The Strip Club Conundrum
Originally published on Women For Liberty, a project of Students For Liberty.
When you walk into a strip club, the bright and colorful lights flash onstage, revealing a dancer. You may or may not find her attractive and her dance skills could be anywhere from Bill Nye on spring break to something out of Cirque du Soleil but, regardless, to the woman on that stage, this is a job like any other — an opportunity to make good money.
Different from Hollywood images, strip club entertainers today are a variety of ages, ethnicities, and body sizes — something for everyone. Indeed, the people who visit strip clubs seek an array of experiences, but whatever their reasons — and whatever they’re into — their patronage supports workers who need the money or who want the lifestyle offered by this line of occupation. This is what makes strip clubs great, and of course the government is doing it’s best to intervene.
Working at a strip club, especially as an entertainer, is a different career experience than most, and not just because of the nudity. It’s an industry that relies on alcohol sales for the business itself — and an astronomical amount of tipping for the workers. In the United States, most strip clubs hire dancers as independent contractors, who decide their own work schedules (and often other terms of their employment as well). In exchange for this status, the dancers tip the DJ, managers, bartenders, and house an allotted amount, sometimes making little to negative income during a shift.
While an unknowing regulator might view this model as unfair, it mostly works for both performers and managers. Not only does it allow the dancers to make a lot of money (risk has both up and downsides), it grants the worker schedule flexibility, giving them time to work another occupation, attend school, or care for their family. I have known quite a few dancers who worked at the strip club to cover their immediate needs, but also had a professional job where they could rise up in the ranks. For dancers who have children, being able to decide when they work allows them to not only have the money to care for them, but the time to pay them proper attention too. Since 33% of strippers are putting themselves through college, it’s also a profession that can easily go alongside getting a proper education.
Even though men certainly work as strippers, women outnumber them greatly. As such, well-intended regulations regarding strip clubs takes a bigger toll on them. When politicians are too eager to overregulate, the industry and its workers are the ones who suffer. The women who relied on the industry for work no longer have the practically-guaranteed higher income and schedule flexibility they once did. They either have to struggle with finding employment on different terms, or turn to illegal means of making money, such as prostitution or selling drugs. While neither of these have to be harmful in themselves, the prohibition of both have made them dangerous businesses to conduct because they exist in underground (read: unregulated and non-transparent) markets and put one at risk of a run in with the failing criminal justice system.
Strip clubs are able to pull in a lot of money, and the government — hiding behind concerns about safety and fairness — wants to cash in on it. With all of these dancers, other club workers, and the clubs themselves making so much bank, it’s no wonder why politicians are eager to find new ways to tax the industry. Throughout the 2000s, Utah had several cases dealing with this and in 2009, the Utah Supreme Court ruled that it was constitutional for the state to tax nude strip clubs, despite the First Amendment arguments presented by the opposition.
That’s not even bad compared to what happens in other states. Thanks to zoning laws which keep new strip joints from opening in New York City, lap dance clubs sprung up as a (barely) legal alternative, and are getting their share of the market. Community boards and legislators have found that revoking the clubs’ alcohol licenses are an effective strategy for attacking the industry. Nevermind how the clubs have bolstered the local economies, given women a safe means to pursue sex-related work, and provided numerous people with a reasonable source of income, legislators were too concerned with the sensitivities of the surrounding communities.
With governments throughout the country cracking down, it’s important to remind folks that putting additional burdens on those who work in the industry — in the form of high taxes and obstacles to entry — doesn’t help anyone. Even with politicians like Chicago Alderman Ed Burke trying to get the city to ease up on its harsh alcohol and zoning requirements for the benefit of strip clubs, more cities and states around the nation are promoting the stigma against strip clubs than are successfully looking out for the needs of the — primarily female — people who work in them. If politicians truly cared about women and lower-class workers, they wouldn’t use every technicality to close down the businesses that give them the freedom to pursue socioeconomic opportunities — and to avoid more dangerous forms of employment, which are for some, the only other option.
