HOW SHE SEES IT The naked truth about strip clubs

By ELISABETH EAVES
SCRIPPS HOWARD NEWS SERVICE
In Chicago, Miami, Nashville, Detroit and other cities across the country, local politicians are waging war on strip clubs. Their efforts to shut down old ones, stop new ones and enmesh owners and strippers in ever-more-complex laws are a waste of time and money.
That's because strip clubs aren't really the problem. The clubs are scapegoats for something much more daunting and complex.
When the crusaders set about shutting down clubs, they often claim a concern for "health and safety," or the public's "general welfare," factors cited last month when the Tulare County, Calif., Planning Commission voted to close Sugar Daddy's Gentlemen's Club.
Or they say that strip clubs are "the kind of business that sets the neighborhood back," as a Nashville resident, protesting a proposed club, put it recently.
No substantiation
They may say, too, that strip clubs increase crime, a claim repeated so often it's a wonder no one has ever substantiated it.
Basically, though, all of these are euphemisms for plain old unease. The uneasiness comes from the spectacle of sex for sale -- which seems to be epitomized by strip clubs, beacons of clearly defined badness.
But, in fact, sex is commercialized everywhere we look.
What do your kids watch on television? Any gyrating half-dressed girls? If the club down the road is a threat, clearly MTV is a bigger one. After all, strip clubs don't cater to 12-year-olds. Better shut off the television, and cancel your MTV.
What kind of magazines do you have around the house? Any flesh-baring covers? Or soft-porn catalogues from Victoria's Secret, or Abercrombie & amp; Fitch? Better throw them out. And boycott the stores that sell them.
And what about really problematic instances of sex for sale? Any child capable of typing a keyword on the Internet can view hard-core pornography in an instant. What is a generation raised on such access going to mean for society down the road? If the strip-club crusaders really wanted to make a difference in the fight against commercialized sex, their efforts would be better spent directed against these far more ubiquitous problems.
They would also target modeling contests, beauty pageants and reality programs in which women compete for men and cash. These versions of pay-for-play are seen by many more people -- and far younger ones -- than the strippers in your town.
But to truly confront sex-for-sale -- in all its forms -- would be a Herculean task. It would require disentangling ourselves from the television we watch, the brands we buy and the way we relate to the opposite sex.
Commercialized sex is deeply entrenched in our daily lives. The trouble is, it has become so entrenched that there's no easy way to extract ourselves. So we go after the local strip club, a highly visible bogeyman. Ironically, strip clubs are the least of our problems. They don't invade our homes or cater to our kids.
Compared to Internet porn -- and even Janet Jackson's Super Bowl performance -- the idea of adults viewing other adults naked in a windowless bar seems almost quaint.
Arbitrary regulations
A neon-lighted strip club, though, certainly makes a good punching bag. So rather than facing the big problems, self-styled local heroes wrangle over arbitrary and unenforceable regulations.
City councils debate whether an "adult business" should be 500 or 700 feet from a church; whether dancers may touch customers' shoulders; whether pasties must be worn where alcohol is served.
Some towns impose predatory "entertainment licenses" on dancers, which serve only to fill municipal coffers. Others ban "obscenity" without defining it, paving the way for vice cops to prosecute dancers based on their own whims.
Maybe all this eases the crusaders' anxiety. But after they win one of their minuscule battles -- when they delay a strip club's alcohol permit or force it to move a mile down the road -- they shouldn't be surprised if the anxiety remains. The commerce of sex will still be there.
XEaves is the author of "Bare: The Naked Truth About Stripping."