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Documentaries about sex trafficking:

Sex, Slavery, and Drugs in Bangladesh

Inside the Lives of American Sex Slaves

Stuck in Traffick

Rape for Profit

What Happened to the Girl-Next-Door

The Price of Sex (2011) dir. Mimi Chakarova (sex trafficking in post-Communist Eastern Europe)

Body Without Soul (1996) and Not Angels But Angels (1994) (prostituted young boys in post-Communist Eastern Europe)

Men for Sale (Hommes à louer) (2008) dir. Rodrigue Jean

Stopping Traffic: The Movement to End Sex-Trafficking

A Path Appears

Demand by sharedhope.org

Sex Trafficking in Cambodia

The Virgin Trade

Malaysia Underage Sex Trade

Finding Home

Sands of Silence – Journey into Trafficking

Born Into Brothels: Calcutta’s Red Light Kids

Slavery: A 21st Century Evil

Whores’ Glory

Cargo: Innocence Lost

Dreams Die Hard – Free The Slaves

Not My Life

Redlight

Virgin Harvest

Trapped (about trafficked Nigerian women)

Sacrifice (about Burmese children recruited in their native villages and trafficked into the Thai sex trade)

The Day My God Died (sex trafficking in India, includes information about sacred prostitution)

Tin Girls (focuses on the trafficking of girls for prostitution from Nepal to India)

The Selling Of Innocents (1997) dir. Ruchira Gupta

Love, Sonia (2018) dir. Tabrez Noorani

Save My Seoul (2017) dir. Jason Y. Lee

Sold (based on a best selling novel by Patricia McCormick, which in turn was inspired by true stories of trafficked girls)

Daryl Hannah’s activism: interview, documentary

Children for Sale

Trafficked - The Reckoning

My Boyfriend The Sex Tourist (2007)

Nefarious: Merchant of Souls (2011) dir. Benjamin Nolot

Trading Women

Very Young Girls

I am Jane Doe (sex trafficking on Backpage)

Child sex trafficking in America (TED Talk with the mother of a sex trafficking victim recruited through Backpage)

Selling the Girl Next Door (2011)

Sold For Sex: Trafficking in Nebraska

Thai Brides (2000), Louis and the Brothel (2003) and Selling Sex (2020) dir. Louis Theroux

Poverty, Inc. and Toxic Hot Seats are searing exposes about global charity and the chemical industry that show how these industries are linked to sex trafficking and to pro-legalisation lobbysts

Prostitution and coal mining in Indonesia

Sex trafficking and illegal gold mining in Peru

Underage victims of sex tourists in the Dominican Republic

Red Lights and Red Lines: Prostitution in Europe

The Hunt for Britain’s Sex Traffickers

The Long Night (discussion with director Tim Matsui)

The Moral Bankruptcy of the Left on Prostitution

Selling Sex For £4 In Liverpool

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Testimonials:

Shandra Woworuntu: My life as a sex-trafficking victim

‘I came to the UK and I was turned into a prostitute’ – trafficked women share their horrific stories

I survived human trafficking. That makes me the exception to the rule by Crystal Isle

From rural Romania to a Swiss brothel: Generations of Romanian girls trafficked into Europe’s sex industry

Sex trafficking in the UK: one woman’s horrific story of kidnap, rape, beatings and prostitution

Women from All Over the World Are Being Sex-Trafficked into Greece

Chained to a bed and servicing 50 clients a day: this is why we need the Walk for Freedom

Harrowing ‘Crazy Heart’ Music Video Raises Awareness of Human Trafficking

Karla Jacinto (Mexico)

Jasmine Marino, author of “The Diary of Jasmine Grace”: “Sex trafficking is domestic violence on steroids”

Sophie Hayes: I was trafficked by my boyfriend

Rebecca Bender (website)

Sandra (Mexico)

Kika Cerpa (USA)

Melissa Woodward (USA)

Apartment 407 (2017) dir. Frida Farrell (Interview)

Catie Hart, of AnnieCannons, an Oakland-based nonprofit organization which teaches sex trafficking survivors how to develop software and websites so they can find work outside of the sex trade

Police criticised as organised gangs gain control of UK sex industry

Doctors often unaware they are treating human trafficking victims, written by Hanni Stoklosa, MD, co-editor of “Human Trafficking Is a Public Health Issue"

Invisible Boys: Inside the Push to Help Unseen Victims of the Sex Trade

Call me Collin: The diary of a sex trafficked boy

A Toronto Star investigation into the dark underbelly of domestic sex trafficking in Ontario

Sex trafficking in South Africa: Lured by cash, women face lethal risks beyond disease and addiction

Embrace Dignity, a pro-Nordic Model women’s group in South Africa

Decriminalisation in New Zealand is a tragic failure

Climate change leads to increase in trafficking of women in the Philippines

The Game review – true stories of sex work performed in a mounting torrent of trauma

Growing up in mum and dad’s brothel: former university lecturer Dr Aaron Darrell speaks out

The Harms of the Sex Trade: A Conversation with the Founder of the Survivor Clinic in New York City

Sex trafficking survivors during #MeToo

Does Legalized Prostitution Increase Human Trafficking? (2012) by Seo-Young Cho, Axel Dreher, Eric Neumayer (cross-section of up to 150 countries)

Legalisation: A Dream Come True for Traffickers

The artwork of a sex trafficking survivor, Suzzan Blac

Anneke Lucas (Belgian peadophile ring survivor):

