Half a dozen strippers are parading outside Bristol’s City Hall dressed in scarlet lingerie and towering stilettos. As passersby look on, they hold up placards bearing slogans—“I want to strip off my clothes, not my rights,” reads one—and pose for photographs with a huge banner: “Sex workers’ rights are human rights.”
Bristol has become the biggest battleground in the fight to save—or shutter—Britain’s strip clubs. Since 2009, when legislation first gave local authorities powers to control such venues, an increasing number have taken the opportunity to shut them down. Strip clubs have disappeared from Swansea, Exeter, Blackpool and some London boroughs. In March this year, Edinburgh became the biggest city so far to approve a ban—it’s a debate that cuts across the party-political divide.
Bristol’s Labour mayor, Marvin Rees, made abolishing strip clubs a promise in his 2016 election campaign, as part of a package of proposals focused on women’s rights. Six years later, the council is still mulling over the move, but a decision is expected in the coming months—a public consultation late last year received almost 7,000 responses.
The debate is particularly fraught because both sides are battling under the banner of feminism. In one corner there are those—including politicians like Rees, the region’s police and crime commissioner Mark Shelford and local feminist groups—who argue that strip clubs normalise the sexual objectification of women, that women who work there are often exploited or subjected to sexual violence and that these clubs contribute to making the city an unsafe or uncomfortable environment for most women.
In the other corner are the women who work in the clubs, their unions and other feminists and local politicians. They argue that controlling what women can do with their bodies amounts to old-fashioned sexism, that attempts to shut down striptease are akin to moral policing and that closing clubs will force the industry underground and expose the dancers to greater danger.
Both sides claim that the Equality Act supports their position—at least one council has been taken to court over the issue, and others are facing a similar showdown. A YouGov poll last year found that while only a quarter of UK men support a full ban on strip clubs, more than 40 per cent of women do.
So what should happen next?
A brief history of strip
Striptease has a spotty history in the UK. The historic Windmill Theatre in Soho—London’s Moulin Rouge—pioneered British burlesque as part of its legendary variety shows in the 1930s. To get around censorship rules, the Windmill Girls would remain in stationary poses on stage when nude, allowing the performances to be classified as art—like a life drawing or a living sculpture. The ban on striptease ended in 1968 but it was not until the 1990s that more risqué performances began to emerge, with more intimacy between dancers and customers as the art of striptease developed into lap-dancing (initially imported to the UK by the Canadian chain For Your Eyes Only, which opened a branch in west London in 1995). Although physical contact is now typically prohibited by licensing conditions in UK venues, lap dancing continues to be the primary source of income for strippers in the form of an erotic dance performed close to the customer, often in privacy.
The noughties saw a boom in lap-dancing clubs in the UK, as new licensing rules in England and Wales treated them the same as any other bar or club. Visiting a venue where you could pay a woman to take off her clothes became so commonplace that, notoriously, male-dominated City firms (rarely a bastion of gender equality) would hold meetings and entertain clients there, eventually leading to accusations of sex discrimination from their female colleagues.
But that boom started coming to an end when the Policing and Crime Act 2009 reclassified strip clubs as “sexual entertainment venues” (SEVs) and gave local councils the authority to regulate them. Similar legislation was passed in Scotland in 2015. The law allows councils to determine what they believe to be the “appropriate” number of SEVs in each locality. By implementing a so-called “nil cap”—ruling that the appropriate number of SEVs in every locality they are responsible for is zero—councils can effectively ban them. They can also set specific conditions for obtaining a licence, or limit how many they grant. The number of clubs in the UK has since dropped significantly. Experts believe there were around 350 in England and Wales a decade ago, down to around 150 now.
The Windmill—which by that point had offered a stage for various forms of striptease for almost 90 years—lost its licence in 2018, when investigators hired by women’s rights campaigners uncovered breaches of the “no-contact” rule. It is a sign of how heated the fight has become that some campaigners secretly film inside the clubs to document breaches of licensing conditions in order to get them shut down. Dancers say this is a violation, since they are often being filmed nude without their consent.
A similar trend is playing out across the pond. In both Canada and the US strip clubs are in decline, in part due to tougher regulations in some cities and states, as well as changing social attitudes and the easy availability of sexual entertainment online.
In 2010, Iceland—renowned as the most gender equal country in the world—defied the European status quo by becoming the first, and so far only, country to ban strip clubs on feminist grounds. Surveys showed that the majority of Icelanders supported a ban, and Icelandic feminist groups were unified in opposition to them. But that’s not the case in the UK.
Sanctioned sexism
Despite the intensity of the debate over strip clubs in Bristol, the city currently has just two of them, down from five about 10 years ago. In the historic Old City, Central Chambers has found a grand home in a 19th-century Baroque-style building known as Concorde House, with Corinthian pilasters and tiers of dramatic windows that are now covered to conceal what’s happening behind them, in line with council regulations. Round the corner on Broad Quay, Urban Tiger sits sandwiched between shops and restaurants near the waterside. They are not allowed to advertise what kind of entertainment they are offering outside the venue, so it says simply “Gentleman’s Club.”
But for Bristol’s biggest women’s rights organisations—including Bristol Women’s Voice, the (recently closed) local chapter of the Fawcett Society and the head of the Centre for Gender and Violence Research at Bristol University—two strip clubs is two too many. “As a local-authority sanctioned part of our mainstream night- time economy,” says Bristol Women’s Voice, “it sends a message that it’s OK for men to objectify women and that women’s bodies can be bought.” Although closing them won’t end such attitudes towards women, “it’s one tangible action the council can take to address the widespread sexual objectification of women by sending a clear message that it has no place in our city centres.”
Citing work happening in Bristol around gender equality education for young people, it adds: “It makes little sense to invest time and resources into educating boys and young men about harmful attitudes towards girls and women, when the fact that they can go and pay for a woman to strip in a council-licensed SEV [from the age of] 18 sends an altogether different message.”
Strip clubs are spaces where traditional gender roles are played out, where men are dressed and women are undressed, where male sexual desire is prioritised, where the “male gaze” is manifest, and where men—as the primary customers—wield economic power.
Studies have also identified a range of reasons why men might choose to visit strip clubs, most of which are not explicitly sexual but that typically involve a desire to be in masculine spaces or to obtain the emotional or physical attention of women. According to one 2005 study, for example, regular customers expressed a desire “to interact with women who were not ‘feminist,’ and who wanted to relate to men in more ‘traditional’ ways.” “With all of this sexual harassment stuff going around these days, men need somewhere to go where they can act like they want,” one said.
Whether strip clubs have any direct impact on women in the wider community is disputed. There is no clear evidence that they are associated with higher rates of sexual violence in an area. But men’s engagement in the sexual objectification of women is broadly associated with more dismissive attitudes towards rape and sexual aggression.
In 2018, in a case brought by women’s rights campaigners, Leeds High Court ruled that Sheffield City Council had breached its public sector equality duty—a requirement under the Equality Act—by failing to consider the potential impact on women when it renewed Spearmint Rhino’s SEV licence. The ruling meant the council had to consult again. The dancers paraded through Sheffield to defend the club and, backed by Spearmint Rhino, initiated legal action against women’s rights campaigners who had again filmed breaches of the no-contact rule there. But after a long battle, the club eventually gave up its SEV licence. The venue reopened this year as a sports bar.
Many in the anti-strip club camp also argue that the clubs exploit the dancers. Under the prevailing system, dancers are usually self-employed but nonetheless face restrictive conditions, such as requirements to work a minimum number of shifts per week, strict dress codes and fines for being late.
Many dancers believe working conditions and safety measures will deteriorate if the industry has to move underground
On top of that, instead of clubs paying the dancers for a shift, the dancers pay the clubs—and make their money almost entirely from offering private dances to men in VIP booths or secluded areas. In the UK, in general, stripping on a stage no longer pays; the money comes instead from lap dancing. That means dancers can leave shifts having lost money. The competition also means that some, especially those in more economically precarious situations, may feel under pressure to provide more for less.
In contrast, the often male staff employed in other roles at the clubs, such as managers, bar staff and door staff, are more commonly contracted as employees or workers, with all the rights and benefits that entails.
In a recent campaign video for the nil cap, Thangam Debbonaire, Labour MP for Bristol West, explained her view. “These venues only exist if we accept that misogynistic, sexist attitudes about men’s right to pay for access to women’s bodies are acceptable,” she said. “Do we want [Bristol] to be a place that challenges sexist attitudes, or one that supports them?”
When no one’s looking
At the same time, dozens of dancers working at Urban Tiger and Central Chambers—and many more at other venues under threat across the country—are fighting to save their livelihoods.
They say that opposition to strip clubs reflects the ongoing marginalisation of sex workers and age-old disapproval of women who express their sexuality. They believe that feminism should defend their bodily autonomy and their right to pursue their profession. They do not need “saving,” they say, and are being blamed for social problems that are not their fault, and that extend far beyond lap-dancing clubs.
They also point out that, despite being arguably the group most affected by changes in regulations around strip clubs, their opinions are often excluded from the conversation. In the select committee consultation that took place before the Sexual Entertainment Venue legislation was passed, no evidence from current dancers was included.
Experiences in the industry vary widely. Some dancers have provided accounts of exploitation and abuse. But others insist they do the work because they enjoy it, because its flexibility allows them to fit it in around studies, childcare or other needs, and because they make good money. It’s true there are bad nights, but on a good one they can make hundreds of pounds—far more than they would get in a minimum wage job.
“There’s a lot of benefits,” says Stacey Clare, a dancer, sex workers’ rights activist and author of a new book, The Ethical Stripper. “The amounts of money that you can earn can really change a lot of lives. I know so, so many dancers who’ve escaped poverty, who’ve set up businesses, who’ve got themselves through full-time education.” That’s particularly appealing for women, who face more obstacles and limits on their earning potential in other parts of the job market, she says.
Many dancers campaigning to save the clubs also believe working conditions and safety measures will deteriorate if the industry has to move underground. The idea is that because strip clubs are public spaces—with security measures such as bouncers and CCTV—they provide a level of safety that dancers won’t have if they end up performing for men in private spaces. If the authorities enact a ban they will lose the ability to regulate stripping and to insist on those safety conditions.
“I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt that men behave worse when no one’s looking,” says Clare. “Pushing the sex industry underground… will make the problem worse.” Bristol Women’s Voice, meanwhile, argues that demand is largely driven by the clubs themselves, and that there is no evidence the industry will move underground if it cannot operate publicly.
Others predict that some dancers will turn to other forms of sex work if they can no longer lap dance. Since a ban on strip clubs would disproportionately affect female workers, United Voices of the World—one of the unions representing dancers—has vowed to take Edinburgh City Council to court for violating the Equality Act. Just as campaigners on the other side argued in Sheffield, they say it constitutes a breach of the council’s public sector equality duty.
It is estimated that around 90 per cent of sex workers are female. Although male stripping does exist in the UK, it often looks very different, with troupes like the Dreamboys performing on stage in front of large crowds. This summer, for example, the Dreamboys will be performing at the Grand Opera House York and Swansea Grand Theatre. They even have a regular slot at a nightclub in Bristol, but because they do not perform fully nude they avoid the need for an SEV licence. Unlike their female counterparts, they are not at risk of being closed down.
Sex wars
The sex industry has become one of the most divisive issues within 21st-century feminism, but the so-called “feminist sex wars” date back to the 1980s. Liberal approaches to feminism champion individual freedoms and choice. From this perspective, feminism is about women’s agency over their bodies and their lives, and sex work is seen as empowering if it fulfils that.
Radical approaches to feminism, meanwhile, focus on structures of oppression, with sex work seen as part of a patriarchal system that contributes to the exploitation and subordination of women. From this perspective, lap-dancing may help to empower individual women economically—they may even feel empowered by it—but it damages women’s liberation collectively.
Is it possible to acknowledge both sides? It is hard to deny that the sexual objectification of women is integral to how most strip clubs operate, and that they reinforce the gender norms that feminist movements of all stripes are seeking to dismantle.
At the same time they are arguably an effect, not a cause, of a sexist world—one in which, as Clare alludes to, women still have to get by. It’s unclear how much abolishing strip clubs would do to tackle those issues while other forms of objectification continue. Far more evidence is needed about the impact on women both inside and outside the clubs to justify shutting them down if there is a potential risk of harm to an already marginalised group.
For example, although strip clubs have been shut down in parts of the country for a long time, no evidence has been gathered about whether the industry moved underground or about what happened to the dancers. Evidence gathered on whether the presence of strip clubs is associated with higher levels of sexual violence and harassment has been highly contested and inconclusive. And much of the research about the industry itself—including who the dancers are and the conditions they work in—is out of date.
Jessica Simpson, a sociology lecturer at the University of Greenwich, is one of the key researchers doing some of that work right now. The lack of hard facts means that policy is being driven by ideology rather than evidence, she says, adding that the problem with discussing the sex industry is that “the conversations are so polarised and people think it’s [either] wholly bad or try to represent it as being wholly good… [It] makes it really difficult to find a common ground.”
While they are often wary of speaking up about their experiences in case it gets used as evidence to shut the industry down, many of the dancers agree that they do not have adequate labour rights. In their eyes, the solution is not closure, which could potentially lead to worse conditions, but reform.
In recent years, dancers have been organising: forming unions and networks to advocate for better working conditions. Like many of those in the gig economy, they want to be recognised as workers, which comes with certain rights such as paid holidays and a minimum wage. “A club, where dancers are fully aware of their rights and have access to enacting those rights, would be the kind of environment I’d want to work in. That would be the kind of environment that would feel safest,” says Clare.
In 2020, one dancer, Sonia Nowak, backed by the union, won a landmark case when she took her club to an employment tribunal. The judge ruled that dancers there have worker status. “If feminists want to shut down strip clubs, they’re erasing years of activism that we’ve been doing. Years of community building, sharing information, building networks,” says Clare. “It infuriates me that they think it’s a feminist thing to do, to just ride roughshod over what we’ve been doing… we’re fighting for our own rights as women.”
