# Bill the feminist, sex workers speaking for their damn selves, and assorted feminist issues........
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bill-the-feminist-sex-workers-speaking-for-their-damn-selves-and-assorted-feminist-issues/591112
**Category:** The BBQ Pit
**Created:** [August 1, 2011, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bill-the-feminist-sex-workers-speaking-for-their-damn-selves-and-assorted-feminist-issues/591112 "2011-08-01T23:55:51Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 5
### Author:  [@Indygrrl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indygrrl)
#### Post date: [August 3, 2011, 4:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bill-the-feminist-sex-workers-speaking-for-their-damn-selves-and-assorted-feminist-issues/591112/81 "2011-08-03T04:42:01Z")
> [@Rigamarole](#):
>
> I never said it was true across the board. But the fact that on a good night one can pull more than I make in a month is enough that I can’t feel sorry for them. Which is what you want, right?
Have you read anything I’ve written? If so, where on earth did you get the idea that I would want anyone to feel sorry for strippers? That’s pretty much the opposite of what I said. Also, if you’re only making a couple hundred dollars a month, that’s sad. That’s what I’m telling you about the “big bucks” you think strippers make. It can be a good living, but not unless you work your ass off for it, and it isn’t feasible to live like P Diddy on most strippers earnings.
> [@](#):
>
> I’m on your side, trying to diminish the myth of stripper victimization. In the process I feel like standing up for men at least a little bit is warranted, even though of course I agree that ultimately people are responsible for how they spend their finances. I’m sick of hearing people parrot the mantras we’ve been indoctrinated with since birth as if it were inalienable truth: that men are more or less greedy, selfish, abusive oppressors and women are always victims. It’s bullshit.
I’m not saying anything about men that they’d need standing up for. I love men. And I love most strip club patrons. Most of the ideas people have about them are wrong. The vast majority aren’t pigs as much as they are human beings looking to connect with another human being. Many travel for business, to cities where they don’t know anyone, and they come to the club for some conversation with a pretty woman who will laugh at their jokes, flirt with them, and rub her delicious body on them. It doesn’t have anything to do with the “frigidity” of the average woman. That shit works both ways.
There are a lot of men who have been married for 15+ years and because of kids, money, mortgage, job stress, life, etc., they aren’t getting flirty specialized attention at home. It isn’t a statement about how they feel about their wives, it’s just a reaction to the reality of life. So they come to the club, spend a few hundred dollars, and leave with a little ego boost and sexual tittilation. And for older men who aren’t married, it is not uncommon for them to go months without so much as a hug from another human being. Every one of us needs to be touched, acknowledged, for so many reasons. And for men like that, the strip club is the perfect place to go for that attention, superficial as it may be.
Life isn’t black and white. Women don’t all fall into two categories, frigid and nympho. Most are in between all of that, and it would take all day to analyze the male/female dynamic with regard to sex workers and the reasons men seek them. Does that make sense?
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### Author:  [@Rigamarole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rigamarole)
#### Post date: [August 3, 2011, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bill-the-feminist-sex-workers-speaking-for-their-damn-selves-and-assorted-feminist-issues/591112/82 "2011-08-03T05:08:17Z")
> [@Indygrrl](#):
>
> Have you read anything I’ve written? If so, where on earth did you get the idea that I would want anyone to feel sorry for strippers? That’s pretty much the opposite of what I said.
Err… you misread my comment. I said I don’t feel sorry for strippers - which is what you want (that is, for people NOT to feel sorry for strippers). I’m agreeing with you (as I explained further immediately after the part you quoted).
Also, my defending men isn’t based on anything you’ve said. It’s just based on the fact that no one else does and in general the attitude that we’re always in the wrong grows tiresome.
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### Author:  [@Indygrrl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indygrrl)
#### Post date: [August 3, 2011, 5:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bill-the-feminist-sex-workers-speaking-for-their-damn-selves-and-assorted-feminist-issues/591112/83 "2011-08-03T05:54:27Z")
> [@punch\_line\_loser](#):
>
> That said, **Indygrrl** , I’m curious: do you know anything about the plight of male strippers? You don’t hear so many people complaining about how often they’re victimized (in fact the same goes for male sex workers in general), but do you or does anyone know any differences or similarities between their experiences and females’?