Ted Talk

Podcast

Interview

UN report (2019): human trafficking is on the rise: Trafficking for sexual exploitation is the most prevalent form in European countries, whilst in sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East, forced labour is the main factor driving the illicit trade. Women and girls make up most trafficking victims worldwide: almost ¾ of them are trafficked for sexual exploitation and 35% are trafficked for forced labour

Lydia Cacho’s activism

Invisible: Britain’s “Migrant Sex Workers” by Hsiao-Hung Pai (undercover journalist works as a housekeeper in a brothel and exposes the terrible reality of the British sex trade)

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Isolated cases:

A Greenville, SC couple convicted in 2015 under the state’s human-trafficking law forced a woman to have sex with up to 30 men a day by threatening her and her family

Forced to have sex with 1,000 men, a girl is now suing the motel that she says let it happen

Children caught in Winnipeg sex-trade sweep

Fort Myers sex trafficking case:

Mom says girl recorded while she was being sexually assaulted in school bathroom was human trafficking victim

Human trafficking at core of S. Fort Myers High sex scandal

N. Fort Myers teen stolen from home into sex trafficking

Another arrest made in SWFL human trafficking ring

Two more arrested in SWFL sex trafficking ring

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Sex trafficking in the USA:

Human trafficking persecution unit (HTPU)

National Human Trafficking Hotline

Trafficking, Prostitution, and Inequality by Catharine MacKinnon

Sex Trafficking & Pornography: The Links Between The Two by Robert Peters

Dr. Laura Lederer: Pornography’s Link to Sex Trafficking

The US Military and the International Sex Industry

Sex trafficking in the Silicon Valley tech industry

Sex trafficking and the Superbowl

Sex trafficking post Backpage-shutdown

Sex trafficking in AZ (includes information about the foster care-child trafficking pipeline)

Sex trafficking in Toledo, OH

Sex trafficking in San Diego, CA

Elle Snow (Sex trafficking in Humboldt County, CA)

Sex trafficking in Los Angeles, CA

Sex trafficking in California, nearly 500 arrested (2017). More cases of human trafficking were reported in California than in any other U.S. state in 2016

Sex trafficking in Central Minnesota (2016)

Sex trafficking in Texas, response inadequate

Sex trafficking in New York

Sex trafficking in North Dakota

Connecticut sex trafficking ring pimped out disabled young man

Who buys a trafficked child for sex? Otherwise ordinary men

Child sex trafficking in Seattle, “as easy as ordering pizza”

Playground (2009) dir. Libby Spears

Stubborn cycle of runaways ending in prostitution (2013)

Operation Cross Country X (2016)

Tricked (sex trafficking in Fairfax County, VA)

Trafficked: The Exploitation of Women and Girls In the Bakken and Beyond (a period of rapidly expanding oil extraction from the Bakken formation in the state of North Dakota leads to an increase in crime, including sex trafficking. Murder of Olivia Lone Bear)

Hidden America: Chilling New Look at Sex Trafficking in the US

Sex Trafficking Goes Unnoticed in America (2016)

Frontline: Sex Trafficking in America (2019)

In Plain Sight: Human Trafficking

How US sex traffickers recruit jailed women for prostitution

Youth Involvement in the Sex Trade (2016): Between 8,900 and 10,500 children, ages 13 to 17, are commercially exploited each year in the United States

Sex trafficking in American hotels

John Whitehead’s activism

Demand Abolition

The Samaritan Women

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Mediterranean migrant crisis:

Mafia-Backed Nigerian Prostitution in Sicily

An Exited Woman’s Sanctuary For Trafficked Sex Slaves

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Prostitution in Germany:

Germany may roll back legalised prostitution amid exploitation fears (2013)

How Legalizing Prostitution Has Failed

We’re living in a pimp state

Welcome to Paradise: inside the world of legalised prostitution

The Mega Brothel (a look behind the doors of the five-storey Paradise club in Stuttgart)

Inside Germany’s Sex Supermarkets

German mass raids target forced prostitution gang (2018)

Legalization in Saarland, 15 years on

Ingeborg Kraus’ input (in French) during a conference about exiting prostitution in 2015. Other videos from the same evening (including Rachel Moran’s testimonial) can be found here

Ingeborg Kraus expanding on the same subject (in English)

Ingeborg Kraus’ presentation “International Approaches to Prostitution: Sweden, Germany, Canada” in Vancouver, Canada on September 20, 2016

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TED talks:

3 ways businesses can fight sex trafficking: Nikki Clifton (2018)

Bought and Sold: Trafficking in America: Kaylen Runyan

#Buycott: ending human trafficking: Jesse Bach

A novel solution to sex trafficking: Sandy Skelaney

Child Trafficking in Canada: Emily Pelly

Combating human trafficking: AnnJannette Alejano-Steele

End Human Trafficking: Shannon Sedgwick Davis

Every 15 Seconds: Matt Friedman

Enslaved: from victim to victor: Jessica Minhas

Exposing the Reality of Sex Trafficking: Bonnie Gatchell

Growing up in the foster care system: Angel Mechling

How to end modern day slavery – surviving the sex industry: Roslynn Gallegos

How to spot human trafficking: Kanani Titchen

Human Trafficking: Discovering the Value of a Human Life: Amanda Howa

Human trafficking: Rachel Lloyd (author of “Girls like Us”)

