Recently, performers at the Golden Banana gentlemen's club in Peabody, Massachusetts have filed a class-action lawsuit against the club's owners, over wages and benefits.
Now, before you snicker and make snide remarks, let me set the record on how these ladies are treated -- not just at this establishment, but across the country.
If you're an exotic dancer, the club doesn't consider you an employee. You're categorized as an "independent contractor", which means the club doesn't need to pay payroll taxes, Social Security contributions, healthcare or other benefits.
Now this makes sense if you're a comedy club hiring new talent every night, with the comics touring from one club to another. But the Golden Banana and many other clubs make the performers sign a contract enjoining them from performing at any other establishment. Not to mention dictating what music they can dance to, what wardrobe they can wear ... some independence!
And that's just for starters. Performers are required to pay a fee to get on stage. Their pay is in customer tips -- no salary, no commission for getting customers to buy overpriced drinks -- and they are required to share their tips with salaried employees. If you're sick, or have a kid or elderly parent to take care of, that's one more day you don't make any money.
I've also heard from women who work in these clubs that the owners encourage a "pecking order" among performers, with favorites getting choice money-making slots above others. That means that, while a few will make good money, many just make a living, sometimes just breaking even or losing money on bad nights.
It's about time the so-called "gentlemen" who own these clubs treat their ladies with the respect and dignity they deserve. They are the reason people come in and spend money. They deserve fair payment for their work.
If they're going to be "independent contractors" then let them be independent. Let them perform at any club, not just yours. Drop the performance fees, and take a twenty percent commission of their tips. Let them choose their music and wardrobe, and encourage creativity in their performances. Perhaps the club owners and the performers could get together to set up plans for group health insurance, disability insurance, and 401K's. And if a club wants to retain a performer exclusively, then sit down and negotiate a fair contract for their talent.
Compensation is just one part of the equation. There is also the fundamental issue of respect. Exotic dancers work for their money, and deserve to be treated with the same dignity as any other working artist. And not just from the club's owners, but their clients as well. If they're willing to take it all off for us, then it's high time we take a stand for them.
Saturday, October 24, 2009
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Whatever Happened to Oberlin's BDSM Club?
There were no Safer Sex parties when I was a student at Oberlin College. Nor did the student-run Sexual Information Center have any reading material on BDSM or kink.
Fast forward to the late 1990's and early 2000's. Students try to set up a BDSM educational group on campus. Folks on the supposedly liberal campus are up in arms. The group's charter application goes to the General Faculty, which debates it to death and blocks approval. Yet, apparently, the group somehow continues to survive - at least for a while.
There's scant information on this, but what I read bothers me. Set aside the questions of free speech and tolerance. The major reason we kinksters organize groups like this is to be safe - to share much-needed information, to look out for one another, and to educate outsiders about who we really are and what we're relly about. Just like every other community out there.
So strange, then, that a respected educational institution like Oberlin College does not get that. Even stranger, considering that, in 2006, they sanctioned a gun club for students. College students can learn gun safety, but they can't learn safe bondage? Does not compute.
But, as I said before, there's little online info out there. So, if you are a fellow alum, or otherwise connected to this, please let me know.
And if you're a student at Oberlin, looking to resurrect the group, let me know if I can help!
Fast forward to the late 1990's and early 2000's. Students try to set up a BDSM educational group on campus. Folks on the supposedly liberal campus are up in arms. The group's charter application goes to the General Faculty, which debates it to death and blocks approval. Yet, apparently, the group somehow continues to survive - at least for a while.
There's scant information on this, but what I read bothers me. Set aside the questions of free speech and tolerance. The major reason we kinksters organize groups like this is to be safe - to share much-needed information, to look out for one another, and to educate outsiders about who we really are and what we're relly about. Just like every other community out there.
So strange, then, that a respected educational institution like Oberlin College does not get that. Even stranger, considering that, in 2006, they sanctioned a gun club for students. College students can learn gun safety, but they can't learn safe bondage? Does not compute.
But, as I said before, there's little online info out there. So, if you are a fellow alum, or otherwise connected to this, please let me know.