My knowledge of male strippers is limited, but from everything I’ve read and heard, the ones who make good money dance for gay men. I think men dancing for women is not terribly common, and nothing like the way regular strip clubs work.
One of the clubs I worked at for years used to have male strippers on Saturday nights, in addition to all of us. We had six small stages in the club, and the guys would dance on the one in the back. That made for an interesting dynamic, lol. The women would start showing up crazy early, like 7 or 8:00, and by the time the guys got going they’d be pretty energized. They weren’t as aggressive as you’d think, but the guys were. They’d hump all over the women, and just get rough with it. I never understood the appeal of it. By 1 a.m. the women would start meandering over to our side and mixing with our customers, which pissed a lot of dancers off because the women would start flashing their boobs and trying to dance on guys. These were the same women who would narrow their eyes and whisper about us all evening, and there were many nights that I expected it to turn into a brawl. We could only put up with so much, and they really pushed us. But it never happened. Strippers can lay the smack down on a bitch, but not at the cost of their job, which is what would have happened if we had assaulted any of the female patrons. But boy oh boy did we want to. They would have deserved it.
(These were specifically women who came to see the guys, not ALL female customers. Regular women customers are usually ok, annoying and cheap, but ok.:p)
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### Author:  [@Rachellelogram](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rachellelogram)
#### Post date: [August 3, 2011, 6:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bill-the-feminist-sex-workers-speaking-for-their-damn-selves-and-assorted-feminist-issues/591112/84 "2011-08-03T06:11:59Z")
Don’t throw quarters at the girls onstage, they don’t like that.
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### Author:  [@corkboard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/corkboard)
#### Post date: [August 3, 2011, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bill-the-feminist-sex-workers-speaking-for-their-damn-selves-and-assorted-feminist-issues/591112/85 "2011-08-03T13:45:43Z")
> [@DiosaBellissima](#):
>
> Well, I don’t think dancing was ever her life long career choice through retirement- just because she’s a stripper doesn’t mean she’s retarded.
Just to clarify- I wasn’t implying that she was. I was going off of your description of her as high school educated and unskilled. There are plenty of college- and post-graduate-educated folks with skills still looking for work these days. I imagine it’s even harder for a woman who has been dancing for years, and is hitting the job market with no skills and little education. I guess her years of dancing will be a seque into some other career, but I don’t know what, which is why I was asking.
I work my ass off to provide for my family, and there’s no way I can retire now in my mid-40’s. If she has to stop dancing at around the same age, I hope she has been working toward something before she does or she’s going to face a pretty grim reality.
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### Author:  [@Lady\_of\_the\_Lake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lady_of_the_Lake)
#### Post date: [August 3, 2011, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bill-the-feminist-sex-workers-speaking-for-their-damn-selves-and-assorted-feminist-issues/591112/86 "2011-08-03T14:59:53Z")
> [@rachelellogram](#):
>
> Don’t throw quarters at the girls onstage, they don’t like that.
Writes checks instead? 😉
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### Author:  [@Lady\_of\_the\_Lake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lady_of_the_Lake)
#### Post date: [August 3, 2011, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bill-the-feminist-sex-workers-speaking-for-their-damn-selves-and-assorted-feminist-issues/591112/87 "2011-08-03T15:16:50Z")
> [@Rigamarole](#):
>
> Also, my defending men isn’t based on anything you’ve said. It’s just based on the fact that no one else does and in general the attitude that we’re always in the wrong grows tiresome.
_shrug_I’ve noticed plenty of men’s rights defenders on this board. Heck, without a doubt, \*any \* rape thread immediately spirals into a segment of men arguing that the real problem with rape is _not the rape being discussed in the thread, but false rape accusations by nefarious women_. This happens in every, single rape thread. I find it extraordinarily depressing.
I think it’s easier to notice that which impacts your group.
