Encouraging sexual exploitation? Regulating striptease and ‘adult entertainment’ in the UK

Over the last decade, dedicated adult entertainment venues offering forms of striptease have proliferated in the UK. In many locales these venues attract considerable opposition, with campaigners alleging nuisances ranging from noise and drunkenness through to harassment of local residents. Local authorities consider such complaints when they decide whether or not to grant licenses for such venues, but under current licensing laws, are not able to consider objections made on grounds of morality or taste. Focusing on the ongoing opposition to proposed adult entertainment venues in the UK, this paper explores the case made for the reform of licensing laws as they pertain to nude dance venues. In doing so, it notes the lack of empirical evidence suggesting such venues deserve to be treated differently from other spaces of public entertainment, and argues that the impending reform of licensing law is underpinned by possibly flawed assumptions about the gendered and sexed nature of adult entertainment. The paper accordingly emphasizes the ability of the naked body to excite both desire and disgust, and questions the radical feminist argument that sex work is always exploitative.