Jezebel: I'm Not Sure if We Should Be Celebrating or Crying. I think I'm Going With Crying

I read Jezebel. I'm not proud of it but, really, where else can you get real feminist analysis and anti-feminist handmaiden shit all in the same place? TMZ and Perez Hilton are just facile, woman-hating shite. Jezebel has moments of genius; you know, when they're not insulting and denigrating actresses for having sex or labelling models fat or the whole breast-feeders are Nazis schtick and what have you. I'm never entirely sure how they manage to flip between feminist activism and the Official Handmaiden Cheerleading Squad. But, they do. And, I can't help myself but be amazed at their hypocrisy and their frequent tendency to completely miss the Feminist point.

This article being a case in point. It starts like this:

On Saturday, Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn signed a law that will force strip clubs to pay an additional tax, which will in turn be used to fund programs aimed at preventing sexual assault as well as counseling sexual assault victims. The new tax is expected to haul in about $1 million a year for rape prevention programs, funding that even critics of the tax think is sorely needed.

Well, this is a lovely law except for the whole bit about it expecting rapes to happen. You want to stop the increased rapes which occur near strip clubs, then you ban strip clubs. You don't tax them to pay for the treatment of the rape victims who were raped because of the existence of the club. It's ridiculous. And, circular. And, stupid. But, at least, they are acknowledging the relationship between the "sex entertainment industry and increased sexual violence; even though they are solving it in the stupidest fashion possible.

This, however, is Jezebel's conclusion:

You'd have to be some kind of epic asshole to disagree with the way this additional revenue will be used, but implying a definite link between strip clubs and sexual assault carries the danger of further stigmatizing a business that already implies a certain degree of sleaze. Ultimately, this tax might not affect club owners like Ocello as much as it might affect the women who work at Ocello's clubs.

Talk about missing the freaking point. Guess what? The research does suggest that rapes and other forms of sexual violence increase in and around strip clubs and lap dancing clubs. And, this is without considering the sexualised violence that the women working in these clubs experience. That increased risk is to random women who just happen to be unlucky enough to live or work near one. And, yeah, I think the sex industry is sleazy. It harms all women whilst deliberately targeting vulnerable women for exploitation: women are poor or lack formal education or are already victims of sexualised violence (usually as a child) or women with serious drug or alcohol dependency issues. The idea that women "choose" to end up in this industry would be laughable if it weren't so harmful. The sex entertainment industry [an oxymoron if I've ever heard one] is about the objectification, abuse and torture of women's bodies. It is sleazy. And, it will always be sleazy.

A cursory search on google would have found lots of research and articles discussing the correlation between the increase risk of sexualised violence and the sex entertainment industry. Here's an article in the Telegraph about a police chief in Newquay objecting to sex entertainment establishments because they increase VAW. Object has countless resources listed here outlining the prevalence of sexualised violence near lap dancing clubs. The writer at Jezebel was either to lazy or too constrained by Patriachal discourse to even contemplate that the objectification of women's bodies does make other[ed] women unsafe. 

We need to face up to the fact that prostitution, pornography and "sex entertainment establishments" help perpetuate rape culture. It is disingenuous and unkind to suggest otherwise.