New York lap-dancing club raided
By Jess McCabe | 21 July 2008, 21:49
A lap-dancing club in New York has been raided and 19 people arrested on a number of charges.
This - criminally, in my view - includes some women working at the club, who are up on charges relating to prostitution. It will surprise no-one, I suspect, that “no customers were cuffed”, according to this report. Check out the pictures on that story, by the way! What a way to illustrate a story about a pimp who exploited women, laundered money through a not-for-profit, and, according to a woman interviewed by the undercover cops, required women to have sex with him in order to get a job.
Meanwhile, additional information from this (NSFW) account of the establishment, on the blog of a woman who used to work there:
He would touch you, and lead you around like a piece of meat… If you were alone in private with him[which most dancers avoided like the plague] he would do everything possible to touch you and even have sex with you. Lou also loved to get bad reviews of his strip club taken off the internet and paid his way to the top of a stripclub list. He would advertise on Cl claiming dancers made $1000 - $5000 a night! The interview process involved dancing for Lou…many girls collected their things after this “interview” and were never seen again. If Lou found you bad-mouthing the club on the internet you would be fired. He found out about my blog and read it regularly while I worked there to make sure I never said anything.
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JENNIFER DREW said:
Not only are the photographs of some of the women 'performing' for men's sexual entertainment depicted as supposedly enjoying men's lascivious leers etc. they also reinforce the widespread belief
that women who work as lapdancers are ...... Not only that, but some of the comments once again blame women for working in these clubs. Of course it is women's fault, after all those men who frequent these places and demand women be made available for them to rape and sexually torture are just enacting their male sexual rights and privileges. Likewise I have no doubt the male owner of this prostitution business will be excused his violent rapes of the women since he was just an astute businessman who sought to turn a profit not only by sexually exploiting these women but also satisfying his sexual appetite via raping them. All in an excellent example of how male accountability is neatly invisibilised with of course the focus once again on women's supposed accounability. Will Lou the owner appear in handcluffs and appearing submissive - I very much doubt it.
Posted on 22 July 2008 at 2:38 PM
labbott said:
Unfortunately this double-standard of the "boys will be boys" and "blame the woman" bullshit mentality doesn't seem to exist in a vacuum, and it seems to have gotten worse here in the USA. The latest Ms. magazine has an excellent (and angering) article about the DC Madam and the self-righteous, holier-than-thou prick of a Senator Vitter. He, along with the other high-rolling men who patronised the DC Madam, basically got off free, while she faced imprisonment. She later committed suicide. And where's Vitter? Still senator for Lousiana.
Posted on 22 July 2008 at 10:32 PM