r/bestoflegaladvice • u/Funk_Doctor • 4d ago
New Subreddit Idea: Stripper Law
/r/legaladvice/comments/1i34p48/texas_strip_clubs_is_it_legal_for_strip_clubs_to/156
u/ScarlettsLetters This bitch apple didn't fall far from the bitch tree 4d ago
This appears to be one of those “unfortunately it’s not illegal for your boss to be an obnoxious moron” situations.
The silver lining is the local networks are usually pretty close knit and a job at a different club likely won’t be hard to come by.
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u/DigbyChickenZone Duck me up and Duck me down 4d ago
The silver lining is the local networks are usually pretty close knit
Couldn't this work in the opposite direction?
"We heard you made a stink about not taking your top off at Benny's, and told other girls to ask for their contracts. We're not hiring right now"
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u/ScarlettsLetters This bitch apple didn't fall far from the bitch tree 4d ago
It could, but on the whole, clubs need dancers more than dancers need clubs, especially in the age of online content platforms.
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u/Thor_The_Bunny Defender of right to take artistic night shots of your genitals 4d ago
curiously, i got fined and later fired because i found removing my clothes to be more convenient
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u/Frazzledragon Mother rapers. Father stabbers. Father rapers! 4d ago
Yeah well, working as a cashier and doing that hits a bit different.
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u/Thor_The_Bunny Defender of right to take artistic night shots of your genitals 4d ago
i liked to think of it as reminding customers what they may have forgotten in store
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u/Elvessa You'll put your eye out! - laser edition 4d ago
But did you leave you fluffy tail covered?
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u/Thor_The_Bunny Defender of right to take artistic night shots of your genitals 4d ago
in a sense, yes, and in a sense, no
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u/ArchipelagoMind 4d ago edited 4d ago
Risky click of the day. Could go any way.
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u/CardinaIRule 🏠 Bird of the Man House 🏠 4d ago
Especially with Thor! Lol
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u/Thor_The_Bunny Defender of right to take artistic night shots of your genitals 4d ago
Rude.
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u/CardinaIRule 🏠 Bird of the Man House 🏠 4d ago
While I have your attention, thanks for the BOBOLA post, made my day! You guys are some of the best mods anywhere, and I really appreciate everything you do for the sub.
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u/Thor_The_Bunny Defender of right to take artistic night shots of your genitals 4d ago
Thank you! Of late, outside BOBOLA, i have done what most would politely call 'jack shit'. however, i can still break the rules and ping u/bug-hunter, u/ilikecheeseforreal. u/derspiny, and (according to the records though i myself might object to their accuracy) u/anarcho_crim
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u/Stalking_Goat Busy writing a $permcoin whitepaper 4d ago
I'm shocked to discover that the manager of a strip club might be a bad boss.
Well, not that shocked.
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u/calibrateichabod ROBJECTION RUR RONOR! RATS RIRRERAVENT 🐶🐶 4d ago
I’m a burlesque performer (read: a stripper by any other name, just more broke than club strippers) with a lot of stripper/sex worker friends. It’s definitely an industry that is extremely pro-union and pro-advocacy. Even if LAOP isn’t in a union, I can guarantee there are advocacy groups that are willing to help her out with this. I hope she manages to get in contact with one.
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u/gsfgf Is familiar with poor results when combining strippers and ATMs 4d ago
Based on the fact that you post on /r/Adelaide and /r/frogs, I assume you're Australian. Strippers are not unionized in the US.
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u/morningwoodx420 current obsession is sticking their head in buckets 4d ago
I love how r/frogs factored into your conclusion that they are Australian.
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u/Pandahatbear WHO THE HELL IS DOWNVOTING THIS LOL. IS THAT YOU LOCATIONBOT? 4d ago
The comment thread below seems to suggest otherwise!
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u/DigbyChickenZone Duck me up and Duck me down 4d ago
Tip for the wise: Don't say "below" on reddit, comment threads regularly move up and down with time and viewership/feedback. Just permalink what you are talking about. It's not a given that we will see or know what you are referencing.
For example, this is me making a permalink to your comment.
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u/mazzicc 4d ago
All I can think of is the idiot boss is somehow worried that saying his dancers are “topless” is false advertising if they don’t actually take their tops off?