Human trafficking: Anne Victory

Human trafficking - 21st century slavery: Faridoun Hemani

Human trafficking - dreams and realities: Diep Vuong

Human trafficking – Stop the silence: Catalleya Storm

Human trafficking – stop the nightmare: Kim Dempster

I am human, not cattle. : Jennifer Kempton, founder of Survivor’s Ink, a charity which helps sex trafficking survivors who have been forcibly tattooed and/or branded to have their tattoos/branding covered or removed. Sadly, Jennifer passed away in 2017

I was human trafficked for 10 years. We can do more to stop it: Barbara Amaya

Justice for child victims of sexual exploitation: Jessica Munoz

Look Again: Sex Trafficking in your Own Backyard: Elizabeth Melendez Fisher

Prostitution is not a victimless crime: Andy Hall

Sex trafficking: Linda Smith

Sex Trafficking in the U.S.: Young Lives, Insane Profit: Yolanda Schlabach

Sex Trafficking in Your Back Yard: Vednita Carter (founder of Breaking Free)

Sex trafficking isn’t what you think it is: Meghan Sobel

Sex worker: the truth behind the smile: Antoinette Welch

The Face of Human Trafficking: Megan Rheinschild

The fight against sex slavery: Sunitha Krishnan

The Porn Paradox: Megan Johnson

Turning up the volume, bringing human trafficking down: Ruici Tio

Why I Turned Toward Sex Slavery: Shannon Keith

Where were you?: Matt Friedman

Why you should care: the human trafficking footprint in the U.S.: Ryan L. Brooks

Winning the fight against human trafficking: Michael Brosowski

Witness: Illuminating the World of Modern-day Slavery: Lisa Kristine

Your vagina is not a car: Clementine Ford

please don’t paint stripping as some privileged form of sex work lite – it’s not. it’s hard physical labor to dance all night, strip clubs are extremely exploitative workplaces, and we experience astronomical levels of sexual assault!

i have never once worked a shift without a man groping my breasts or vulva without my consent, ever, not in five years!

and sometimes we pay money instead of making money for all this, too. if it’s a slow night and you can’t make enough to cover your house fee and some guy tries to finger you roughly on stage? too bad, so sad. no manager is ever gonna care. you should’ve worked harder.

Umm I’m not sure what strip clubs you are working at or what strippers you’ve talked to, but it’s incredibly bad for any of the guys to touch any of the strippers in any manner at the clubs I’ve been to. Here in Canada at least, I’ve known several people that have been kicked out because of that kind of harassment.

well you are very blessed then. and even if they are kicked out, you still got violated without your consent

Which, I would imagine is an unfortunate risk as part of the job, and that’s assuming this post is true. I’m not saying this stuff doesn’t happen, I just don’t know if it happens at the rates OP claims it is.

bro. n o b o d y c a r e s if you think this is true or not because nobody asked you. this thread isn’t even FOR you, it’s for women engaging in feminist analysis of sex work.

and FYI butting into conversations uninvited when you don’t even know what you’re talking about is rude, don’t do it again

furiousfem

Man Describes Constant Harassment And Having Your Personal Boundaries Crossed Every Night So You Don’t Starve As “Unfortunate Risk Of The Job”, Believes His Entertainment To Be Way More Relevant

gayshego-blog

That person is in Canada and I can’t find it but I recently saw some stuff with women talking about how in Canada people will throw the coins at strippers and they will get bruises and other injuries from it so.

@furiousfem I never said that it should happen, that’s what the security is for, so the dancers are not being harassed and to be dealt with quickly. Sorry you lack reading comprehension but hey, we can’t all have any intelligence. @gayshego The coins are for posters that the girls will hand out should you get any in the container they carry around or in the cone they make the posters with. Anyone throwing coins hard enough to bruise and get injuries are drunk idiots and assholes.

the over 200 notes of this from dancers reblogging should be convincing enough, but when you are a white male, the only thing you believe is what you see with your white privilege. so it must not be true if you’ve never seen it.

OH MY GOD, lmfao. You’re a fucking idiot. “White privilege”! I just know that losers will lie and exaggerate to push an agenda. All I asked is where this shit is happening because security is supposed to be hired for that shit. I have a friend that works security at the local club and he kicks people out for that shit. The rules say no touching, so I respect the rules. I’m sorry that you people are feeble minded that I just want some statistics, not some little crybaby shits complaining about their job. I never once said it didn’t happen! I only said that I have no idea if it happens at the frequency you fuckwits claim it’s at. You’ve failed to provide any sort of statistics and it’s only hearsay. I refuse to believe people based merely on hearsay. Just like you have no obligation to believe me for anything I have said. Critical thinking people, do you have it?

hashtag-stripper-problems

😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

@that-grey-jedi-dude

One hundred percent of the women in the survey report being physically abused in the stripclub. The physical abuse ranged from three to fifteen times with a mean of 7.7 occurrences over the course of their involvement in stripping. One hundred percent report sexual abuse in the stripclub. The sexual abuse ranged from two to nine occurrences with a mean of 4.4 occurrences over the course of their involvement in stripping. One hundred percent of the women report verbal harassment in the stripclub. The verbal abuse ranged from one to seven occurrences with a mean of 4.8 occurrences over the course of their involvement in stripping. One hundred percent of the women report being propositioned for prostitution. Seventy eight percent of the women were stalked by someone associated with the stripclub with a range of one to seven incidents. Sixty one percent of the women report that someone associated with the stripclub has attempted to sexually assault her with a range of one to eleven attempts. Not only do women suffer the abuse they experience, all of women in the survey witnessed these things happen to other strippers in the clubs. The overwhelming trend for violence against women in stripclubs was committed by customers of the establishments. Stripclub owners, managers, assistant managers, and the staff of bartenders, music programmers or disc jockeys, bouncers, security guards, floorwalkers, doormen, and valet were significantly less involved in violence against the women. According to the women in this study, almost all of the perpetrators suffered no consequence whatsoever for their actions.

