They are mostly manipulative nuisances who want to extract money from me. Not different in principle, though generally less subtle and classy, than the TV ads in the elevator. If they had truly valuable talents customers would invite them into their homes and other private venues and pay them to perform. Instead they perform mainly in places from which they can't be evicted. Are they asking for money in tribute to their (cough) skills or as the price for going away? I never can tell. The people who pay these pests are like the idiots who feed feral cats at one of my local nature preserves, where there is, consequently, a large population of cats that harrass other wildlife and depend on human handouts.

The woman in the video is better looking than are most of these performers, but the principle is the same. Whatever the people on the train are doing, she is going to harrass them until they pay her. The possibility that some of them may like the show does not lessen its essentially abusive nature.

Also, I wouldn't want to touch one of those poles after a performance.

Posted by: Jonathan on December 23, 2006 11:22 AM

When sexual outrage becomes the norm, as is now the case in places like New York City, is it any longer outrageous?

Or does it become commonplace... as oppressive as any other tediously repetitious daily event?

The world I live in... which consists primarily of Woodstock and metropolitan New York... is filled with thousands (if not millions) of pretenders struggling to be more sexually outrageous than thou.

There is an element of fascism in this. Isn't there?

Posted by: Shouting Thomas on December 23, 2006 12:30 PM

What a wonderful way to thwart the incursions of Muslim extremists who think of Westerners as decadent. Who ever gave those Muslims that idea?

Posted by: Charlton Griffin on December 24, 2006 10:13 AM

Who gives a rat's ass what Muslims think of us, in our own home?

Posted by: Tatyana on December 24, 2006 12:29 PM

I know this posting wasn't meant to be taken very seriously, but it does raise a matter of principle. Sure, I'd rather watch a shapely young woman swinging from a pole than listen to some guitar-twanging wretch, but they're both appropriating a public space containing all kinds of people with different standards and tastes, and using a captive audience for their own self-serving exhibitionism.

A civil society requires that even in a crowd, people are owed their own zone of privacy. If you make an exception for this lass just because you like her looks, you're still contributing to the decline of manners.

Posted by: Rick Darby on December 24, 2006 1:57 PM

Tat: unfortunately the barbarians' numbers in out home are growing, thanks to our suicidal immigration policies. You might not care about what they think of us, but your children will.

Posted by: s.j. on December 24, 2006 3:44 PM

Griffin made a subtle point above. If we're going to continue to have something called a "liberal democracy", what in hell are we doing allowing hundreds of thousands of puritanical Muslims into our midst? Why not just go ahead and put signs outside our cities that say, "Come kill us, Muslims. We're decadent."

Posted by: Bob Grier on December 24, 2006 3:55 PM

ricpic, I read a paper in college on strippers to the effect that while they were employed in that field they prefered women. Preference frequently reverted back to men when they went into another line of work. Kinda like guys in prison?

Posted by: Bradamante on December 26, 2006 10:00 AM






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