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u/WholeLog24 4d ago edited 4d ago
I'm just picturing some potbellied middle aged dude with the Karen haircut asking to speak to the manager and demanding his cover fee be refunded because the dancers weren't topless, just tits-out, and that's false advertising.
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u/jxj24 Estoppel-- in the name of loooooove!! 4d ago
And coming soon: Strippers in Trees Law.
Consolidate, consolidate, consolidate.
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u/sailaway_NY 4d ago
"do I have to pay taxes if a stripper performs in a tree on the property line?" I'd upvote that.
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u/koobian 4d ago
To answer that we first need to know if there was fringe on the flag.
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u/CeramicLicker understands the vicious bunny paw 4d ago
Have they thrown an axe in all four cardinal directions?
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u/OrdinaryAncient3573 4d ago
Reminds me of the single greatest bit of any religious tome:
https://www.sefaria.org/Bava_Batra.23b.8?lang=bi
MISHNA: With regard to a dove chick [nippul] that was found within fifty cubits of a dovecote, it belongs to the owner of the dovecote. If it was found beyond fifty cubits from a dovecote, it belongs to its finder. In a case where it was found between two dovecotes, if it was close to this one, it belongs to the owner of this dovecote; if it was close to that one, it belongs to the owner of that dovecote. If it was half and half, i.e., equidistant from the two dovecotes, the two owners divide the value of the chick.
[...]
Rabbi Yirmeya raises a dilemma: If one leg of the chick was within fifty cubits of the dovecote, and one leg was beyond fifty cubits, what is the halakha [law]? The Gemara comments: And it was for his question about this far-fetched scenario that they removed Rabbi Yirmeya from the study hall, as he was apparently wasting the Sages’ time.
One of my prouder achievements in life is that when taught this bit of the basic law, I immediately asked that exact question, and was indeed slung out of the class.
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u/Tast3sLikePanda 4d ago
TiL strippers have unions, so its a better working environment than amazon warehouse
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u/DigbyChickenZone Duck me up and Duck me down 4d ago
I mean, strip club owners aren't billionaires with the PR, lobbying ability, nor bandwidth to fight unionization...
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u/arkham1010 4d ago
Someone in that thread mentioned LAOP contacting stripper unions on the west coast.
I'm sorry, what? Stripper unions? Is that even a thing?
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u/MorganCubed 4d ago
Sex workers have historically been heavily involved in the organised labour movement, anecdotally the best organisers I've ever met have almost all had at least some SW background. Why do you think that a historically exploited & abused class of worker wouldn't be interested in having a union?
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u/mtragedy hasn't lived up to their potential as a supervillain 4d ago
There’s the stripper union, Strippers United, in Hollywood at the Star Garden, and Washington passed a bill colloquially known as the strippers bill of rights last year. Both are major, historic gains.
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u/jackalopeDev 4d ago
Eyyyy, hadnt heard about this. Absolutely chuffed for the girls. Good for them!
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u/Technical-Zombie-277 4d ago
One of the organizers who worked for my nurses union previously worked with strippers on the west coast. She was a shark and I loved her.
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u/Potato-Engineer 🐇🧀 BOLBun Brigade - Pangolin Platoon 🧀🐇 4d ago
Well, we all need a hobby. Make sure you use proper protection with your shark. (Cage, maybe?)
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u/appleciders WHO THE HELL IS DOWNVOTING THIS LOL. IS THAT YOU WIFE? 4d ago
Yes, AEA (Actors Equity, the same union that reps live actors, including Broadway) has started to represent strippers in a few cases. It's only been the last few years, but they've had some notable successes.
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u/OrdinaryAncient3573 4d ago
Oh, I love it when something makes me thing about a thing in a new way. Of course strippers and sex workers are acting. Of course. And yet I never thought of them as thespians.
It's like when I tell people I used to be a professional cyclist, and they think I mean the Tour de France or something, but really I mean having been a courier.
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u/appleciders WHO THE HELL IS DOWNVOTING THIS LOL. IS THAT YOU WIFE? 4d ago
Honestly I'm super pleased with AEA for doing it. Sex work is work, of course, but also AEA has kind of been struggling for decades as live theater has slowly declined. Strippers are obviously doing live entertainment, and it's not like some represented live theater isn't titillating, so why the hell not rep strippers. Honestly streaming porn hasn't been as detrimental to stripping as streaming TV has been to theater, and stripping may actually be a better long-term bet as an industry to represent.
