ABSTRACT
There has been a rapid expansion of the strip club industry in the western world in the last decade, particularly in the form of lap dancing clubs. The industry is estimated to be worth US$75 billion worldwide (D. Montgomery, 2005). Some writers in the field of gender studies have defended the practice of stripping. They have argued that stripping should be understood as socially transgressive, an exercise of women’s agency or a form of empowerment for women (Hanna, 1998; Schweitzer, 1999; Liepe-Levinson, 2002). These arguments exemplify the decontextualized individualism which is common tomany defences of the sex industry.However, the tradition of women dancing to sexually excite men (usually followed by commercial sexual use of the women) is a historical practice of many cultures, as in the case of the auletrides of classicalGreece,who were slaves (Murray and Wilson, 2004), and the dancing girls of Lahore, who are prostituted within their families from adolescence (Saeed, 2001). It does not signify women’s equality. Rather, the tradition of stripping signifies sexual inequality and it is most prevalent, historically, in societies in which women were very much second class citizens. This chapter will examine the context in which stripping takes place, looking at who owns the industry and who benefits most from it, in order to expose the weakness of the argument that stripping is a form of women’s empowerment. It will look at the evidence that suggests that both national and international organized crime gangs run the most profitable sectors of the industry. It will show how, as the industry both expands and becomes more exploitative to create greater profits, the trafficking of women and girls into debt bondage has become a stapleway of sourcing strippers in Europe and North America. Rather than empowering women,
this chapter will suggest, the strip club boom helps to compensate men for lost privileges.
