Live Nude Girls Unite! Directed by Julia Query and Vicky Funari October, 2000 Live Nude Girls Unite! is a documentary about the union organizing of workers at the Lusty Lady strip club in San Francisco. Directed and narrated by Julia Query, one of the dancers at the Lusty Lady, the movie depicts the labor dispute which, in 1997, led to the Lusty Lady being the first unionized strip club. Pornography and prostitution (including modeling and "exotic dancing") are the only fields where wimmin earn more than men in the u.s. Stripping attracts a lot of wimmin who are trying to break into creative professions. Julia Query was a comedian and writer not making enough money to pay her bills when she went to work for the Lusty Lady. Other workers in the film included single parents looking for the best way to support their families. Like any other job, most people doing it are not in it for the love of the profession. But patriarchal culture likes to pretend that wimmin who take part in sex- related professions are doing it for fun. One womyn dancer was asked by a client at the Lusty Lady peep show what she does for a living; he really thought she just did the nude dancing for fun. And throughout the union battle the owners of the Lusty Lady tried to insert the word "fun" into the job description in the contract. At the same time the Lusty Lady's owners also objected to using the word "pussy" in the contract, claiming that the workers "were sexually harassing themselves." Sex workers in strip shows are considered independent contractors so they have no benefits or job security. And until 1997 the club owners were selectively excluding non-white wimmin from regular shifts. Much of the film focused on the labor battle at the Lusty Lady as analogous to other unionization battles in the united states. And MIM agrees with this comparison: like most workers in the u.s., strippers at the Lusty Lady are not exploited. Even before getting the union and new contract the wimmin were earning more than the value of their labor. Stripping, like advertising, is not a profession that produces anything of value so we have to measure the value of their labor as an average based on wages compared to other workers. Strippers at the Lusty Lady were earning well over minimum wage. And within the u.s. the vast majority of workers are not exploited (exceptions include immigrant farmworkers and sweatshops). Workers in the u.s. are paid more than the value of their labor with superprofits extracted from the labor of Third World workers. This doesn't mean they earn as much as their bosses or the company owners. But it does mean that if we were to even out wages based on the value of labor tomorrow, workers in this country would take a step down while the majority of the world's workers, in the Third World, would earn more. For this reason MIM is not taking up the battle to raise the wages for sex workers in the u.s. any more than we take up this battle for UPS, airline pilots or other workers in the u.s. Instead we fight for a global minimum wage. Query filmed some of her stand up routines as commentary on the Lusty Lady. "I never before worked with so many women with college degrees, most of them in feminist studies. They realized what to do about patriarchy: Make them pay." This was not entirely a joke as the film goes on to interview wimmin who proclaimed their liberation as feminists because exotic dancing allows them to do what they want with their bodies and gives them power. This debate over the view of sex work in feminism runs throughout the documentary. The film quotes Catherine MacKinnon as a representative of the viewpoint that the sex industry is inherently bad for wimmin but most of the argument in the film disagrees with MacKinnon. The opposition to the sex industry by feminists is portrayed as a conservative failure of the feminist movement. MIM agrees with the film that sex work should not be seen as any better or worse than any other job under the imperialist patriarchy. It is certainly not superior to be contributing to the perfection of bomb construction for the imperialist government through a university research job. Under imperialism it is hard to make money at a job that is also contributing to social progress so we know that as revolutionaries we have to take whatever jobs we can get that will allow us to contribute the most time and money to the struggle. But MIM does not consider exotic dancing a form of feminist liberation for wimmin. Under the patriarchy wimmin's sexuality is not free for them to control. The individualist solution of a change in job or state of mind will not change this. There is a reason why wimmin earn more than men in this profession (and why there are so few stripping jobs available for men). This is not about equality or wimmin fucking the patriarchy by making them pay for sex. It is about who controls sex and what is sexy. Sex should not be for sale. Gender equality will mean the end to an industry of pornography and sex. And gender equality will mean relationships based on equality not power. As a result of the contract victory in 1997 the Lusty Lady is now 95% unionized. Wimmin who work there report that they start at $14/hour and within the first year this goes up over $20/hour. Employees can not be fired for age or appearance and they work flexible hours, picking their own schedules. Some of the workers consider this a viable profession, as much as any other. And MIM agrees. Out of high school, or even college, a job for the Lusty Lady is going to earn many wimmin more than they will get anywhere else, with better job security. But MIM's goal is to eliminate the patriarchy which creates a culture in which the sex industry thrives on the degradation of wimmin. Even under socialism we expect to have to forcibly outlaw profit from pornography and sex work because the culture of the patriarchy will not be wiped out for a long time. But once the profit has been eliminated from these professions and as we gradually eliminate patriarchal culture, we will move towards a society where there is no gender oppression. Under socialism wimmin who worked in the sex industry will not have to worry about being out of jobs: meaningful, productive work will be guaranteed to everyone. And workers under socialism will be challenged to learn new skills and gain new experience in the service of humanity, work that will be far more fulfilling than selling sex. But until we successfully overthrow imperialism and can start building a socialist society MIM supports legalization of all sex work because we oppose the power of criminalization and incarceration the laws give the capitalist state.