Welcome to my stop on the blog tour for ‘The Ethical Stripper’ by Stacey Clare.
Thanks to Random Things Tours and Unbound for inviting me onto the tour and the copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.
From the Publisher:
Forget everything you’ve heard about strippers: this book is an antidote to stigma, shame and stereotyping.
How can a feminist also be a stripper? Is stripping sex work? What makes sex work “ethical”?
In this powerful book, Stacey Clare, a stripper with over a decade of experience, takes a detailed look at the sex industry – the reality of the work as well as the history of licensing and regulation, feminist themes surrounding sex work, and stigma. Bringing her personal knowledge of the industry to bear, she offers an unapologetic critique and searing indictment of exploitation and raises the rights
of sex workers to the top of the agenda.
‘The Ethical Stripper’ rejects notions of victimhood, challenges stigma and shame, and unpacks decades of confusion and contradictions. It’s about the sex-work community’s fight for safety and self-determination, and it challenges you to think twice about every newspaper article, documentary and film you have seen about stripping and sex work.
‘The Ethical Stripper’ takes a comprehensive look at sex work, balancing the lived experience of the author with an examination of the different legal frameworks for sex work around the world.
‘A deeply impressive, clear and creative history of the culture and laws
CAROL LEIGH
around strip clubs … An important book, sorely needed’
‘A powerhouse of a book – rigorous, insightful and thought-provoking’
LEIGH HOPKINSON, author of Two Decades Naked
‘An unflinching takedown of inadequate working conditions … A crucial
JUNO MAC, co-author of Revolting Prostitutes
insight, with arguments for a better system that are both passionate and rational. This book is here to remind us once more: if you want to know how the sex industry operates from a workers’ perspective, ask someone who actually works there’
My Review:
I’ll admit up front that feminism brought me to this book. I’m interested in female experiences and choices but also was kind of uneasy about how feminism intersects with sex work. I hoped this book – with a recommendation from the brilliant Kate Lister on the cover – would clarify my thinking on the topic.
After all, who better to explain the working of the industry and the issues facing sex workers than Stacey Clare, stripper and activist?
The book is divided into nine main sections, each exploring a different topic – for example, stripping/sex work as it is portrayed in the media, issues around regulation or criminalisation and the history of sex work. Each chapter is a mixture of Clare’s rhetoric on the issue alongside (in italics) her personal experiences.
The main impetus of Clare’s argument is around ‘harm-reduction’ in sex work – she has a vision of a better way of running strip clubs with more autonomy and control by the strippers themselves, the group most often denied a voice in any discussions on their own working lives. This is the ‘ethical’ approach – a decriminalised and destigmatised future where communication is open and codes of conduct agreed.
So far, so persuasive.
She acknowledges that sex workers are caught in a trap whereby they want better working conditions and rights, but are limited in what they can do to change their situations without the risk of losing their jobs. Club owners and local councils both prove a threat – strippers can be turned out of work if they challenge club management or endanger the club’s licence renewal process by campaigning (and therefore highlighting the exploitation). If a club closes because the council’s attention is drawn to the sketchy practices of management, they lose their job anyway. It’s a lose-lose for the stripper. Keeping quiet and tacitly accepting the club skimming huge percentages from their money seems to be the only option.
Hmm, more problematic.
This book is certainly eye-opening. There is some interesting information about the history and regulation of sex work – the process of licencing strip clubs seems like an absolute minefield for everyone involved. There’s also a lot about workers’ rights – strippers are considered to be self-employed, yet ordered around and regulated by club management as if they were employees, a legal issue that Clare discusses.
It’s also well-researched. This is clearly a topic that Clare has researched meticulously and the text is footnoted and supported by her references. Plus her lived experience (and those told anecdotally about her friends and co-workers) gives an added insight.
Where I found it challenging was Clare’s assertion that all sex workers are equal and should support each other – she starts from the basis that stripping and prostitution are the same and that there shouldn’t be a ‘whorearchy’. I’m in total agreement on equality and that women should stand together, but I found it awkward that Clare was in some ways speaking for sex workers whose experiences may be extremely different to hers (as a white woman who sees stripping as a positive choice). She rejects the notion of victimhood in the sex industry while also detailing extremely exploitative practices which – anywhere else – would see employment tribunals or at least a long queue for advice from the Citizens’ Advice Bureau! She also criticises a film about strippers (‘Hustlers’) as misrepresenting the industry while also talking about how several strippers/ex-strippers played a part in its production (and actually had the experiences shown in the film of strippers drugging and robbing customers).
Although I found some of the arguments contradictory, it is evident that Clare is passionate and knowledgeable about her subject. For this reason, Clare deserves recognition and praise for standing up and putting across her point of view on an extremely divisive topic – she acknowledges that this is counter to the views of ‘radical feminists’ who (perhaps simplistically) want strip clubs outlawed at the cost of workers’ livelihoods.
Overall, I’d say that this book provided a lot of food for thought and some interesting insights into the sex industry – I’m certainly glad I read it and have more information than I did previously. I’m still not sure that ‘harm-reduction’ is a good enough goal though as I think the book uncovers a deeply problematic situation for which there is no easy solution.
And – while still very much of the ‘live and let live’ mindset – I’m more confused than ever on what I think about the intersection of feminism and sex work.
About the Author:
Stacey Clare is a stripper, performance artist, writer, activist and care worker. She grew up in northern England and began working as a stripper in Scotland aged twenty-two, while on a gap year from her Fine Art degree at Glasgow School of Art.
She has worked all over the UK, Paris and Australia. Stacey cofounded the East London Strippers Collective as a concerted effort to unite dancers around common
grievances about their own industry, including the poor representation of strippers in the media. She lives in London and Scotland and divides her time between running a life-drawing class (with strippers as models), theatre projects, working part-time in care, activism and writing.
Stacey is not only a prominent voice for sex workers’ rights in the media, but she is also a comedian and performed ‘Ask A Stripper’, the sold-out at the Edinburgh Fringe.
@ethicalstripper
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Thanks for the blog tour support x