Lap Dancing: What a Performance

Since 2005 the British authorities have given license to lap dancing or ‘gentlemen’s clubs’ across the country – the same kind of licenses that you would apply to cafes and other general public businesses that you would consider far removed from the sex industry.

Lap dancing has become more the ‘norm’ in most large towns and the bright and inviting signs that deck these establishments veil the real story that lies beneath.

Not that many years ago sex clubs, shops and strip clubs were taboo and something found in the seedier parts of cities, kept away from suburbia and seen but not heard. An underground world to many and certainly not one that you would want on your doorstep . Now it seems small towns as well as cities have more than one on a popular street and have given rise to the acceptance of sex dancing for cash amongst males and also it has to be said amongst impressionable young girls who see this as a ’safe’ way of earning money.

For the price of a round of drinks you can have a lap dance from a pick of scantily clad females, for a little extra a private dance with full nudity. Seems well worth it to many guys and many become frequent visitors. The rule of ‘four feet’ from a customer is more than often forgotten with dancers touching and rubbing themselves against customers seducing with every motion to hypnotise clients into parting with yet more cash for a flash of more skin. It has been proved as on a recent Dispatches programme that many girls are willing to do most anything to get cash in these places and prostitution is not uncommon and very hard to stop by authorities.

Perhaps the lean and attractive student who ventures into this world has no choice in turning to this profession as a side line to reality but few realise how far they will go by the end of their journey where they finally realise the farce of it all and are left feeling cheap and dispairing of the male gender.

The first thing you do not realise is that these girls have to pay upfront to ‘work’ in clubs – ranging from £30 to £120 a night for the right to dance. That means a great deal of pressure in order to cover costs let alone make a profit. They are competing with more girls than are needed and clients will pay obviously for the more adventurous girls. If they know some girls offer extras the only way to compete is to do the same or risk being in the back room in their stilletos smoking a fag waiting for the cab home and down £120 .

Local people are pretty powerless in stopping these establishments starting up unless they can prove firstly that this will have a detrimental effect on crime etc . This is something very hard for the local neighbourhood watch to prove and against big money and powerful industry this is often impossible to do. Its only when there is a problem that councils sit up and listen and by then the clubs can claim it was ‘ex’ management or ’some’ girls and nothing to do with them as a company and so they carry on with a minor telling off.

Its not that people agree with censorship of the sex industry its more the idea that these places are infact part of the sex industry and should there for be treated as such . There should be tighter controls on what goes on in clubs by outside regulators and better advice and help for girls who find they have no choice but to work there. Better placing of these clubs in areas where there is less of an effect on local family life and more control by police to look after the people that own and visit these places.