The Double Negative

I've read something creepy things in blogs and other things that just upset me. Usually it’s about a dancer describing some incident at club. Sometimes other things you never expect to bug who will set your teeth on edge. I recently ran into a comment like that in a titsandsass.com article what got to me was a comment in a movie review of all things. It didn’t really bug me when I first read it. After a while it irritated me more and more. It’s kind of a run on sentence but here is the entire comment from the titandsass.com article:

I’m not necessarily opposed to ripping off rich men as a viable plan for financial success, but Holly does little more than make it painfully clear what a lonely, broken little thing she is, and unlike her love interests, I don’t see the appeal in that.

So stealing is OK? “Not necessarily opposed” is just a way of softening the phrase to not be so harsh, but double negatives still mean positive. I’m “all for” or “OK with” also convey a similar meaning, but with a little less enthusiasm. Regardless of the level of enthusiasm stealing is not right ever. Then you add the caveat of rich men. So is that supposed to make it more palatable if they aren’t impacted as much? It’s still wrong. If I wrote “I’m not necessarily opposed to guys groping strippers" most dancers would be offended. It’s OK to grope them because they are strippers, not nuns. Nun or stripper it’s not OK to commit sexual assault. It’s not OK to rip off people, rich or not. I imagine the fact I'm one of those guys it's OK to rip off is what really got to me.

I think one of the factors that caught me off guard was the titsandsass.com article. The titsandsass.com web site has articles about sex worker issues written by sex workers. They have well written articles and commentary about the industry. Granted it’s an off hand comment and not a central theme, but it’s not what I expect to see there. If I was one of her clients I’d drop her in a heart beat if she really thought stealing from me was OK.

There are dancers who will cheat and steal from customers. In my experience they tend to be the exception not the norm. Most dancers seem to steal from each other rather than customers.

The cliché is that a dancer or escort is in that business because they are somehow broken. That no one would willingly choose this life for themselves and they are on the road to destruction. The truth is the exact opposite. I know a lot of women who have these jobs and are very successful and happy. This maybe but a small example but it takes away from the legitimacy of the industry. How can you be happy in an industry theft is the norm? Legitimate industries don’t condone stealing from their customers. Theft happens in every industry. The better industries do not tolerate it. I’d like to think strippers are better than used car salesmen.