For example, I noticed here that women are being accused of being ‘frigid’. In other threads ‘slut’ has been used on anything from a raped 11 year old girl to a woman in a monogamous relationship who happens to make sexually charged videos…
Sometimes I feel you can’t win, as a woman. You’re either frigid or a slut…
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### Author:  [@Rigamarole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rigamarole)
#### Post date: [August 3, 2011, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bill-the-feminist-sex-workers-speaking-for-their-damn-selves-and-assorted-feminist-issues/591112/88 "2011-08-03T15:47:37Z")
> [@Lady\_of\_the\_Lake](#):
>
> Sometimes I feel you can’t win, as a woman. You’re either frigid or a slut…
And as a man, you’re either a predator or a pansy. Guess we’re in the same boat. 🙂
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### Author:  [@Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jimmy_Chitwood)
#### Post date: [August 3, 2011, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bill-the-feminist-sex-workers-speaking-for-their-damn-selves-and-assorted-feminist-issues/591112/89 "2011-08-03T16:04:45Z")
If you think that strippers are providing some kind of emotional service that you expect to get from a woman in a relationship, I’d suggest that you have unrealistic expectations from a relationship, not that you’ve been involved with especially frigid women. Or maybe you’ve been to a different kind of strip club than the ones I’m familiar with.
And if you think you’re the only person on this board willing to stand up for men and complain that women are always made out to be the victims, even in threads where that totally isn’t happening, the good news is that you’ve got plenty of company.
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### Author:  [@Lady\_of\_the\_Lake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lady_of_the_Lake)
#### Post date: [August 3, 2011, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bill-the-feminist-sex-workers-speaking-for-their-damn-selves-and-assorted-feminist-issues/591112/90 "2011-08-03T16:50:07Z")
> [@Rigamarole](#):
>
> And as a man, you’re either a predator or a pansy. Guess we’re in the same boat. 🙂
Good point. 🙂 (Edit) This made me think of the fact that a man going to a playground is much more likely to be looked at oddly (busy bodies thinking he may be a child molester or something)…so yeah, I’m not liking these sex based assumptions by either men or women…
And now, I’m completely getting off topic, so I’ll stop. I enjoyed reading the OP, and like the interesting point of view, so thank you for that Indygrrrl!
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### Author:  [@Condescending\_Robot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Condescending_Robot)
#### Post date: [August 3, 2011, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bill-the-feminist-sex-workers-speaking-for-their-damn-selves-and-assorted-feminist-issues/591112/91 "2011-08-03T17:01:03Z")
> [@code\_grey](#):
>
> he probably also has a mountain of “cites” and “reports” to prove his point.
I know! Imagine the gall of someone using so-called “research” or “facts” to dispute the utility of your anecdotes and emotions. What a mansplainer.
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### Author:  [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)
#### Post date: [August 3, 2011, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bill-the-feminist-sex-workers-speaking-for-their-damn-selves-and-assorted-feminist-issues/591112/92 "2011-08-03T17:04:24Z")
> [@punch\_line\_loser](#):
>
> I find statements like this grossly offensive. Nevermind the tradition of Freudian misogyny that lies behind characterizing women as “frigid,” I think it’s outrageous to suggest that women are in any way at fault for being unwilling to sleep with a man in any circumstances. Being “liberated” means having the freedom to make a choice, and blaming a woman for not choosing you is pretty disgusting.
Nonsense. Helen Hunt, that stuck up bitch, has not so much as called me ONCE.
And you’re suggesting somehow that’s my fault??
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### Author:  [@mlees](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mlees)
#### Post date: [August 3, 2011, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bill-the-feminist-sex-workers-speaking-for-their-damn-selves-and-assorted-feminist-issues/591112/93 "2011-08-03T17:34:34Z")
> [@Bricker](#):
>
> Nonsense. Helen Hunt, that stuck up bitch, has not so much as called me ONCE.
>
> And you’re suggesting somehow that’s my fault??
Are you sure she has your number?
Maybe you should send it to her twitter account. Along with pictures of yourself in your boxers. Seems to work for politicians.
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### Author:  [@Myrnalene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Myrnalene)
#### Post date: [August 4, 2011, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bill-the-feminist-sex-workers-speaking-for-their-damn-selves-and-assorted-feminist-issues/591112/94 "2011-08-04T00:36:29Z")
> [@Rigamarole](#):
>
> Nope, I don’t blame you. I blame “regular” women a little bit though, because the demand for that service would not be so enormous were the supposedly liberated women out there a bit less frigid.