And if you're a student at Oberlin, looking to resurrect the group, let me know if I can help!
Friday, October 2, 2009
Yes, I'm Still Here...
The reason I haven't been posting recently is, among other things, serious computer problems. (Not to be confused with silly computer problems!)
I hope to be up at full capacity again next week. Stay tuned...
I hope to be up at full capacity again next week. Stay tuned...
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Farewell, Jack McGeorge
It was today that I heard that Jack McGeorge, a leader and educator in the BDSM community, had passed away due to complications from heart surgery.
I never met Jack, but it was hard to ignore him. I had become involved in the kink community a short time after he had been "outed" by the Washington Post as the notorious UN weapons inspector by day and pervert by night.
Except for one thing. Jack never hid his sexuality. He used his legal name instead of a Scene name, and was open about his involvement with Black Rose, the Leather Leadership Conference and other groups to those with whom he worked. When the story went to print, he offered his resignation to Hans Blix, head of the Iraq weapons inspection team -- and Blix refused, saying that his sex life had no bearing on his competence as an inspector and consultant.
Jack was proof positive that being sexually different was no barrier to being respected as a professional and as a human being. His passion for education in the BDSM community was contagious, and will hopefully continue as his legacy.
I never knew Jack McGeorge, but in many ways I feel a similar sense of loss which many other kinksters now feel. May his spirit live on in each of us.
I never met Jack, but it was hard to ignore him. I had become involved in the kink community a short time after he had been "outed" by the Washington Post as the notorious UN weapons inspector by day and pervert by night.
Except for one thing. Jack never hid his sexuality. He used his legal name instead of a Scene name, and was open about his involvement with Black Rose, the Leather Leadership Conference and other groups to those with whom he worked. When the story went to print, he offered his resignation to Hans Blix, head of the Iraq weapons inspection team -- and Blix refused, saying that his sex life had no bearing on his competence as an inspector and consultant.
Jack was proof positive that being sexually different was no barrier to being respected as a professional and as a human being. His passion for education in the BDSM community was contagious, and will hopefully continue as his legacy.
I never knew Jack McGeorge, but in many ways I feel a similar sense of loss which many other kinksters now feel. May his spirit live on in each of us.
Saturday, August 15, 2009
Now This is a Protest I Can Get Into!
You may have read news reports of gays being strong-armed for daring to kiss, not once but twice -- in El Paso and Salt Lake City.
Well, in response to that and other efforts to trample GLBT equality and civil rights -- such as passage of California's Proposition 8 -- activists organized a nationwide "kiss-in".
Right on!
Better yet, it wasn't just gays who participated, but heteros as well. More fitting to show people's hypocritical attitude and moralistic double standards towards.
Opposing marriage equality is one of the biggest. So many churches like the Mormons insist that sex should be confined to marriage, and marriage done for love -- then deny loving same-sex couples access to marriage, even outside of their own churches.
How strange that so many profess love as one of the strongest values of their faith, yet forget love's power to transcend so many boundaries. But maybe, just maybe, someone will see one of these demonstrations of love and be reminded of that.
Well, in response to that and other efforts to trample GLBT equality and civil rights -- such as passage of California's Proposition 8 -- activists organized a nationwide "kiss-in".
Right on!
Better yet, it wasn't just gays who participated, but heteros as well. More fitting to show people's hypocritical attitude and moralistic double standards towards.
Opposing marriage equality is one of the biggest. So many churches like the Mormons insist that sex should be confined to marriage, and marriage done for love -- then deny loving same-sex couples access to marriage, even outside of their own churches.
How strange that so many profess love as one of the strongest values of their faith, yet forget love's power to transcend so many boundaries. But maybe, just maybe, someone will see one of these demonstrations of love and be reminded of that.
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
The Last Abortion on Earth
Recently on an online discussion, someone brought up the following for discussion...
