Potential strip club sparks differing opinions
By Samantha Pirc, Campus Life writer
January 29, 2008 | 9 a.m.
The possibility of a strip club moving into the empty building on the corner of Stimson Avenue and Palmer Street has caused quite a stir in the Athens community, especially among the women of Ohio University.
The legitimacy of Three Wide Entertainment, the company that is proposing the club move in to the old New-to-You building, is being questioned. Residents are holding meetings to discuss how the gentleman’s club would affect the surrounding neighborhoods and businesses. The Athens Board of Zoning Appeals will also be debating whether the club is even permitted under city codes
While people are divided over what a strip club would do to the Athens community, female students and professors at Ohio University are divided over what a strip club would mean for the women who live in the community.
No way, Jose
Dr. Judith Grant, Director of the Women’s Studies program and a political science professor, is opposed to the idea of the strip club not for moral reasons but because of how strip clubs promote the exploitation of women.
“[Strip clubs] reinforce a culture of men voyeuristically viewing women,” Grant said. “They create the illusion of sexual freedom [while reinforcing] patriarchal ideas about sex [and] making it hard for men to understand what women’s real sexual desires are.”
Sally Neidhard, Women’s Affairs commissioner for the OU Student Senate, agrees with Grant, saying that strips clubs are places that say it is OK to objectify women and that they “enable and encourage it.”
A student made a comment in The Post that a strip club would help reduce the number of sexual assaults against women on campus by providing men an outlet for viewing naked women. In contrast to this comment, Grant said, “Research shows this type of way of looking at women desensitizes people to [violence against women]."
The proposed club would not provide alcohol and would also feature male dancers, but according to Grant this does not make the idea of the club any better.
“Male dancers typically cater to gay men or females at a bachelorette party, and they don’t typically strip down naked,” Grant said. She also pointed out that women go to strip clubs for fun, not to “ogle naked men,” and that male strip clubs are more a “culture of parody.”
Neidhard is concerned with how the strip club would affect OU’s creditability since it would be so close to campus, saying “it would compromise so many things.”
With the club not serving alcohol, it would be available to all OU students, including freshmen. “There is also the possibility that female students would be working at the strip club at night and then going to class with men they danced for at the club, causing the potential for problems with acquaintance rape,” Neidhard said.
“Athens is a community too educated and civil-minded to let a strip club come,” she added.
If you build it, they will come
Sophomore India Pierce, a member of the feminist group Women Acting for Change (WAC), doesn’t see strip clubs as offensive and is excited about the idea of one coming to Athens.
“I’d go. I’m very open with my sexuality,” Pierce said. “I have friends who have been strippers, and it has made them stronger…and no matter where you go, there is still going to be something sexual,” she added, citing the fact that there is a sex toy store not too far up the road from where the club would be.
WAC president Emily Dunlap said that she is also OK with the idea of a strip club because it helps women embrace their bodies and thinks it would be a fun place to go on ladies' night.
Pierce agreed, saying that although stripping is not the best thing to do in life, most strippers are very proud of their bodies and have no problem showing them off. She added that the strip club would help the community just by bringing in business.
“Athens needs to bring in more entertainment because people leave on the weekends,” Pierce said.
WAC member Angela Perley reserved her judgment on the strip club, saying it could be good or bad depending on how it is set up and who dances there, whether it is going to be professional dancers, students or impoverished Appalachian women trying to make a living.
Perley said she was uneasy about the club being so close to where she lives and gets her groceries and is also concerned about getting cat-called while just walking by.
“[A strip club] is just not my style,” Perley said. “Athens does not have nice clubs, so I don’t know if it fits this town.”
Erica Boehnlein, editor of the women’s studies program journal “The Awakening,” said she wouldn’t have a problem with the club as long as it was a safe, clean environment that treated the women working there with respect and had rules to help prevent assault.
Strip clubs are fine “if a woman wants to be sexual, wants to dance,” Boehnlein said, and she said it becomes a problem “when women have no other choice and are forced into [stripping].”
“People are excited about Chipotle coming,” Boehnlein said. “It’s only because Athens is such a small town that [the strip club] is such a big deal.”
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