Photo

All photos are obtained legally in accordance with First Amendment protection. Gentlemen's Club 10 operates in violation of three specific Wilkes-Barre Township ordinances. Pictures of public activity surrounding the club will be posted until such time as Gentlemen's Club 10 voluntarily obeys local ordinances.

Sexual addictions

I hold the men and women who serve in our military in very high regard. I don't know if Gentlemen's Club 10 is still doing so, but I was told that for a time, they were encouraging our servicemen to visit the club by offering admission discounts (much like their student discounts....by the way, I have noticed that the club is now specifying in their ads that they require a "College ID" not just a "Student ID." I can't help but wonder if we encouraged that clarification.)

It is being reported that sexual addictions, including pornography addictions, are growing among some members of our military. You can read more about that by clicking here. Many of these individuals are struggling daily to break the bonds of sexual addiction.

The men and women who serve in our military deserve our respect. I think it would be wonderful if people didn't encourage them to spend their time and money at strip clubs.

Picture

All photos are obtained legally in accordance with First Amendment protection. Gentlemen's Club 10 operates in violation of three specific Wilkes-Barre Township ordinances. Pictures of public activity surrounding the club will be posted until such time as Gentlemen's Club 10 voluntarily obeys local ordinances.

Entertained by bondage?

Is "bondage" something that should be de-stigmatized? Gentlemen's Club 10 has advertized several "bondage nights" at their club. I would contend that bondage is a very harmful thing and should not be encouraged. People really need to ask themselves if "sexual bondage" is the kind of behavior we want to encourage NEPA residents to engage in.

This evening, WBRE-28 covered a breaking news story out of Central Florida. According to the story, "Investigators said Christopher Wood took a woman against her will and raped her to make a sexually explicit bondage video, WESH 2 News reported."

You can read the entire story and view the video of WESH's news report by clicking here.

Further developments as of 1/16/07 can be read by clicking here.

EFO Furniture Galleries Moving

When it was announced that a strip club would be opening on Mundy Street and sharing its parking lot with EFO Furniture (I'm sure to EFO's great dismay), many of us wondered what kind of effect this would have on EFO's business.

EFO has now announced that they are re-locating to a new site.

One can only wonder how long the building EFO is moving out of will remain vacant. My guess is that it will remain vacant for as long as it shares a parking lot with a strip club.

And now the blight begins.

Problems at strip clubs

Recent examples of the problems that surround strip clubs.

• 'Crazy' Larry's last night at the strip club (Pennsylvania)
• Biker Shot To Death Outside Vaughan Strip Club
• Man sentenced for killing outside strip club (Pennsylvania)
• Local Strip Club At The Center Of Alleged Murder For Hire

I'm told that these problems only surface in other parts of the country, so we should have nothing to worry about here in Northeast, PA.

Someone who knows

Since last April when this website began, I have encouraged people of faith to be in prayer for the women who have become caught up in stripping and other forms of sexual entertainment. Many of you have been faithful to do so and I truly appreciate it.

From time to time, I have received e-mails from women who work at area strip clubs. They often express feelings of disgrace and despair. Many of them do not have strong families to lean on for support when they need it. Many of them feel stuck and are looking for a way out.

The other day, I received an e-mail from a woman who dances in a topless club in Southeast PA. I appreciated her insight and asked her permission to post the text of her e-mail, with the assurance that I would not reveal her name or location.

The full text of her e-mail is included below. Please be in prayer for her that things begin to turn around and she finds a job she can be proud of. I believe she would appreciate that.

I know there are other women who read this blog who can identify with her struggle. Please know that we are in prayer for you as well.

Mr Family

---

Mr. Family,

I have never been to any of the clubs in Wilkes Barre, but I am a stripper in a topless club in ______. I started earlier this year at 30 years old. I have a BS in Business Management and was an Internal Auditor for several years. I worked very hard for my education, working the night shift at the front desk at a local resort full time and going to college during the day. For a while I was doing ok. last year at this time I was doing very well in my professional career. Then due to market and other conditions, I was laid off in April. In the last couple years because of Sarbanes-Oxley legislation internal auditors were in high demand, so I wasn't too worried, and I did get a severance package when I was laid off so I thought everything would be fine.

Of course, by then the spike in demand for auditors was dropping. By now pretty much everyone has the hang of the Sarbanes reequirements and the bulk of the work is done. The doucmentation has to be updated every year, but it is no where near as much work as it was doing it for the first time. It is now January and I still don't have a job. I am starting to get some interest in my resume so I can hope for things to get better, but I am afraid to get my hopes up too, and I no longer have the confidence I used to have so I am afraid maybe I won't interview as well as I did before.

