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The festival will show stripping in a positive light; these particular dancers love what they do and will argue convincingly that stripping is an art form. Work by ELSC members—Chiqui Love's bizarre, beautiful costumes; Millie Robson and Vera Rodriguez's photography; Bronwen Parker-Rhodes's elegant films—will attest to this. However, no one's pretending that all is sweetness and light within the industry, that every stripper is or should be an art school graduate or that everyone in the industry skips to work each day with joy in their heart. A ten-day exercise in respectability politics is not the aim.As with the media, so with the entire legislative framework in which strip clubs exist: dancers' opinions come second."Somehow, basic human rights and employment protections never made it as far as the strip club industry," says Stacey. "Dancers continue to submit to highly questionable business practices: club owners who bully and threaten us, sack us without notice, give us no contract of services at all, no job security. We have no recourse to take legal action against strip club owners and bosses because our current legal definition is 'self-employed,' despite the fact we are treated as employees in almost every respect."READ ON NOISEY: The Beatking Guide to Strip Clubs
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