Many people think strip clubs are misogynistic and should be banned. I just want to share my two cents.
Why are strip clubs considered misogynistic? I never hear feminists complaining about gay strip clubs. Are gays degrading their own demographic by going to a gay strip club? No of course they aren't. The very act of suggesting that strip clubs are demeaning to women is actually helping to propagate the idea of there being a divide between men and women, simply by perceiving that it exists. Social divides based on genetic differences are actually one of the few things that do diminish when you stop thinking about them (by which I mean, if a white guy and a black guy meet and all they can think about is the fact they're different colours, then there will naturally be a divide between them. If they forget about it and don't think about it, there won't).
Many feminists complain that strip clubs are degrading to women because there's far more clubs aimed at men than their are women or gays. They seem to think this is due to a patriarchal society. This is just wrong. There will generally only exist as much supply as their is demand. Clearly more men want to see people dancing around in the nude than women do, or there simply would be the same amount of strip clubs for women. This is probably because men have more testosterone coursing through them than women. If you're a woman who disagrees with this, start going to strip clubs with male dancers to create more of a demand for them.
Another argument (one put forward by the Icelandic PM after she banned strip clubs) is that stripping is exploiting women by selling them as commodities. This argument stinks of naivety. First of all, using the term 'exploit' in this context is using it as nothing more than rhetoric. Exploit can simply be defined as to "make full use of and derive benefit from (a resource)". Therefore, everything in the living world can be argued to exploit something. A bee exploits a plant's pollen. Love can be seen as two people exploiting the happiness they get from one another.
Secondly, if you think that strippers are treated like commodities any more than people in any other jobs, you're very naive. I don't see people saying football is misandristic, despite the fact its a predominantly male sport where players are sold to different companies based on their ability to kick a ball. Everyone has a monetary worth, a price tag on them. Everyone is bought and sold on the market-place. This isn't something unique to strippers.
Yet another argument against stripping is that it's discriminatory. The job criteria is entirely based on physique and when a stripper gets too old she can no longer work.
Again, this isn't unique to stripping. All jobs discriminate to a lesser or greater degree. If you're blind, you're probably going to find it hard to find any job. If you aren't muscly, youngish, and able bodied, you'll probably find it harder to find employment as a manual laborer or a sportsman. There's nothing unethical about this. The idea that its unethical for a job not to be based on your character is ridiculous.
This brings me onto my last point: one of the main problems people have with stripping is that it objectifies women. By which they mean, men at strip clubs don't consider the dancer's personalities and view them as little more than objects. While I don't entirely agree this is true anyway, I again fail to see a real problem with it if it is true.
How is it a problem? I don't care about the postman's personality, I just want him to deliver my post on time. I don't care about athletes' characters, I just want them to play their sport well. I don't care about actor's personalities, I just want to see them pretend to be someone else well. I don't care about a cashier's actual personality, I just want them act nice and do their job properly. I don't care about the pizza delivery guy's soul, I just want him to bring me pizza and leave promptly. I don't care about a bin man's thoughts and dreams, I just want him to be able pick up my dustbin and chuck the contents into the back of his truck.
And all these things are considered to be fine. But paying to just see someones body is considered wrong. This seems like cognitive dissonance to me.
So there we go. Sorry its a long post. I'll be interested to hear people's thoughts.