest between their love for animals or the planet and the jobs that they CHOOSE to do and often ENJOY. Are secretaries who put up PETA stickers in their miserable office cubicles publicly fingered for a problematical combination of antipathy toward animal exploitation and the simultaneous exploitation of their own time and labor for corporate and shareholder profits? I guess that doesn’t make for such juicy news.
I would imagine that those strippers or dancers who integrate political and social causes into their acts or their work are the ones who lead the most healthy, empowered lives. I think what bothers me is that Ms. Lloyd, and the Times article are making rather broad generalizations about women in the nudity trade--I find it interesting that they didn't talk to any of the models or dancers themselves...instead they just interviewed the club owner. We are not all alike, we are not all exploited and we are not all embodying exploitation itself. It is a situation of far more nuance. To paint stripping or modeling with such a broad brush dehumanizes women, period. It implies that we are all poor, ignorant, maladjusted whores who are betraying the feminist cause. I say bullshit. And the phrase “tarty dancers”??? Come on, Broadsheet, I really expect more of people who consider themselves feminists.
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"normal, healthy"
Secondly, it's not befitting a progressive media outlet to have an ongoing crusade against normal, healthy, human sexuality. If Ms. Lloyd cannot develop a grown-up perspective on sex, then perhaps her skills would be more suited to writing on a different topic.
Since when is a strip club "normal, healthy, human sexuality?"
Strip clubs are cesspools of objectification, meant for dudes that think it's cool to watch women degrade themselves for money. It's ironic that a strip club would call itself 'vegan' and demand good treatment for animals but base their entire business around mistreating women.
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Stripping is empowering
The time I spent in the sex industry was one of the unhealthy-est times of my life, and the proportion of women I met in the sex industry was about 3-1 mentally ill, abuse survivors, and drug users to healthy empowered women. I guess one woman's exploitation is another womans empowerment. Personally, I think doing something women haven't already done for thousands of years, like physics, is a lot more revolutionary than selling sex.
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peta almost has no choice here: as long as giving animals rights is seen as denying humans pleasure animal rights will be a fringe view
they are, in my opinion quite successfully, countering this.
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Stripping is one thing
And arguments can be made, by informed women with experience in the field, for both sides -- both that it can be empowering, and conversely that it's degrading. Not having had the experience, I'm willing to concede that different women have divergent yet equally valid viewpoints.
The same cannot be said of how PETA (and apparently other similar organizations) deliberately portrays women. As previous poster Josiah notes, equating fur ripped from a (hopefully) dead animal to naturally occurring female pubic hair and declaring both disgusting is repugnant.
I had my doubts about PETA way back in the days when they enlisted supermodels for the "I'd rather go naked than wear fur" campaign. However, I suspended judgement because I felt these were easily recognizable individual women who clearly represented only their own viewpoints, even though I personally felt it was on the exploitative side.
However, their subsequent campaign promoting organ donation eliminated my doubts as to PETA's intentions. This picture featured Kimberly Hefner (I believe still Hugh Hefner's wife at the time). Ms. Hefner is beautiful, but not easily recognizable in the way that Naomi Campbell is (one of the "Naked" campaign participants -- who subsequently went back to wearing fur, much to PETA's chagrin). Hence, Ms. Hefner COULD be taken as an anonymous, representative female.
The headline for the campaign? "Some people need you inside them."
Yes, please, a blanket sexual invitation as a "plea" to save animals from being killed for their organs.
PETA's lack of compunction in using women in the crassest, most cartoonish, stereotypical and deeply disrespectful ways -- again, for headlines, not results, has long been an issue for many animal rights activists.