Jorge Turcios
Professor: Williams
Soc. 360
8 April 2012
Live Nude Girls Unite!
1. What is the main thesis of this film?
The documentary “Live Nude Girls United!” follows and talks about the injustice committed by stripper nightclubs owners. The film show how many dancers are being oppressed, discriminated, and exploited by club owners and customers. It also presents the audience on how society views the job as deviant and immoral because sex is involved. The activist asked for equal rights, health insurances, benefits, but most important to be treated with respect.
2. What were the main arguments in support of the thesis?
The abuse of club owners, how the dancers where hired to dance, but then they were ask to perform private dances for special customers. The film talks about how women were treated like hookers and not as professionals, and how customers were violating the dancer’s rights and privacy by filming them without their consent. The owner ask for a fee to use the stage asking the dancer for $250 a day, the classification of dancers base on their skin color.
3. How does the thesis of this film relate to the course?
Through the semester we been talking about deviant behaviors and what society consider deviant, strippers are not the exemption, this job is consider deviant and immoral with a high level of stigma from society. The profession is target as immoral and unacceptable. The people that work in this type of profession are seeing as sick because they sell their body for money, and according to social norms that is not acceptable. According to the article, “Exotic Dancers: Where Am I Going to Stop?” dancer are expose to more deviants when more money is offer such as intense body contact with customer all the way to sex for money.
4. Which arguments/points did you find the most convincing?
The media attention was a positive contribution in changing the mentality of many people supporting the union and the acceptance of strippers as a profession. The lack of respect for the workers, the club owners requesting to add the word “fun” as definition of the job description not taking in consideration the this job was beyond fun it was been done for a necessity to support children and families. The limitation and violation of free speech rights address by the union attorneys to forbid the word “pussy” from any legal documents presented to them during the barging agreements. It was okay for the club owner to ask employees to fully show their body, however it was not acceptable to use the word. The respond from police when employees call 911 for assault or disturbance on the club, they either took to long to answer or they did care a settle message on what society consider valuable, apparently those call made were not as important because they were coming from a stripe club.
5. Which arguments/points did you find the least convincing?
Even if the union support and fix the guidelines of how dancers should be treated society will always see this job as deviant it will be hard to dissociated the stigma that is involve with this profession.
6. Choose one argument, point or question that most stands out for you. How would you study this point?
Briefly design a research study around that point.
One of the arguments that stand out, was the idea that most dancers to earn the maximum amount of money needed to offer other services beside dancing and stripping. Now dancers need to offer sexual intercourse to earn the money they make before by just showing their naked body to customers. The concern is what level of protection are they using and if more money is involved at they willing to perform sexual intercourse without protection. In the research I would study a group of older and younger dancers and interview them to find out what type of limitation and how much money is consider sufficient to perform unprotected sex. This will determine the level of education that will be needed to inform and protect them from STD and other transmitted sexual infections.