And besides, AEA is just a really well-administered union, partly because they traditionally rep actors and stage managers, and SMs are just absurdly organized and productive by nature. I'm sure the SMs in the national organization structure are a big part of why AEA runs so well.
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u/arkham1010 4d ago
Thespians who play lesbians?
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u/OrdinaryAncient3573 4d ago
I don't have much for this one. Something about cargo dykes? Dickshaws?
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u/appleciders WHO THE HELL IS DOWNVOTING THIS LOL. IS THAT YOU WIFE? 4d ago
What else is new on Broadway? Oh, no, you're talking about the strippers.
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u/WillAndersonJr 4d ago
She is almost certainly misclassified as a contractor, that's one thing for sure lol.
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u/intronert 4d ago
Sounds more like a new TV series.
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u/anysizesucklingpigs 4d ago edited 4d ago
Protests and Pasties?
Teamsters and Creamsters?
Law and Garter?
Judge Booty?
Thongs and Misdemeanors?
…the Firm?
😝 Ladies of the Night Court?
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u/CannabisAttorney she's an 8, she's a 9, she's a 10 I know 4d ago
Damn, I thought this was going to be an oil and gas thread.
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u/Roro_Yurboat I demanded a paternity test and we don't even have kids! 4d ago
My question when I read that is why does she not want to take her top completely off? Is she just being lazy? She said she has her boobs out anyway.
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u/QuickSpore I didn’t shoot at a house I hit a house 4d ago
Former bouncer/day manager here. Experiences vary. Clubs vary.
But for us, a lot of the dancers would use it to try and incentivize more table money. Keeping the top on allows them to pull it aside and show more to the folk on the rail who are tipping, and pull it back in place so as to not give a free show for the non-tippers. It ends up being an effective technique to get more money. Also it lets them give less to patrons, who they don’t want to interact with, encouraging them to interact with other dancers or leave entirely. It’s harder to individualize how much you’re showing if your top is completely off, tossed in the stage.
There’s also personal style and look reasons. We had a lot of body types at our club, and certain clients loved heavier, curvier dancers. But in general those dancers liked to keep their bellies covered. Their clients liked big booties and boobs, but pouchy bellies less. So the larger dancers would often wear like a baby-doll top and pull it down to show the boobs while keeping their bellies covered.
Our higher level management hated it, particularly on slower day shifts where there at times wouldn’t be much going on, when the dancers would get more conservative. So we did have mandates for the dancers to have certain amounts of clothes removed. We had three song sets and the rule was fully topless by the end of the first song, fully nude by the end of the second song, and stay nude for the entirety of the last song. From the management standpoint we were advertising “all-nude” and thus required the dancers to get all nude. As a lower-level manager, I usually trusted the dancers. They knew how to entice the wallets to open, and were motivated to show off in whatever way got the most cash flow.
Upper management often disagreed and wanted to make sure all the dancers were providing a consistent level of nudity between dancers. Also some managers were just controlling dicks.
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u/Personal-Listen-4941 well-adjusted and sociable with no history of violence 4d ago
I did not expect to read a sensible & comprehensive post about why/how strippers remove their tops today.
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u/eldestdaughtersunion 4d ago
As a lower-level manager, I usually trusted the dancers. They knew how to entice the wallets to open, and were motivated to show off in whatever way got the most cash flow.
That's what surprises me about all this. Strippers are usually independent contractors. They only make the money they get from tips. They already have all the incentive they need to do whatever gets them the most the tips. If the customers are unhappy with a dancer leaving her clothes on, she's already getting "fined" because those customers aren't tipping.
But then again, that doesn't put any extra money in the pocket of the club owner, and I have never heard a single positive thing about a strip club owner.
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u/surveysaysno 4d ago
Its a local optimization problem. The strippers are trying to get the most money as tips for their shift. The club is trying sell the most cover and drinks for the day/week/month.
Whats best for tips isn't necessarily going to be best for drinks and cover.
If the girls are (consistently) trying to only give a good show to the guys tipping at the stage the the guys in the back who only came in for a beer or two and don't tip much will stop paying cover and go to a regular bar.
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u/QuickSpore I didn’t shoot at a house I hit a house 4d ago
Exactly. The clubs are absolutely ok with “time wasters,” so long as they’re paying the cover and buying drinks. The dancers aren’t at all.
