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Anti-Sex Worker Activists Are Behind #50DollarsNot50Shades

image via 50 Dollars Not Fifty Shades on Facebook
image via 50 Dollars Not Fifty Shades on Facebook

There’s a new campaign circling social media encouraging people to not only look into the abuse and lack of consent within the book Fifty Shades of Grey, but to also boycott the movie, with a philanthropic twist. According to their Facebook page, “#50dollarsnot50shades is a grassroots, women-led campaign, encouraging people to boycott the 50 Shades of Grey movie & give a $50 donation to [a] domestic violence shelter or agency. The money you would have spent on movie tickets and a babysitter or movie tickets, popcorn and drinks will go towards serving victims of abusive relationships like the one glamorized in the 50 Shades series. Hollywood doesn’t need your money; abused women do.”

As someone who not only practices BDSM professionally and personally and dislikes the poor excuse for BDSM erotica that is the Fifty Shades franchise, I thought that this idea was actually quite clever. Instead of supporting a movie and book series whose leading man doesn’t talk about consent with newbie Ana while also meeting all of the signs of being a domestic abuser, why not make a donation to a local women’s shelter for domestic violence? Brilliant.

Or maybe not. The campaign is not as grassroots as it claims, but instead is run by anti-pornography activists. 50 Dollars not 50 Shades is sponsored by the London Abused Women’s Centre (LAWC), the National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCSE), and Stop Porn Culture. It is also affiliated with PATHS of SaskatchewanAntiPorn.org and Pornography Harms which is apparently part of the NCSE.

The Week in Stripper Links

Maryland 4th Circuit Court upholds ruling that new restrictions on strip clubs are unconstitutional

Could be as huge as Oregon’s ruling 30 years ago that declared nude dance protected free speech. MD is one of the few states in the U.S. where clubs can have fully nude dancers and fully stocked bars.

Harry Potter, dubstep, pole dancing, cats.

You can download the dubstep remix of the Harry Potter theme to use when you dress like Hermione at work next Halloween.

Man steals $314 from stripper’s garter

The use of “garter belt” for garter annoys me. A garter belt has straps and holds up stockings. A garter is a single circular leg strap that holds on to money.

A great 3000-word Super Bowl stripper blog report from the Lodge in Dallas

Seattle strip club, under siege from local LE, uses the old “we create jobs!” defense in Stranger ad

Anna Nicole: The Opera opens in London

The costumes!

The Pussycat Lounge: not going away after all?

CL ad seeks underemployed attorneys to give lapdances and legal advice.

More things that Portland did first *

this post made me realize how much American Apparel is made for stripper wardrobes

Have you heard about this supposed “hipster strip joint,” the Westway, in New York? Stories about it usually are sprinkled with HI-larious commentary about how funny it is to mix hot nightlife spots with tits. SORRY NEW YORK, Portland, OR has been doing this for years. Mary’s Club, Union Jacks, and Devils Point are all strip clubs that draw crowds heavier on leather jackets than raincoats. This results in varying levels of profitability for the strippers (needless to say, Portland hipsters are not necessarily a cash-laden customer base). They might stare for free, or they might give you fifty bucks to play “Roadrunner.”

Will the Westway actually operate like a strip club, though? From the coverage, it seems like it might just have topless go-go dancers—on one night a week, at that—and people got hyperbolic in calling it a strip joint. Can you get a lapdance? Is there going to be a DJ announcing the names of the dancers? Will the dancers be paid or will they be paying the club to work there? And most importantly, who wants to go with me the first Monday in April?

Oh, New York, I hope you get some real hipster strip club fun, like maybe a chef brawl over local pork.

* (in addition to Stumptown, competitive facial hair growth, and urban farming)

Historical Wardrobe Malfunction

This is kind of neato—The Star Tribune has a blog called “Yesterday’s News” where it digs up old-timey newspaper articles, photos and ads. This week’s feature made the front page of the Minneapolis Tribune on May 9, 1953: Darlene LaBette Varallo, an “esoteric dancer”, was jailed for disorderly conduct. Two follow-up articles detail the handling of the evidence (“two little rhinestone-studded cones, a few lengths of gauze, a fringe and a pair of black net tights”) and the trial, which was complete with a lie detector test and testimony where the defendant explains that she was only guilty of a wardrobe malfunction:

SHE DESCRIBED her dance as a “can-can” plus a mixture of “a shuffle, ball hop, kick, twirls.” She denied Sullivan’s charge that she had bent over and shaken parts of her anatomy at the audience.
“You can’t bend over when you dance or you lose your equilibrium,” said Darlene, who testified she has danced since the age of 3 and was an Arthur Murray instructor for two years.
She said she certainly was wearing state’s exhibit F (the brassiere) when she began to dance but had to discard it because a strap broke. She also denied removing the state’s exhibit E (a tasseled fringe) from its original position around her – ah – middle.

“Lapdancing Nun” Ruins It for Everyone

Or so most of the reports read. One ex-stripper nun and her emphatic interpretive dancing has caused the monastery at the Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, a basilica built around 325, to be shut down by Pope Benedict XVI. I see how her performances could be considered inappropriate. She does roll around on the ground, looking like she’s sliding into home with the cross. (What’s the protocol there? Do they have to burn it like a desecrated flag?) But, I have a hard time believing Sister Anna Nobili is the most scandalous thing to happen within the confines of Santa Croce in 1,686 years. We’re talking about the Catholic Church here. What does everyone think? I find her performances to be heartfelt and enthusiastic, albeit vaguely sexual in nature and not the most nunlike. Judge for yourselves.