“Strip Clubs According to Strippers: Exposing Workplace Sexual Violence” Kelly Holsopple

A simple Google search revealed about 38,600,000 results (in 0.54 seconds)

BASICALLY strippers get assaulted in the club, like, 100% of the time. The staff does pretty much nothing to stop it (get kicked out), and we see other strippers going through the same thing. There ya go. What we’ve been saying, but now with official souuurrrccceessssss (a civilian researcher, literally asking us the questions we are answering and discussing)

cupcakesandproteinshakes

Canada is no different from the states when it comes down to sexual harassment and assault in strip clubs.

Literally when will men just shut the fuck up.

triligyblood-deactivated2018042

Literally a women working as a stripper describes the harassment and mistreatment she goes through and some white man comes along and says “if this is true ” and “unfortunate risk”. Amazing and even more amazing she is describing her OWN fucking experience and this waste of dna is sitting here saying “not sure if it happens at that rate” like seriously?

Women: I am having this experience

Man: yeah but are you suurreeee. Seems suspect.

blackswallowtailbutterfly

My mother was a stripper at 16 yrs old. In Canada. It’s illegal now, and it was illegal then, yet somehow she was still employed. She was a runaway from Quebec to Ontario, and barely knew English. They didn’t give a fuck. I’d like to think it’s gotten a little better, but I wouldn’t be at all surprised to learn there are other underage girls as strippers even now.

yourfaveisilluminati

as if sexual violation, female subordination, and male dominance wasn’t the whole entire point of stripping or prostitution. it is not some “unfortunate risk to the job” it IS the job. women are being violated on stage by men in the same exact way they are being violated by them offstage. there’s no difference. the women are pornography there to be violated and used for men’s pleasure.

it is men subjecting women to forced sex acts. the violation is fundamental to why men have always forced women into sex (and sex acts are sex to be clear).

i completely agree with this.

“Reinforcing gender inequality: a masculinizing practice

Concomitant with the losses women experience from the existence of strip clubs, there appears to be a direct enhancement of men’s self- esteem, their feelings of masculinity and their bonding with other men. Though there is little evidence from research on strip club practices to suggest that the strippers experience a reversal of gender roles, and an access of power, there is, however, some very interesting research on what the male buyers gain in terms of personal power in relation to women from visiting the clubs. Katherine Frank used her status as a stripper to gain access to male customers and interview them. Her work is most revealing on the motivations of buyers (Frank, 2003). She studied men in traditional strip clubs that did not provide lap dancing, and reports that none of the men she interviewed said they went to the clubs for ‘sexual release’. They had other motives, of which the most common were the ‘desire to relax’ and visiting a place where they could ‘be a man’ (Frank, 2003, p. 6). Frank explains that the clubs ‘provide an environment where men, singularly or in groups can engage in traditionally “masculine” activities and forms of consumption frowned upon in other spheres, such as drinking, smoking cigars, and … being “rowdy”, “vulgar” or aggressive’ (ibid.). Strip clubs recreate the gendered spaces for men that were challenged in second wave feminism. In the 1970s and 1980s some major campaigns were directed at stripping away from men the privilege of having male-only spaces in which to socialize and do business where women were not allowed. These campaigns included demanding and achieving women’s entry to public houses, to sporting clubs and other places of entertainment on an equal basis with men. The boom in strip clubs can be seen as a counterattack, in which men have reasserted their right to network for and through male dominance without the irritating presence of women, unless those women are naked and servicing their pleasures.

Frank found that an important reason for men to visit the clubs was that they provided a compensation for the decline in power that they experienced as their wives, partners and women workmates shed their subordination, began to compete with them and demanded equality. The strip clubs provided an antidote to the erosion of male dominance by institutionalizing the traditional hierarchy of gender relations. The men found everyday relationships with women ‘a source of pressure and expectations’ and described relations between women and men in general as being ‘strained’, as ‘confused’, or ‘tense’. One buyer referred to the ‘war between the sexes’. They sought respite from the problems of having to treat women as equals in the workplace too. One of Frank’s respondents, Philip, said that he was able to ‘let frustration out’, particularly about ‘this sexual harassment stuff going around these days, men need somewhere to go where they can say and act like they want’. Some buyers, Frank found, ‘desire to interact with women who were not “feminist,” and who still want … to interact with men in “more traditional” ways’. One of these traditional ways, it seems, is women’s unconditional servicing of male sexual demands. Other buyers told her that, outside the sex industry, ‘men had to continually “be on guard” against offending women’. Franks points out that ‘several of the above comments could be analysed as part of a backlash against feminism’ but says that she prefers to see them as a result of confusion caused by feminism and women’s movement towards equality, as falling within ‘a framework of confusion and frustration rather than one of privilege or domination’. She does say, however, that the rapid increase in strip clubs in the US in the 1980s ‘was concurrent with a massive increase of women into the work force and an upsurge of attention to issues of sexual harassment, date rape’ (ibid.). ‘Many’ of the men she spoke with said they were confused about what women expected of them in relationships, and particularly when wives worked, had their own incomes and wanted to be included in decision making.

