Also, stripping jobs vary just like retail or sales jobs do. I doubt every single one is demeaning.

I used to say that it wasn’t empowering. And then I became friends with a woman who stripped to put herself through college, and my opinion changed. I think that perhaps on a large scale, a woman stripping for money is both conforming (in the sense that a woman is supporting herself via displaying her body) but also subversive (a woman is earning money by using an asset at her disposal, and money is a symbol of power and autonomy in our culture, and that she is asserting her right to make her own choices good or bad).

The issue that I have the toughest time looking at objectively is prostitution. Because the reasons why I think that stripping can be empowering should apply to prostitution, but I get hung up on my own personal feelings about sex. But ultimately I respect the ability of other people to make their own choices, whether or not I would make their choices myself. To me, that’s empowering.

So, I answered “other” as I’m not at all conflicted – time and place is all I’m sayin’.

Any person, female or male, who feels empowered through sexual activity or self-display is sorely deluded and likely in need of some counseling. These experiences are disempowering. Duh. Becoming a stripper or escort or prostitute is the equivalent of turning yourself into an easily replaceable commodity devoid of any real worth. If you can accept that and be content with the money, you’re mentally sound. But a desire to have hormonal power over others is pretty damned screwy. All the glorifying blab in the world won’t turn that kind of “power” into a genuinely admirable accomplishment.

edited to add: I chose Other

Like the vast majority of lap dancers in the UK, Lucy was self-employed. Not only was she required to pay the club a dance fee every time she wanted to work, a sum that could vary from £10 to £80 (Friday nights were most expensive, because they were most popular with customers), but she also had to give the club commission on every dance performed (nude dances cost punters £20, of which she kept £17.50; on slow nights, she might perform only once or twice, or not at all). And then there were the fines. “You got fined for everything, at £20 a time: if you were late, if you were wearing the wrong shoes or dress, if you failed to dance on the pole twice an hour. [...]

Lucy lasted for six months. “It was very hard to make money: it was like having a very competitive sales job. They’d filled the shop with loads of the same thing – us, the dancers – and then there’d be only five customers. It wasn’t just that we cost them nothing; the more of us there were, the more they made, even if the place was empty.

The real power comes from within, if you can look inside yourself and be happy with what you find, content in the person you are, thats real empowerment.

But as to the stripping. If it’s part of loving, private foreplay, then fine. Otherwise, I don’t think it’s good for anyone, empowering or not. Sex is for lovers, not for powerplays by either gender,IMHO.

Leah