Mary Anna is a junior studying english.
“Inside the world of a feminist stripper,” an article recently published on CNN’s website, details a stripper’s viewpoint that strip clubs exist fundamentally due to loneliness. Antonia Crane, the author, claims she entered the profession intent on “taking the patriarchy down one lap dance at a time.” She denies that strip clubs are manifestations of the sexual objectification of women, and insists that they are instead places where men can “nurse a beer and pay a person to listen to them—a woman who does not require anything from them emotionally.”
The problem with Crane’s reasoning is that the notions, “women can be available for (specifically) men to purchase” and “women should maintain equal rights to men,” are diametrically opposed. Though a person may be both a feminist and a worker in the sex industry, one should not pretend that the present state of the sex industry is even semi-egalitarian or does anything to further the feminist cause.
In Crane’s article, she accepts and internalizes that the remorse, sadness and loneliness of her customers are major factors that drive them to strip clubs. She completely ignores another possible factor in their decision to attend strip clubs: their ability to project their issues effortlessly onto her as a sexual object that exists solely for their convenience.
Though this may seem blasphemous in terms of how many people currently perceive feminism, I don’t believe that such “sexual empowerment” can be claimed under the guise of true feminism.
The sex-positive movement has been circulating for some time now, and it currently exists at the forefront of an accessible and popularized form of feminist ideology—an extension of “girl power,” if you will. It promises a lack of judgment. The sex-positive movement claims that women should wear what they want, do what they want, have sex with whomever they want, and that’s all OK. And yes, women should be able to do what they want in these situations, but we also have to acknowledge why they practice these behaviors in the first place.
Women can wear short skirts and makeup, but we should come to terms with why they do these things. These actions are symptoms of the encompassing patriarchal system, not matters that can completely be removed from context on a case-by-case basis.
Why are women often anxious to leave the house without shaving their legs? Why do women on average spend so much more on cosmetic surgery than men? Why on Halloween do many women wear revealing outfits when it’s relatively cold outside?
“To feel better about themselves” is a cop-out answer. Perhaps it has something to do with how society in the United States punishes women who don’t make an effort to seem appealing to men.
When women such as Antonia Crane and Belle Knox, the Duke University porn actress, claim to be “empowering,” they cannot be by nature—the sex industry of today institutionally depowers women. Women are systematically placed in submissive positions, they serve as fodder for the male gaze, and they cater to the men who are the only people with agency in most situations. In addition, it’s important to note that many women do not actively choose to engage in sex work, but are forced into it through sex trafficking.
To work by choice in the sex industry is not an act of feminism in and of itself, and it shouldn’t be masked as one. The portrayal of sex workers as self-empowered feminist women permits strip clubs, pornography and the like to masquerade as harmless catalysts of emotional release.
The sex industry is anything but. The messages conveyed by the industry persistently and aggressively assert that women are nothing but sexual objects that men should treat however they’d like. This should not be misconstrued as something progressive, even when female sex workers claim to enjoy their careers. I’m sure the majority of them don’t.