LONDON — A judge in London has ruled against nine women who had been secretly filmed by private investigators hired by a fringe group of anti-porn crusaders while they were working at two U.K. franchises of the Spearmint Club strip club chain, rejecting their application for anonymity.
Earlier this year, U.K. activist group Not Buying it — which openly organizes campaigns against sex workers who appear on “Page 3 [nude modeling], Strip Clubs [and] Porn” and boasts of a paltry 2,400 followers on Twitter — hired private investigators to record footage at Spearmint Rhino clubs in Sheffield and Camden, in northwest London.
The nine women and their employers have been fighting the release of that footage on grounds that, according to British newswire service PA Media, “publication could infringe their human right to respect for private life,” and that “they want only their initials to appear on a case claim form.”
The judge, Sir Matthew Nicklin, published a ruling yesterday saying “there is no justification for such a move.” But he also said that the women’s names should not be revealed until the performers and the club owners had decided whether they wanted to appeal the ruling. Justice Nicklin listed the nine performers as AAA, BBB, CCC, DDD, EEE, FFF, GGG, HHH and III.
In a witness statement, Not Buying It’s chief executive, Sasha Rakoff, told Justice Nicklin that her organization “campaigns against sexual entertainment venues (strip clubs or lap dancing clubs), in particular where these breach the regulatory framework and specific conditions attached to their licenses.”
“We are concerned that such breaches cause harm to those who work within such venues and society generally,” added Rakoff, who identifies herself as a feminist, but is more narrowly described as a SWERF (Sex Worker Exclusionary Feminist).
Rakoff and her group have acknowledged hiring men to go undercover to strip clubs and attempt to get sex workers to commit acts that go against the clubs’ licenses.
Academic and decriminalization advocate Gemma Ahearne tweeted in June about “the irony of Dr. Sasha Rakoff saying she has 'no choice' but to pay men to film naked dancers without their consent. Where did that money come from? Donors? Or a christian fundamentalist group? Why not work with dancers for better working conditions[?]”
Yesterday, the judge ruled that since Not Buying It “thought there was a risk of strip-club performers being exploited,” he agreed with them that “the public had a right to know ‘what actually takes place’ in a ‘sexual entertainment venue.'"
Justice Nicklin added that Not Buying It had agreed not to circulate footage until another judge had made a decision.
A Tale of Two Cities' Spearmint Rhinos
In February, Sheffield group Zero Option (motto: “Make Sheffield free of lap dancing clubs”) sent investigators twice to the South Yorkshire-based Spearmint Rhino. Then, in April, according to the BBC, “details of their findings, including claims of repeated sexual touching by dancers, were read out at a council meeting.”
In June, dancers and supporters of the Sheffield sex workers held a protest. Gabby Willis, a sex workers’ advocate from nearby Sheffield Hallam University, told the BBC that she supported “the dancers' right to earn money however they choose.”
"I think it's really important we stand by women's choice to do that in a safe environment for their job, if they want to,” Willis said. As for the secretly obtained videos of the dancers, Willis was skeptical and indignant. "We don't have any proof they even exist,” she told the BBC. “If they do, they are illegal. They constitute revenge porn."
"I talk to so many girls from the club,” Willis continued. "They're all professional, amazing women and even if they weren't, that doesn't mean they should have their rights stripped away to be able to do what they want in peace."
Rachael McCoy, one of the Sheffield strippers, told the crowd that the protest was “really important to us. This is our livelihoods. I'm a single mother. This job helps me feed my children. This job has actually changed my life for the better."
Meanwhile, in the London area of Camden, the local paper reported the two male investigators hired by Not Buying It to entrap the sex workers offered details of visits in which they were “straddled by dancers, who routinely touched their own breasts, genitals and anuses” and one of them even “claimed to have received a so-called ‘milkshake’, in which a dancer rubbed her breasts around the investigator’s face and nose for an extra £20.”
In September, despite frantic campaigning by SWERF crusaders before local government, the Sheffield’s club license was renewed.
"I'm so happy,” dancer Beth Amos told the BBC. “We fought for our club; this whole horrible, terrible, upsetting year has been so worth it."
Another Spearmint Rhino dancer, Celia Lister, described the license renewal as “a huge milestone in breaking the social stigma around sex work and I think much to the displeasure of [anti-strip club campaigners], this scandal has actually helped us gain the publicity we needed to do this."