The Journal

Issue date: 3/1/07 Section: Opinion/Editorial

Jennifer Ginger

Stripping is not an interpretive dance. The correlation it has with sex is reasonable considering the highly-sexual movements. However, the way audience members view strippers and the duties strippers should be performing is not acceptable. Although stripping may be associated with prostitution, the two are not connected.


Strippers have the image of being skanky, but that doesn't stop people from frequenting the club. On the contrary, it seems to be people's reason for attending. It also provides music artists something to talk about.


Any Z107.7 listener has probably heard the song, "I Wanna Love You" by Akon. "I see you winding and grinding up on that floor. I know you see me lookin' at you and you already know, I wanna love you." The explicit version substitutes the word floor for pole, and the word love for fuck. I don't think fuck is a valid substitution for love considering the distinctions between the two.


It's not surprising that someone would fantasize about sleeping with a stripper who makes them feel as if they are the only person in the room, but it's the stripper's job. The entrancement of the audience translates into tips for the night, so to some degree, the strippers want the customer to have fun and come back. But having fun should not include having sex with a customer, or the harassment from audience members who want an inexpensive, flexible prostitute.


In T-Pain's song, "I'm 'n Luv Wit a Stripper," he imagines the stripper coming down from the ceiling to the floor, which translates into a stripper sliding down the pole. He says she knows what she is doing. After he becomes aroused, he wants to take her home and do "that night thang."


There is nothing wrong with imagination, but the line is crossed when the imagery goes beyond enjoying the brief intoxication with the performer, into a compulsion to take her home at any cost, especially since performing sexual favors is not a part of a stripper's job description.


Then there are the artists who have developed a service of stripper referrals. Eminem's song, "Shake That," features artist Nate Dogg who asks "Tonight I want a slut, will you be mine? I heard you was freaky from a friend of mine." What is so appealing about learning a girl is promiscuous from a friend, and then wanting to personally explore her anatomy? If she consents to sleeping with an audience member it's likely she has done that for others in the past.

Continued...

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