Thursday, September 23, 2004

Strippers Wanted For College Party -- Clothing Removal Unnecessary

I have two news bites to comment on but they're drastically different and are thus receiving separate posts.

This is a CNN Article entitled Students punished after stripper pole party:
Three students at Jacksonville University have been punished for installing a stripper pole in an on-campus apartment and taking pictures as clothed female students performed on it at a party.
...
The men bought the steel pole from The Home Depot, bolted it to the concrete ceiling and attached the bottom to a plywood stage covered in red felt.
...
When university officials ordered the men to remove the pole, they complied, but not before building a huge party around it.

Signs reading "Pole Dancers Wanted" were posted around campus and the men bought large quantities of beer. Friends were enlisted to check identifications and manage security. They charged $5 for men, and women were let in free.
...
John Daigle Jr., a school spokesman, said the party's hosts may have violated the university's alcohol policy and broken rules against indecent behavior and the making of unapproved changes to university property.
Note that "[t]here was no public nudity involved here." So, absent the female students dancing in their underwear (i.e. not being nude but being rather close thereto), I have trouble seeing how they may have violated the rules against indecent behavior. (And, if they were down to their underwear, I have trouble believing that things did not further progress to nudity.)

If the women were in fact "clothed" as the article purports, then pole dancing isn't terribly racier than, say, normal party-dancing. I mean you might as well start "ticketing" any couples you see at any party there is. A bit broad, imo. My guess is that the Univ. was pissed off with the advertising (the flyers) and is grasping at straws.

Amusing and oh-so-true point: "The party ended shortly after the beer ran out."

Additionally:
Residential adviser Amber Davis said the party degraded women.

"There are other ways they can go out and get a girlfriend if that's what they want," she said.
Somehow, I don't think they were looking for girlfriends...

~//~

The reason I took particular notice of this post, besides the amusing subject matter and story, is that back in college, as a fraternity brother, I helped throw various parties and such. I can easily understand the allure, at least to male college students, of installing a pole for parties. However, one hopes that such an allure is weighed against common sense and shock factors. That is, such installation would probably (and speedily) raise a red flag with the administration and put the place and people involved on the wrong radars (e.g. administration, police). Fortunately, this incident is not all that bad considering there was no nudity and, seemingly, no strenuous objections by the women at the party. Still, a generally amusing incident.