Are you a strip club owner whose city doesn’t appreciate the performing arts you’re bringing to the community? A guy whose spouse is unconvinced that spending several hours watching topless women dance is just as if not more culturally enriching as taking in Swan Lake? A first-year analyst who’s about to get canned if you can’t explain to HR why you’ve started to take meetings at/had your calls forwarded to the Hustler Club? Judith Hanna’s got your back.
Judith Hanna, a 75-year-old grandmother and anthropology professor, spent an afternoon in 2005 on a beach in Jacksonville, Florida, photographing women’s swimsuited backsides. Hanna, who has spent almost 50 years studying the cultural expression of dance, called the fieldwork “interesting.” Her pictures, meant to demonstrate local enthusiasm for exposed flesh, became evidence in a nightclub’s fight against an ordinance requiring strippers to better cover their derrieres. Since 1995, Hanna, a University of Maryland researcher, has helped clubs repel efforts to tax, regulate or close them, arguing more than 100 times that striptease is just as much an art as ballet. Next year, her lap-dances-are-art argument will be part of an appeal before New York’s highest court. A stripper in heels is like a ballerina en pointe, she says, and her communication of feeling is no different than that of the New York City Ballet — and no less protected by the First Amendment. “Patrons of gentleman’s clubs aren’t just there to look at nude bodies,” Hanna, who lives in Bethesda, said in a telephone interview. “They want to read into it. It’s not just the eroticism, it’s the beauty of the body, and the fantasy they create.”
Hanna says she has observed at least 1,500 ecdysiastic performances in her defense of the $12 billion U.S. exotic-dance industry, which comprises about 4,000 clubs. When a city or state passes a law to kick the clubs out of town, owners turn to Hanna. She sends clients an average bill of about $3,000, and estimated that she has 45 wins to 21 losses.
Lap Dances Find Academic Champion as Cities Clamp Down [Bloomberg]
i love me some white women.
You're lying if you tell me I'm the only one who looked up "ecdysiastic."
Judith, if you need more nude female photos to help substaniate your arguments let me know. I have a ton, and while most of them are grainy, low light "evening" shots and many have tree branches and/or window panes obsuring parts of the subject; overall I think you'll find they are very tasteful. Oh, I also have upskirt shots if you need those too.
- A fellow researcher and academic
Actually the real ART happens in the VIP room!
Hey, that's my domain!
Incidentally, Judith, can you help a brother out?
- Anthony
I prefer a bar side hand release, other than that I have no concerns.
Listen Miriam, next time be more helpful, K?
Ecdysiast = stripteaser.
From the Greek ecdysis = the act of molting or shedding an outer cuticular layer (as in insects and crustaceans)
Who says you don't never learn nothing on DB?
Just like at Lincoln Center.
Every time I've ever put them on a corporate tab, they showed up as an expensive steakhouse in the neighborhood.
$100K would be a lot of beef.
When a city or state passes a law to kick the clubs out of town, owners turn to Hanna. She sends clients an average bill of about $3,000, because she told them it would be $1000 per song and it started as soon as the client sat down even though that song was more than half over and the second and third songs were like a remix but counted as two songs even though the client thought it was just one.
“Patrons of gentleman’s clubs aren’t just there to look at nude bodies,”
Umm beg to differ says anyone who's ever been to one during the day.
Judy is aware of the fact that gentlemen routinely refer to a strip club as "the ballet", the sardonic nature of which comments inherently point to the differentiation of the ballet and, well, "the ballet".
"Hanna says she has observed at least 1,500 ecdysiastic performances in her defense of the $12 billion U.S. exotic-dance industry, which comprises about 4,000 clubs. When a city or state passes a law to kick the clubs out of town, owners turn to Hanna. She sends clients an average bill of about $3,000…"
Hell, I'd do it for half of that..
Wow, I thought the SEC would have required a FOI filing to turn that stuff over
She looking for interns?
- UBS MD
If they got topless at the ballet, poured the liquor freely, and had augmented hotties putting a good grind on my crotch, then, yeah, I'd pay the ask for swan lake tickets. Otherwise…"next up the main stage, fellas put your hands together for Misty!"
amateur. convinced HBS in 2004 to sponsor a study called "economics of vice in relation to the DRAM act and similar legislation" that included $$ for memberships to online porn, tobacco and alcohol distribution.
why I am telling you? shit I'm telling everybody.
umm beg to differ again. all-you-can-eat $10 buffet, ever heard of it?
Long RICK.
Yes I have.
- Chris Rock
"her communication of feeling is no different than that of the New York City Ballet"- sure, one could go backstage at Swan Lake and get the same 'feeling' one would at a Strip Club?
Seriously. I've never seen a ballerina dancin and sweatin to Seeger's "Her Strut" with a white string hangin out.
Germany and France may be str ipped of their AAA rating: Sources
I don’t want to encourage you animals but, have you ever seen pics of a ballerina doing soft porn? Money Shot.
"S-e-g-e-r", dude.
$12 billion industry!!??
Do you go to Wendy's too and "pay the ask" or do you negotiate to get closer to your bid?
- Offers 99 cents for the dollar menu
"Patrons of gentleman’s clubs aren’t just there to look at nude bodies".
This is true. I also grope and try to check oil.
- Guy who hates the looky no touchy places
9-9-9 = 9 ho's for 9 Blows for 9 dollas
- Signed
"Spermin Herman" Cain, connoisseur of white meat extraordinaire
Anyone else see this as a way to make lap dances tax deductible?
"$12 billion U.S. exotic-dance industry"
Thanks Bess!
-UBS MD looking for potential M&A opportunities
now all those art major chicks at occupy wall street can have some gainful employment
I'm like Misty; I grind everybody for the dollar. I'm pretty sure it's why strippers and finance guys get along so well; professional courtesy, and mutual awareness of the trade underway.
Money McBags, is that you?
You’ve got to love that someone encourages people, the dancers. Someone who confronts pathetic stereotyping and degradation. When you thought ‘motherhood’ was stealing all the limelight, it is, once again, the Strip Club Patrons who yell ‘These are people, this is Art!’