Practitioners who counsel women seeking abortions do an exercise called "the last abortion." The participants choose one woman among six who will be allowed to receive the last abortion on earth. It is an exercise in individual ethics and forces one to confront her own prejudices. There is an orphaned teenager, a victim of rape, a woman carrying a medically deformed fetus, a 46-year-old woman with HIV, a 12-year-old, and a graduate student who wants to finish her Ph.D. They all have good reasons, because all the reasons are theirs. And in the end, that is the answer: All the reasons are theirs.
If you were the chooser -- what would be your choice?
The fellow who put this on the table proceeded to state why his particular choice was the "right" one. But in my mind, that misses the whole point of the exercise -- and what makes it so difficult.
The issue is not simply which woman is more deserving, or which fetus is less viable. It is who makes the choice -- and that is what governed my answer.
I would rather have the women meet in a room, explain what needs to be done, provide them all of the information they would need and want, from medical data to possible future outcome, and let them discuss and decide for themselves. And while I'd prefer it to be by consensus, such a decision should also be made by the women themselves, not me or anyone else.
Yes, it would be difficult to have these women look into their hearts and decide whether or not a given pregnancy will come to term, and what to do afterwards. But, then again, that's the difficulty which each and every woman with a crisis pregnancy faces every day.
Something we should strive to remember whenever this debate comes around yet again.
Practitioners who counsel women seeking abortions do an exercise called "the last abortion." The participants choose one woman among six who will be allowed to receive the last abortion on earth. It is an exercise in individual ethics and forces one to confront her own prejudices. There is an orphaned teenager, a victim of rape, a woman carrying a medically deformed fetus, a 46-year-old woman with HIV, a 12-year-old, and a graduate student who wants to finish her Ph.D. They all have good reasons, because all the reasons are theirs. And in the end, that is the answer: All the reasons are theirs.
If you were the chooser -- what would be your choice?
The fellow who put this on the table proceeded to state why his particular choice was the "right" one. But in my mind, that misses the whole point of the exercise -- and what makes it so difficult.
The issue is not simply which woman is more deserving, or which fetus is less viable. It is who makes the choice -- and that is what governed my answer.
I would rather have the women meet in a room, explain what needs to be done, provide them all of the information they would need and want, from medical data to possible future outcome, and let them discuss and decide for themselves. And while I'd prefer it to be by consensus, such a decision should also be made by the women themselves, not me or anyone else.
Yes, it would be difficult to have these women look into their hearts and decide whether or not a given pregnancy will come to term, and what to do afterwards. But, then again, that's the difficulty which each and every woman with a crisis pregnancy faces every day.
Something we should strive to remember whenever this debate comes around yet again.
Saturday, August 8, 2009
Just for fun...
Found this originally on ministrare's blog and thought I would give it a go...
The Dante's Inferno Test has banished you to the Second Level of Hell!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:
Take the Dante Inferno Hell Test
Okay, so I'm a lustful heretic. Or is it lustful-yet-otherwise-virtuous unbeliever? Well, what else can you expect from a "test" which tries to reduce ethics and character to a pair of checklists with loaded questions to be answered "Yes/No" or "True/False"?
The real tragedy is how so many religious folk try to use such tests in real life. Especially where sexuality is concerned.
The Dante's Inferno Test has banished you to the Second Level of Hell!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:
| Level | Score |
|---|---|
| Purgatory (Repenting Believers) | Very Low |
| Level 1 - Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers) | High |
| Level 2 (Lustful) | Very High |
| Level 3 (Gluttonous) | Moderate |
| Level 4 (Prodigal and Avaricious) | Very Low |
| Level 5 (Wrathful and Gloomy) | Low |
| Level 6 - The City of Dis (Heretics) | High |
| Level 7 (Violent) | Moderate |
| Level 8- the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers) | Moderate |
| Level 9 - Cocytus (Treacherous) | Low |
Take the Dante Inferno Hell Test
Okay, so I'm a lustful heretic. Or is it lustful-yet-otherwise-virtuous unbeliever? Well, what else can you expect from a "test" which tries to reduce ethics and character to a pair of checklists with loaded questions to be answered "Yes/No" or "True/False"?
The real tragedy is how so many religious folk try to use such tests in real life. Especially where sexuality is concerned.
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