Frank considers that what takes place in the clubs does more than compensate men for these changes. The visits to strip clubs can be understood as ‘masculinizing practices’ in their own right. In the clubs otherwise unattainable women could be subjected to the men’s control, exercised through the ability to refuse payment, over the length of their conversations with the women, what would be discussed and whether and when the women had to strip. Men reported that they got an ‘ego boost’ because there was no fear of rejection or of competition with other men. Frank concludes that strip clubs help to reinforce male power, through maintaining ‘imbalance in the power dynamics in personal relationships with women, especially when they are used to shame or anger wives or partners’ (ibid., p. 74). However, she remains determined not to place too strong an emphasis on this. She remarks, despite the evidence she presents, that ‘[t]his is not to say that commodified sexual exchanges are inherently about the preservation and reproduction of male power’ (ibid., p. 75).

Another study of strip club patrons by two male researchers supports Frank’s findings about the role the clubs play in upholding male dominance (Erickson and Tewksbury, 2000). The study analyses how the ‘ultra-masculine context of the setting affects and illuminates patrons’ motives for frequenting strip clubs’ (ibid.,p. 272). This study also points out that the men in the clubs are in control as the women are bound to ‘reciprocate most of the attention paid to them by the customer’ rather than being able to reject male attention as they can in the world outside (ibid., p. 273). The customer ‘may dictate the nature, and often the course, of the interactions because the dancer is both obligated and financially motivated to cooperate with the direction of the customer in defining the interactions’ (ibid.). This study confirms Frank’s argument that the clubs are male-only environments that confirm masculinity, ‘it is almost exclusively a “man thing” to go to strip clubs. It is one of the very few places where men have the opportunity to openly exhibit their latent sexual desires and to perform their “male privilege’” (ibid., p. 289). The ‘context’ of the strip club serves to affirm masculinity because it is ‘pervaded by images and norms that openly objectify women, is ultra-masculine’ (ibid.). They conclude, however, in a way which seems to contradict their earlier findings, by saying that their study contradicts the notion that strippers are exploited because the dancers ‘control the sequencing and content of their interactions with patrons and, in doing so, they generate a substantial income for themselves and provide men with access to important social commodities’ (ibid., p. 292). In their view, this is a fair exchange. Yet earlier they explicitly state that the men are in charge of the interactions, because the women cannot reject their advances as they can in the world outside the clubs, and they provide no evidence of the good earnings of the dancers. Their research thus seems to represent a male buyers’ perspective.

Unlike the traditional gentlemen’s clubs of London’s Pall Mall, the strip clubs offer the opportunity to debase women, not just to bond and do business in their absence. The new gentlemen’s clubs require women to be present, but only when naked and available to be bought. Men can drink with their friends whilst staring into a woman’s genitals or shoving their fingers into her anus or vagina. The context in which the male buyers are delivered this bounty is created for them by masculine networks of owners and franchisees.”

Sheila Jeffreys, “The Industrial Vagina”, pp. 103-106 (bolding mine)

“Hobbying gives you back your power and allows you to behave and act like the man you really are. We need sex, and woman need money. Hence this age old profession. Works great from my point of view. Levels the field nicely and fairly. I’m all for an equal relationship with a lady. But for some reason it always seems to end up lopsided. As stated many times on TERB “The hobby has kept my relationship or marriage together” How flippin true. Gives men a sense of controlling our destiny.“ The Invisible Men project Canada

https://bossip.com/1481476/former-atl-stripper-sues-club-cheetah-says-owners-force-feed-drugs-to-dancers-for-non-consensual-sex/