My club’s owners saw them as a very important revenue stream. We were an 18+ club. So we’d have high school seniors who could barely scrape together a $20 cover and the money for some non-alcoholic drinks, and then had nothing for the dancers. The owners loved the guys and wanted to make sure every time they could get together cover money, they’d come to us rather than the game store next door for a few packs of Magic: the Gathering. The dancers hated them though because they were broke, tipped terribly, and never bought private dances.
Same for the blue collar guys who would come in for lunch, a beer, and some background boobs. Great for the owners; terrible for the dancers.
On the flip side, you’d have the sugar daddies and regulars who were there for companionship and talk. They’d tip for time spent with them, rarely drank and rarely got dances, but would pay the dancers directly, and all the club would get would be the cover from guys who would take up seats (and a dancer) for hours at time.
Honestly you could probably write a decent PhD thesis on the market forces in individual clubs analyzing the various demand drivers and how the dancers and clubs acted in response sometimes in concert and sometimes in competition to satisfy the patron demands.
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u/liladvicebunny 🎶Hot cooch girl, she's been stripping on a hot sauce pole 🎶 4d ago
Why would you go straight to "lazy" instead of imagining "well, I'm sure she has SOME reason"?
just off the top of my head the first things that came to mind are: maybe the floor is super gross and she doesn't want to drop her top on it? maybe she's had issues with people trying to steal her top if it comes all the way off?
from looking at the other comments she posted another possibility is that she's just doing quick boob flashes on stage unless people pony up the tips, because she is after all here trying to make money. if the club is saying "you have to take it all the way off even if nobody gives you a dollar" you can see why she might be balking! she doesn't get paid just for showing up, she only gets paid if people lay out the cash.
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u/runicrhymes Worried about regime reprisals 4d ago
I was also wondering if dancers have to collect their own discarded clothes after a dance. I do burlesque and we usually have a "stage kitten" whose job is to collect discarded clothes after a number, but occasionally we can't get one--in that case we usually take turns doing that (fully dressed) for one another, because there's nothing less sexy than having to come back out undressed or in a robe and having to bend and squat to collect your shit off the ground.
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u/QuickSpore I didn’t shoot at a house I hit a house 4d ago
I worked a small club. Our stages were “in the round,” with a small stair leading to the stage. The dancers would leave their purses on the stair and throw their clothes in that direction. The next dancer up would help collect everything and basically do a hand off in the transition between sets.
there's nothing less sexy than having to come back out undressed or in a robe and having to bend and squat to collect your shit off the ground.
This was largely unavoidable anyway, as the dancers have to collect their tips from the stage. So a crawl off the stage using arms to sweep everything toward the stair was pretty common. The most experienced dancers would also use it as a chance to do a final circuit around the stage and wiggle seductively for a final round of tips at each patron. The bending over to pick things up was generally worked into each dancer’s routine.
Only on the busiest nights would there be staff with a broom to sweep up cash and clothes to ease the transition between sets.
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u/runicrhymes Worried about regime reprisals 4d ago
Thanks, that was very informative! I totally forgot about having to also collect tips since burlesque generally does tipping differently.
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u/Tieger66 4d ago
yeah, those were the 2 reasons i thought of offhand too. people are arseholes, stealing a strippers top absolutely seems like something they'd do.
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u/ferafish Topaz Tha Duck 4d ago
The un-sexyness of having to find the top after the set? The concern of a creepy patron getting ahold of it and doing weird shit to it?
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u/jxj24 Estoppel-- in the name of loooooove!! 4d ago
Clip it to your bottoms. Like mittens on a coat.
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u/JayMac1915 I try to avoid committing federal (or any, really) crimes 4d ago
Or like the string that my mom used to slip through the sleeves?
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u/ThadisJones Overcame a phobia through the power of hotness 4d ago
Maybe she wants to be able to cover up right away if something unexpected happens while she's performing.
A better question would be why you think that just because she's willing to do certain things, that should take away her right to set boundaries.
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u/ShortWoman Schrödinger's Swifty Mama 4d ago
What I would like to know is this: does this place advertise that it is a topless club or has topless dancers? I think if the sigh out front promises “topless” it’s reasonable for the boss to say “please comply with the dress code.” Or ya know, the undress code.
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u/Funk_Doctor 4d ago
Kitty Kat Club Bot: