a petition to sign

For everyone who hasn’t had an email from me about this yet, I’d just like to draw your attention to this petition on the Number 10 site:

“We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to to re-categorise lap dancing clubs as Sex Encounter Establishments.”

Since the Licensing Act of 2003, lapdancing clubs have been classified as leisure establishments, alongside cafes and karaoke clubs, rather than as sex encounter establishments, and hundreds of lapdancing clubs have opened across the UK in the past five years (see here).

What this means is that, (i) local residents are powerless to stop them opening near their homes, schools, or churches, (ii) more opportunities are created for club owners to traffic in women and girls, (iii) more women are financially and sexually exploited (women need to rent the privilege of working in a club, have little protection in private rooms, and are often expected to take money for sex; see here), and (iv) wider society in general is degraded through the mainstreaming of the sex industry, aka the pornification of society, which pressurises both men and women to view women as little more than objects for sexual gratification.

Hence the campaigning of organisations such as Object and the Fawcett Society, which deserve your support. So the link to the petition again, here.

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