“Exploitation and violence towards strippers

[…] As the clubs seek to maximize profits they put on greater numbers of dancers, which creates greater competition, forces down earnings and pressures strippers to engage in violating practices they would rather avoid such as lap dancing or prostitution. ‘Retired’ stripper Amber Cooke explained in a 1980s collection on sex work that strippers are forced, because there are too many dancers and not enough male buyers, to compete and ‘encourage hands-on entertainment rather than dance, in order to make their money’ (Cooke, 1987, p. 98). She points out that this is ‘dangerous’ and bouncers are not an effective protection because they cannot watch all tables, let alone the more recent private booths, and may be ‘reluctant’ to back up a stripper against a group of aggressive male customers. The advent of lap dancing in strip clubs has been seen by stripper advocacy groups and individual dancers as creating severe harms. When carried out in private booths it enables male buyers to sexually assault women, and to engage in forms of intimate contact that the women find intolerable. In a Melbourne court case a man was jailed in July 2006 for raping a stripper in a private booth: ‘During the dance, she took off her G’string and was naked. Her breasts were about 30cm from Nguyen’s face … [he] lunged at the woman, digitally raping her … he pinned the woman to a couch’ (The Australian, 2006). Canadian strippers formed an organization to oppose the development of lap dancing in the clubs, and those interviewed in one study particularly objected to having to come into contact with ‘customers’ ejaculate’, which could occur ‘when ejaculate penetrated the men’s clothing during lap dances’ (Lewis, 2000, p. 210). One interviewee explained: ‘So halfway through the song, like no warning, you’re sitting on their lap, and all of a sudden you’re wet.’ Another concern was ‘dancers’ genital contact with other dancers’ vaginal secretions, left on customers’ clothing’. These lap dancing opponents also talked of the harm they experienced from being pressured by owners and managers and customers to engage in lap dancing, and being threatened with job loss if they did not comply. Such practices made them feel ‘disempowered and victimized’. Two dancers said that they were ‘crying their eyes out’ after their first night of lap dancing, and were distressed by ‘[t]hese strangers’ fingers all over you - it was really nasty’ (ibid.). Nonetheless, the researcher, Jacqueline Lewis, opposed the ban on lap dancing that many of her interviewees saw as necessary for their survival in the industry. She considered that the solution to the problems strippers faced was to treat stripping just like other forms of work. But there are no other forms of work apart from the sex industry in which women have to battle to keep men’s fingers and ejaculate off their naked bodies. There has been very little research on the physical and psychological harms that strippers face in clubs. Indeed, information on the harms of stripping may be hard to elicit for some researchers. Thus Danielle Egan, who writes about stripping from what she calls a ‘sex radical’ perspective and rejects radical feminist analyses which focus on harm, comments that the women she worked with as a stripper and interviewed for her book avoided elaborating on their ‘experiences with bad nights’ (Egan, 2006, p. 83). Egan interpreted bad nights as those on which women got very little money and were made to feel bad or ‘like whores’ and the good nights as those on which they made money and felt good. She does not enlarge on the women’s experiences of being touched by men or having to touch them and how they felt about such practices. This more detailed analysis is hard to come by. Kelly Holsopple, who worked as a stripper in the US for 13 years, conducted research into the harm of the industry to the dancers (Holsopple, 1998). She argues that the ‘common underlying element in strip clubs is that male customers, managers, staff, and owners use diverse methods of harassment, manipulation, exploitation, and abuse to control female strippers’ (ibid., p. 1). Holsopple conducted 41 interviews and 18 face to face surveys followed by discussions. Her interviewees did not report the empowerment of women or expression of agency that some gender studies scholars have attributed to stripping (e.g. Egan, 2006). Women had to engage in activities they did not want because their income was ‘entirely dependent on compliance with customer demands in order to earn tips’ (Holsopple, 1998, p. 3). Holsopple concludes from her interviews that in abuse by the male buyers ‘customers spit on women, spray beer, and flick cigarettes at them’ and they are ‘pelted with ice, coins, trash, condoms, room keys, pornography, and golf balls’ (ibid., p. 8). Missiles included a live guinea pig and a dead squirrel. Women were hit by cans and bottles thrown from the audience, and male buyers also ‘pull women’s hair, yank them by the arm or ankle, rip their costumes, and try to pull their costumes off’. Women are commonly ‘bitten, licked, slapped, punched, and pinched’ (ibid.). The male buyers attempt to penetrate women vaginally and anally with ‘fingers, dollar bills, and bottles’. Successful vaginal and anal penetration was common.

Holsopple’s study showed that women suffered particular harms from the conditions in which they were required to dance. They had to dance on elevated runways so narrow that they could not get away from men on either side touching them. In the context of private dances men openly masturbated and ‘stick their fingers inside women’. Wall dancing, for example, ‘requires a stripper to carry alcohol swabs to wash the customer’s fingers before he inserts them into her vagina. His back is stationary against the wall and she is pressed against him with one leg lifted’ (Holsopple, 1998, p. 6). Holsopple’s interviewees described clearly the forms of pressure and sexual harassment that they experienced from the male buyers in private dances: ‘I don’t want him to touch me, but I am afraid he will say something violent if I tell him no’ and ‘I could only think about how bad these guys smell and try to hold my breath’ or ‘I spent the dance hyper vigilant to avoiding their hands, mouths, and crotches’ (ibid.). All of the 18 women in her survey reported being both physically and sexually abused in the clubs, and receiving verbal harassment, often multiple times. Most had been stalked by someone associated with the club, from one to seven times each. Holsopple says that regulations that customers should not touch dancers are ‘consistently violated’ and ‘stripping usually involves prostitution’ (ibid.). Liepe-Levinson reports that the strippers she interviewed experienced pressure to provide sexual favours to bosses and employees (Liepe-Levinson, 2002).

The advice offered to strippers from within the industry or from state funded sex work agencies on how to avoid violence supports Holsopple’s findings of the dangers associated with stripping. On the Strip Magazine website, for instance, Ram Mani offers advice on how to be constantly alert to all the possibilities of men’s violence (Mani, 2004). Women are advised not to leave the clubs alone. Outside the club they should get straight into their cars and lock the doors, moving off immediately. They should not take a direct route home and should keep an eye on the mirror to check theyare not being followed. They should park neither too far from the club so they have a dangerous walk to get to it, nor so close that a man may be able to take the registration number. When they register their cars they should do so to another address than their home one. They are warned: ‘The odds of being stalked, mugged and attached [sic] are on increase and you must always keep your guard up’ (ibid.). The advice offered to strippers by the sex work advocacy website STAR in Toronto includes tips for combating sexual assault: ‘Watch for roaming hands. Clients have an easier time touching you when you dance on a box, specially when you’re bending over’ (STAR, 2004). Dancers are told to ‘[w]atch out for unruly or aggressive customers’ and to ‘[u]se the mirrors to keep track of your back’. There is specific advice for private dances since ‘there’s a greater possibility of assault’, which is: ‘If a customer is trying to manhandle you, try holding his hands in a sexy way to control him. But be aware the touching violates some municipal bylaws. If you’re being assaulted, scream’ (ibid.). The strip club industry is thus dangerous and abusive for the women involved in it, but the harms of this industry stretch beyond the clubs themselves to affect the status and experience of other women.”

