A strip club is probably not the first thing that comes to mind when we think about reviving small town Saskatchewan and injecting new business into struggling communities. But that’s the debate going on in Codette, Saskatchewan, a village of few more than 200 people ten kilometres south of Nipawin. The hotel owners have contracted a stripping company based out of Regina to supply dancers every other weekend.
On January 1, Saskatchewan changed laws to permit stripping in venues that served alcohol (previously, stripping was only permitted where alcohol was not served), even though other prairie provinces already permitted strip clubs – and here, full frontal nudity is still banned.
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In this week’s episode of Focus Saskatchewan, Women and Gender Studies Professor at the U of R, Darlene Juschka discusses the province’s history, influenced by the temperance movement, Christian values, and first wave feminism. It’s an interesting discussion – what are our own moral views of stripping? How does that factor into law-making? How does our own discomfort with sex lead to a reluctance to pass laws to make it safer for sex workers and those in what Juschka refers to as “the skin trade”?
In another perspective on the issue, dancer Kailie Curtis talks about how stereotypes about strippers – often confusing them with prostitutes, are “hurtful.” She wants people to know she’s a straight-A student with goals of attaining a PhD in genetic science and she’s perfectly comfortable with her dancing – so is her family.
How many of us confuse the two professions? And confuse the issues surrounding them? Maybe we should stop. Now that the laws have changed to allow what once was prohibited, we’re going to be forced to confront what may have at one time made us uncomfortable.
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