An unusual protest will take place in Tel-Aviv this week, as Israeli strippers refuse to bow to a new draft law equating them to prostitutes. They are fervently defending their right to dance.
Inflamed by a new bill proposed by Meretz MK Michal Rozin that would make stripteasing a legal equal of prostitution, RT reports that some dancers decided to have their say and protest against it.
Despite the fact that prostitution is not illegal in Israel, all stripping and prostitution facilities would become illegal under the new legislation, which would also ban advertising and lobbying for stripping.
The strippers explained that dancing in strip clubs allowed them to earn good money and even set up their own businesses, which they wouldn’t have been able to do otherwise.
“The very question is infuriating: Why is it necessary to think that I’m being exploited by someone? I like my work and I’m proud of it,” one of the women told Haaretz.
Eden, Shelly and Amit pictured below (not their real names) are strippers. All have bachelor’s degrees and are in their late twenties. And, as Haaretz reports, they have never been interviewed before, and they live “double lives”: Their families don’t know about their work, but they don’t hide it from their close friends.
“No one sent us to protest or be interviewed…
I could work at a lot of other things, I’m thinking about getting a master’s degree. This is what suits me right now. Why is that so hard for people to understand?” says Eden, 29. She has worked as a stripper for three years and comes from a traditionally religious family.
“When I was at university I met someone who was a stripper. I went to the club and expected to find all these dumb, drugged-out girls, but most of the people I met were very different than what I thought they’d be like. I love to dance, I’ve always liked male attention and I’ve always liked money.
I haven’t had any traumatic experiences and the dancing and stripping doesn’t feel like exploitation to me. I choose the customer and I can get a customer thrown out if he tries to touch me or do something I don’t want him to do. It’s the stigma about stripping that hurts me, not the customers.”
Haaretz notes that twenty-nine members of parliament, from both the opposition and coalition, including some from Habayit Hayehudi, Kulanu and Likud, have signed the bill and it will likely be brought to a vote soon.
“I won’t deny that there is some paternalism towards women in prostitution,” says MK Rozin.
“We can cite all the studies and proof about exploitation and harm, but if women come to me and say, ‘I’m not being sexually exploited, I don’t do drugs and alcohol,’ I’m not going to argue with them. But as someone who’s looking at the status of women across society, I’m still going to work to reduce prostitution in all its forms.
Just as we as a society don’t agree that people should be able to sell themselves into slavery, even if someone were to come and say that he wishes to be a slave. Or like we don’t let people sell their kidneys for money. As a society, we say no to that, we don’t think it’s moral for a person to sell their organs.
I think it’s not moral for women and men to sell their sexuality and their body for money.
Ultimately, it’s not just the individual that pays the price, but the society as a whole.
As long as prostitution is legitimate and permitted, we all have the potential to become prostitutes. I know that sounds extreme, but if we continue to allow prostitution, we’ll continue to educate men in a rape culture in which women are objects that can be bought and exploited.
To my mind, there’s no difference between stripping and prostitution.”
On ther words, ladies… “it’s for your own good… and as far as what you do with your body, that’s the government’s business – not yours!”
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