Sheila Jeffreys, “The Industrial Vagina”, pp. 96-99

#stripping #strip clubs #prostitution #sex industry #sexual harassment #sexual assault #rape #abuse #misogyny #drugs #stalking #trauma #suicide

These Women Hate You

“First of all, if you are a male and you frequent strip clubs and use escorts, I want you to know that those women hate you.

If you’ve ever given money to a stripper, you’ve probably given money to a girl or woman who has spent the last 20 minutes laughing at you, either with the other girls or on the inside. You buy a lap dance and inside she’s criticizing you, laughing at you, mocking you. She’s mocking what you’re wearing, how you’re speaking and everything about you.

When a man would pay me to give him a lap dance I would spend the entire time internally laughing at his breath, his pimples, his fat belly, anything and everything I could. These women hate you, and no amount of money you can give them will make them like you any more.

I was underage when I was enmeshed in this life; I had just gotten a car and I was barely 16 years old. I can remember, very vividly, the first night I stripped. I was terrified. That first night was at a hotel that was pretty strict with its nudity policy, and all I had to do was wear lingerie and then try to sell it and garters. Easy…right?

I nearly chickened out entirely, but I had just been kicked out and needed that paycheck, I needed the promised tips and the ‘big money’ that everyone talked about. I was young and scared and needed to come up with my rent money quickly. Deanna was trying out her first night as an escort while I began here, in the hotel. It was terrifying, but I got through it. Halfway through the night customers began buying me drinks. I don’t know how many I consumed but I remember being concerned about driving home.

Through that period of time I not only stripped. I also did bachelor parties and worked as an escort. The degradation and terror that is always there is just another part of the job. The hands, the greasy, disgusting hands, were always there, groping at you while the eyes were staring at you. I was little more than a walking Barbie doll, and I was critiqued by some, and worshipped by others. Of course, that worship consisted of men telling me what “nice tits” I had, or how they’d like to “bang that pussy”.

See, here’s the deal: just as the men who come to the bar have to be completely devoid of empathy for the women they’re buying, the women also have to be completely devoid of empathy for the men who are buying them. It’s a survival thing, and besides, how can we like you when you’re paying to own us? No, oftentimes women will think and fantasize about smashing your head in with a baseball bat while they gyrate in your lap. But of course, we can’t really do that can we? For whatever reason, we must allow ourselves to be bought and sold for the erections that men get over the power associated with owning a human being.

So, while we may be thinking about how disgusting your teeth are, how horrible your breath is, what a stupid shirt you’re wearing and how we’d like to run a cheese grater over your smug face, we’re smiling and looking at you through submissive eyes as we robotically rub our bodies over yours. But that anger has to go somewhere doesn’t it? And, just as with everything else, it does. The anger turns into something else, and oftentimes it is turned inwards. We starve ourselves and abuse ourselves, and let you abuse us because we believe we deserve it. Other times we dull the pain, using alcohol and downers to rid ourselves of the anger, to crush it and keep it in check.

Most often we use several of these options simultaneously. We turn our anger onto other women, onto ourselves and onto our children but we can’t turn that anger onto men; that would be too dangerous. We learn, very early on and particularly when we strip, that men are dangerous. They are more dangerous than anything else we’ve ever known.

Be assured that the stripper you see hates you. She drowns her hatred in alcohol, or burns it in a cloud of pot smoke, but she’s still angry.

The life of a stripper is a life of sexual harassment. Men grope at you constantly, trying to put their fingers inside of you when you walk past. You are called names, and told to “Bring that cunt over here you little whore”. And you do. You bring it over there because you’ve told yourself that you are powerful when you do so. That’s yet another way to control the anger and the humiliation. You wrap it in empowerment, telling yourself that you’re the one who’s really coming out on top. You tell yourself that you’re the winner because that nasty fucker gave you every bill in his wallet, but deep down inside you know what’s really going on and you continue to medicate, you continue a cycle of ups and downs.

Sometimes, as a 16-year-old stripper, I would find myself on the floor of my rented bedroom at Deanna’s house, surrounded by the things I had taken from my room at my parent’s house. I had a stuffed clown and large black and white stuffed panda bear. At times I would fall into a heap on the floor of that bedroom, an ashtray and a can of Old Milwaukee beer at my feet, while I cried into the fur of that panda bear. I remember thinking that if one more man tried to stick his fingers inside of me that night then I’d fucking kill myself. I remember looking longingly at kitchen knives but always being too terrified to actually do it. And then, about an hour before we were due to leave, Deanna might knock softly on the door.

Sometimes, we lay on that floor together and cried. Me, a 16 year old girl with a bag of vibrators, dildos and anal beads stuffed into a briefcase for use with my ‘clients’ on the escort side of the business, and Deanna, a dark-haired, dark-eyed woman whose face showed more pain than any face I have known before or since. Sometimes we’d cry on the floor of that bedroom and then, after our tears were spent, we’d stand and smile and hug each other and go about the task of getting our things together.

We’d change into our makeup and our clothes and we’d leave and drive to whatever club we were due at, or to the office itself to await the phone calls of the men who wanted to buy us.