You are not entitled to sex. You are not entitled to emotional “warmth” from any individual woman except maybe those in your family. The fact that you feel that they are _owed_ to you probably explains why you apparently can’t get either.
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### Author:  [@Triskadecamus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Triskadecamus)
#### Post date: [August 4, 2011, 6:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bill-the-feminist-sex-workers-speaking-for-their-damn-selves-and-assorted-feminist-issues/591112/95 "2011-08-04T06:55:58Z")
Long ago, and . . . well fairly nearby, I was a crazy street guy. I lived in the bad part of town, and slept out. I got to know a lot of strippers, and hookers. Most of the strippers were not hookers, most of the hookers had at least tried stripping. Some of the ladies were fairly hard luck folks, and most were in the lower half of the educational demographics. But they were not nearly so desperate and pitiable as the men in that part of town, me included. A whole lot of wounded and self defeating men. Me included.
I got better, by the way. A small part of that getting better came out of being used as a resource by the ladies of the evening. I suppose it was a network of sorts, but evidently I was known as someone who could give advice on how to get social services, legal services, and the logistics of economics for a cash only worker. I got coffee and sandwiches for pay, and got treated like a person as a bonus. Even the hookers were, for the most part not the archtype poor wretches in thrall. The strippers were certainly not. So many of them simply did not know that they were easily smart enough to get a degree during the day, and probably financial assistance to do so.
Feminism is pretty much sexism. Don’t tell any feminists that, though.
Tris
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### Author:  [@MegaBee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MegaBee)
#### Post date: [August 4, 2011, 10:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bill-the-feminist-sex-workers-speaking-for-their-damn-selves-and-assorted-feminist-issues/591112/96 "2011-08-04T10:52:12Z")
> [@Triskadecamus](#):
>
> Feminism is pretty much sexism. Don’t tell any feminists that, though.
>
> Tris
Please explain.
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### Author:  [@Rigamarole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rigamarole)
#### Post date: [August 4, 2011, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bill-the-feminist-sex-workers-speaking-for-their-damn-selves-and-assorted-feminist-issues/591112/97 "2011-08-04T15:30:16Z")
> [@Myrnalene](#):
>
> You are not entitled to sex. You are not entitled to emotional “warmth” from any individual woman except maybe those in your family. The fact that you feel that they are _owed_ to you probably explains why you apparently can’t get either.
Of course they’re not _owed_, but the large unmet demand suggests a substantial gap, on the whole, between what men need and what’s being offered. And what makes you think I “can’t get either”? I’ve had a girlfriend for the past ~2.5 years who’s extremely sweet and caring, and pretty sexual at that. It took a while to find her though, as most women just aren’t like her.
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### Author:  [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)
#### Post date: [August 5, 2011, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bill-the-feminist-sex-workers-speaking-for-their-damn-selves-and-assorted-feminist-issues/591112/98 "2011-08-05T00:21:11Z")
FTR, I’ve been to Indianapolis and, at the time, every third bar was a strip club. With market saturation like that “whoring” would not pay off.
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### Author:  [@Triskadecamus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Triskadecamus)
#### Post date: [August 5, 2011, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bill-the-feminist-sex-workers-speaking-for-their-damn-selves-and-assorted-feminist-issues/591112/99 "2011-08-05T13:57:16Z")
> [@MegaBee](#):
>
> Please explain.
If I had said Masculinism is pretty much sexism would you have asked for an explanation?
Black Pride is racism. If I had said White Pride is racism no one would have blinked.
Yeah, historic details support the argument that one particularism was more egregious than another. That doesn’t change the fact that feminism is sexism. Eliminating categorical judjements from your outlook on life is a whole lot of intellectual work, and spiritual effort. Short cuts, and binary categories have nothing to do with treating each human as a unique human.
It’s ethics, not teams.
Tris
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### Author:  [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)
#### Post date: [August 5, 2011, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bill-the-feminist-sex-workers-speaking-for-their-damn-selves-and-assorted-feminist-issues/591112/100 "2011-08-05T14:14:19Z")
Yeah, Og forbid any woman demands the right to be seen as a man’s equal. Judgmental bitch.
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