The Entrepreneurial Spirit!
When Johnny Diablo's year-old vegan restaurant failed to catch on in Portland, Ore., last year, he converted the space into Casa Diablo's Gentlemen's Club, which is what he believes is the world's only vegan strip club. He has no rule against meat-eating dancers, he told Willamette Week newspaper in February, but won't permit leather, fur, silk or wool outfits on stage (no "murder victims" in the club, he said). [Willamette Week, 2-6-08]
Hmm...no murder victims, but I'm sure sexual harassment victims are fine. I mean, isn't this a bit ridiculous? I'd really love to hear the owner of this place explain his animal rights on one hand, but his owning a strip club on the other.
I think it's time for someone to points out the absolute ridiculousness of the world. Maybe it's time a stripper sued for sexual harassment...
This is America! The country where everyone is entitled to his or her fifteen minutes of a lawsuit. I can just see it now. Stripper sues for sexual harassment! I think I'll look for representation. I think I have a pretty good case.
I’m an ex-stripper. My charge? It’s sexual harassment, of course.
My only question is—whom do I sue?
The club owners for providing a hostile work environment? The bar patrons for the actual harassment?
I guess it would be pretty hard to charge the thousands of customers who harassed me, seeing as I’m not even sure of their names. Could I bring charges based on physical descriptions, for example…that fat bearded man with body odor at “Flashdancers” who grabbed my hand and shoved it down his pants, or…that skinny Viet Nam veteran at “The Blue Angel” who said, “I bet if I had a dick, it would be getting hard right now” as he reached for my nipples?
Or maybe I could just sue society as a whole, for creating a culture where it’s permissible for women to be treated like sex objects in strip clubs?
One thing I know, somebody should have to pay for all my pain and suffering. Do you have any idea how many times I was subjected to cat-calls, sexual innuendoes, and flat out propositions?
I was grabbed, kissed, fondled, groped, leered at, and name-called. And make no mistake about it—these were unwelcome advances. I was just trying to make a buck. None of us asked to be manhandled (okay, maybe a few…), or did we?
Was my nakedness on stage a license for a man to grab my breasts? Was my bare butt a call for it to be spanked? Was my exotic dancing really a yearning to be asked out for a “date”?
And what about the fact that I said “no” when propositioned, but was asked again and again? I just wanted to be treated like a human being -- with a little bit of respect.
The heart of sexual harassment seems to me that one can claim injury even after one “allowed” the behavior to occur. If women in offices and bars can sue leachy jerks, then why can’t I?
Strippers all over this beautiful country of ours are subjected to the worst sexual harassment imaginable. In a way, strip clubs have become the last great sanctuaries for ignorant men who still feel the need to degrade women to feel better about themselves.
Striptease is no longer an art form, rather it has evolved into one of the final resting grounds for legal sexual harassment. No one considers the toll expelled onto us, the stripping women who take the abuse so normal women can walk freely down the streets unharassed by construction workers. Strippers are a final dump sight for the toxic sludge of sexual degradation.
Well, this exotic gal isn’t taking it anymore! I want reparation, damn it.
My self-esteem was shattered. My body image was distorted. My relationships with men were devastated. My sense of guilt and shame crippled me.
I figure I’m looking at least a couple hundred million dollars in damages. Any lawyers care to take on American society with me? Let’s take it to the Supreme Court if we have to!
My only worry is that I fought off a few of those obnoxious men with pointy high-heels to their sweaty faces, warm beer on their bald heads, or shoves to their bulging bellies.
I hope they don't counter sue.
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