As a 16 year-old stripper I had men throw alcohol on me, I’ve been spit on and then been paid to rub it into my skin. I’ve been fingered by complete strangers as I walked past them. I’ve been slapped, grabbed, pinched and mauled by several men at once. I was called names and had my hair pulled. I’ve had men take their dicks out of their pants and I’ve had men cum in their pants during a lapdance and then try to stick their hands in my mouth.

I’ve had men ask me my age, and on the rare occasion when I would tell them the truth, perhaps from some hope that they could help me, they told me that I was the same age as their daughter and then offered me money to sleep with them. I’ve heard sob stories about their horrible wives and families, and how the bitch stopped putting out as soon as he put a ring on their finger. I’ve heard all the stories, all the lies and all the bullshit.

I’ve had men call me the most vile things imaginable and I’ve had them pay me to do the sort of degrading things I can’t even talk about.

The anger that stems from this is all consuming; it eats away at you slowly, despite the efforts you make to contain it. A full 17 years later and I’m still enraged. The seed that was planted all those years ago has turned into a tree and that tree has branches that are vast. Every thread of anger goes down another path until I find even more anger at the end of it.

I remember now how angry men would get at me when I told them that the woman who stripped for them the night before was most likely silently laughing at your hair or teeth or bad clothes. I think about how angry men have become when I tell them that the poor woman whom he tossed his $20 at would probably just as soon have gouged his eyes out with her nails as looked at him. I remember how mad these guys got, how they seem to think that they should be able to buy not only the bodies of these women to degrade and to use, but that these women should also be grateful for it, they should actually like him.

They think to them, “Hey, I’m a nice guy! I was nice to her!” but never once do they connect the fact that buying another human being for the purpose of controlling that human is NOT a ‘nice guy’ thing to do. Of course she should like it, she’s a whore and she should love it when I give her money for doing what she would normally be doing for free anyway. They always seem so shocked when I tell them the extent of the hate. When I tell them the things that us girls would say behind their backs, or after our set when we would get back to the house. These men seem livid and surprised that we would discuss how you were so fucking disgusting that it was all we could do not to throw up on you. Then, we’d knock back another shot.

Thinking about these guys, these men who get insulted that the object they purchased wasn’t particularly enamored with them, makes me even more irate.

The rage still consumes me, the anger lies just below the surface.

I remember it well, and now as I sit here typing on my laptop in my bedroom I realize that the anger and indignation is still just below the surface. I am disgusted by them. I am enraged at them. At this moment I can say that I literally HATE each and every single man who thought it was his entitlement to BUY a human being.

I learned that it wasn’t about sexual excitement for these guys; it was about entitlement and degradation. It was about power and control, it was about owning another person, another human being. They were rarely just happy with just buying us, they wanted to degrade us and make us perform disgusting acts for them. I know that these men who visit strip clubs and who watch pornography and who pay prostitutes would also buy a slave to work the fields if they thought they could get away with it. These men who like to believe that they are forward-thinking ‘nice’ guys are the same men who would buy a slave, and to be completely honest, I don’t give a flying fuck if that enrages them or not. These are the men that would buy another human being because they get off on power and control.

Buying a woman is little different than buying a slave, and I’ve been bought before. Cloaking it in ‘free will’ is a lie, a great big steaming lie. How much ‘free will’ does a 16 year-old have when she’s been kicked out? Every girl I knew, every single one of them that I worked with, had stories. Those stories are stories that curdle the blood, stories of rape and incest, stories laden with abuse and selling the only thing they had of value in this society.

There is no doubt in my mind that these very men would purchase slaves, sexual or otherwise to work their fields and jerk them off when they wanted it.

Men who buy and look at pornography are exactly the same. These are also men who feed off of power and degradation the way a tick feeds off blood. They are parasites and they are incapable of finding any worth within themselves, therefore, they steal it from women, they take it and use it and then they look for more power when the rush of degradation has worn off. They believe, with every fiber of their being, that they have a right to buy human beings.

I want, once and for all, for men to know that women in the sex industry have been abused by men just like you. Rape and incest are the recruiters for the sex industry, and you are victimizing her just as her rapist did. She hates you and she hates all that you represent. She smiles because she must smile, she dances because she knows no other way, but she despises you and others like you.”

~ Biting Beaver

i have never once worked a shift without a man groping my breasts or vulva without my consent, ever, not in five years!

well you are very blessed then. and even if they are kicked out, you still got violated without your consent

hashtag-stripper-problems

bro. n o b o d y c a r e s if you think this is true or not because nobody asked you. this thread isn’t even FOR you, it’s for women engaging in feminist analysis of sex work.

and FYI butting into conversations uninvited when you don’t even know what you’re talking about is rude, don’t do it again

😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

@that-grey-jedi-dude

“Strip Clubs According to Strippers: Exposing Workplace Sexual Violence” Kelly Holsopple

A simple Google search revealed about 38,600,000 results (in 0.54 seconds)

cupcakesandproteinshakes

Canada is no different from the states when it comes down to sexual harassment and assault in strip clubs.

Literally when will men just shut the fuck up.

triligyblood-deactivated2018042

Women: I am having this experience

Man: yeah but are you suurreeee. Seems suspect.

blackswallowtailbutterfly

yourfaveisilluminati

it is men subjecting women to forced sex acts. the violation is fundamental to why men have always forced women into sex (and sex acts are sex to be clear).

i completely agree with this.