Stripping is a high art, just like opera, or ballet.

A professor of anthropology and dance who has visited more than 130 topless clubs for various research projects, including four in Memphis this week, said exotic dancing has serious artistic value and is not unlike dancing found in many mainstream ballets, plays and musicals.

"It's a learned skill, it's creative and it communicates a message through movement," said Dr. Judith Hanna, a senior research scholar at the University of Maryland. "Nudity, proximity and touch are an integral part of artistic performances. They would be prohibited (under the proposed ordinance)."

Hanna testified during a daylong hearing in which the club owners are seeking a preliminary injunction of the county ordinance banning beer sales and requiring pasties. The ordinance is scheduled to go into effect at the end of this month.
[who in the hell would go to a dry strip club?!?!?
U.S. Dist. Court Judge Bernice Donald said she would issue a written ruling on the injunction request no later than April 23. A trial date for the clubs' suit against the city and county has not been set.

The ordinance, which is based on a 10-year-old state law, has been upheld in at least two previous legal challenges, though lawyers for the seven topless clubs in the suit say they are raising new issues, including the legality of requiring dancers to remain six feet from customers and from one another during performances.

The club attorneys argue that the ordinance violates free speech, is overly broad and is so unconstitutionally vague that wording could make The Orpheum an adult-oriented establishment if performers in the musical Cats sat in the lap of an audience member.

"It is so vague the owners don't know what kind of dance they could do," said plaintiff's attorney Michael Murray. "They would have to entirely guess what they can and can't do. Their businesses would be destroyed. These are honest businessmen, not outlaws."

Citing the recent prostitution conviction of topless-club kingpin Ralph Lunati, whose clubs featured live two-girl sex shows on stage, they said the ordinance would stop that activity quicker than the two-year undercover investigation that relied on federal racketeering charges.

"Prostitution very much includes lap dances," said Rolwing. "If they can't properly run these businesses without prostitution, then that's their problem."
The county ordinance would cover Memphis as well, although the City Council has considered adopting its own, less stringent ordinance for sexually oriented businesses.