Either way, I live alone, have never been married and there is no safety net for me, and no other source of income to rely on. I have to survive one way or another. I feel as though my identity as a person is falling apart. I have become little more than a sex object and although most of the customers are polite and I am lucky enough to work for a club that does not promote "turning tricks" and is very strict about the rule I still am in the business of selling sex even though I worked hard to have a "real" career that I could be proud of.

I am depressed and cry a lot, I am much older than most of the other girls I work with and unfortunately much smarter. I am not taken in by the excuses they make and know full well how degrading it is to me and women in general to take my top off for money. I would love to stop, but I know of no other way to make enough money to cover my bills and living expenses. Minimum wage at Walmart simply would not cut it for me. Before I was laid off I was making 45k a year and I even have savings, which have long since disappered.

Lately, theree ar more girls than ever dancing and often there are more girls than customers so it is even more difficult to make money, forcing me to work more hours doing something I detest.

I don't think clubs are to blame though. I think society is to blame. If there were no demand, there would not be any clubs. The patrons are the ones that make clubs profitable and it is pathetic that a woman's sexual assets are more valuble than her brains, education, or work ethic. It is a male dominated society that causes these problems, not just club owners.

The whole thing makes me sick and I am tired of it. None of my male colleages have had the trouble getting a new job that I have. I always dressed very conservatively at the office, didn't wear much makeup and always wore my hair up. I was never looked at a sex object, however the women who showed a lot of cleavage and tight pants seemed to be treated better even in a professional setting. It just seems that whether the compensation is monetary or not women that flaunt themselves are compensated better.

Anyway, thanks for reading this rant even though there is nothing anyone can do to make it better. I hope you guys are able to make a difference for someone somehow because as long as women are treated this way and it is accepted in our society things will not get better.

Frustrated and hopeless,
_______

Violence against women

I recently read a study that was compiled by Kelly Holsopple, a former stripper and the co-founder of the Metropolitan Coalition Against Prostitution in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

You can read the entire study by clicking here. My hope is that local women who have been considering stripping as a viable financial option will read every last detail about what they are choosing to embark on. I would also hope that women who are already involved in stripping will learn more about the cycle of destruction that these businesses create and promote.

The study is three pages long and includes great insight into the many ways strip clubs bring serious harm to both women and men. If you do not have the time or patience to read the entire report, I have included several quotes below.

Please be advised that the study includes a great deal of information that may shock and offend you. Because of its graphic detail, I debated whether or not to link to it. Please use discretion if you choose to read it. In the end, I believe it serves to give us all a valuable glimpse of the ways women are being degraded, right under our noses.

The organization and conditions of stripclubs not only produce and reproduce gender inequality, but facilitate and normalize men’s violence against women. Sexual violence has been normalized, institutionalized, and legalized in the stripclub industry as socially sanctioned male behavior. Stripclubs and the men associated with stripclubs have turned acts of violence into entertainment and tied male sexual pleasure to victimizing and exploiting. Stripclubs are structured according to male domination and control, and are inherently violent. It is impossible to set up stripclubs without sexual violence and that is reason to challenge the legitimacy of stripclubs.

One hundred percent of the eighteen women in the survey report being physically abused in the stripclub.

Women find out about stripping from a variety of sources. Upscale stripclub franchises recruit in new cities by having managers and imported dancers scout in nightclubs. Most women find out about stripping from girlfriends already in stripping, male associates, the media, and some from prior involvement in prostitution. One woman told how she loitered in and around urban stripclubs to pick up customers when she was fifteen and how her pimp eventually drove her to small town strip bars because those bars admitted her and hired her. Someone else got involved in stripping through an escort service for bachelor parties. Another young woman who went to a gentlemen’s club to pick up her friend recounted her recruitment as an eighteen-year-old. She waited at the bar, was served alcohol, and the owner asked to check her I.D. Instead of censuring her for drinking, he told her she would make $1000 per week and pressured her to enter the amateur contest that night. She won the contest, $300, and worked there three weeks before being recruited into an escort service by a patron pimp.

Forty four percent of the women report that men associated with the stripclub have threatened to hurt them physically.

One woman new to stripping was dumbfounded at how little money she was making taking her clothes off, so she asked the manager for his advice on increasing tips. He suggested turning tricks and said he could help her set up dates. Management sets up tricks, says it is good for business, and obligates women to turn over money from prostitution to the club. Women say prostitution is promoted even though owners tell women they would be punished if they turn tricks. Some stripclubs are notorious for promoting prostitution.

Women characterize customers as scum, psycho mama’s boys, rapists and child molesters, old perverted men, idiots, *******, and pigs. Strippers are largely disgusted by customers and describe them as pitiful and pathetic, stupid and ignorant, sick, controlling and abusive.

Women in this study undoubtedly denounce stripclub owners as pimps and "glorified pimps" and maintain that owners misuse power and are sick. The women also label managers as pimps citing that they mistreat women, that they make every attempt to take money from the women, and that they are sick because they are affiliated with the industry and know the harm they do.