Lapdancer Revisited

When five prostitutes turned up murdered in the U.K. and an alleged serial killer faces trial for the deaths of dozens of women in Vancouver, Canada, I thought it was time to shine a light on the sex industry - to examine why this profession is driven underground and how this shaming process puts the women involved at greater risk. For some women, it is a legitimate career choice, but for those women who have fewer choices, it's a risky business indeed.

I do not claim to have an understanding of their work as prostitutes or their personal reasons for working on the streets. I am not here to judge the choices of others or make generalizations about the adult industry. This article is not about women's moral choices, but about shedding light on strip clubs and how they act as the pulse to our own Western culture. This article is based on my own personal experience.

I didn't set out to make a book that was voyeuristic. It was really meant to be a social commentary. I wanted the dancers who were working in the venues and the customers to speak about themselves and their relationships with one another. I wanted to speak about the strange interpersonal relationships between the two, and I wanted to make sure it wasn't told by an outsider.

It was a learning process. In the beginning I was incredibly intrigued, as an outsider would be, by being able to capture these images that were really unusual. But there came a point in the process of making "Lapdancer" that I started putting the images together and realizing it wasn't necessarily about strip clubs.

What I was seeing was more of a phenomenon that existed hermetically behind the sealed doors of the clubs.