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Reports

Voyeurism and Sexual Intimidation Have No Place in Business

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Posted on Mar 31, 2010

By Ruth Marcus

A woman did it.

Turns out the Republican National Committee staffer who accompanied a group of donors to Voyeur, a bondage-themed nightclub in West Hollywood, and then turned in an expense account seeking reimbursement for the nearly $2,000 tab, is one Allison Meyers, director—make that former director—of the RNC’s Young Eagles program of donors under the age of 45.

I had assumed that the outing was a kind of frat-boys-being-frat-boys event, along the lines of a bachelor party. That it was a coed affair, and that the apparent group leader was a woman, only makes the whole mess even creepier.

As described by the Los Angeles Times, the club, “inspired by the film ‘Eyes Wide Shut,’ is intended to be ‘risque and provocative’ and ‘a combination of intimidation and sexuality,’” in the words of partner David Koral. “Scantily clad performers play out bondage and sadomasochistic ‘scenes’ during the night.” On opening night, the Times said, “One female performer with a horse’s bit in her mouth was being strapped to the wall by another.”

Call me naive, call me prudish, but what is any self-respecting woman, anyone who wants to be taken seriously professionally, doing at a place like this—no less putting it on the company tab? According to an RNC e-mail on the episode, “that person [Meyers] was aware that this activity was not eligible for reimbursement and had been previously counseled on this very subject. Accordingly, that staff person has been terminated.” This activity—do they mean she’s tried to bill for strip club visits before?

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Snicker about the episode, if you will, but there is a troubling history to professional women and strip clubs. Entertaining clients at strip clubs was a popular practice on Wall Street until women started winning sex discrimination suits complaining about the practice as part of a larger pattern of unequal treatment and a hostile work environment.

Carly Fiorina, the former Hewlett-Packard CEO now running for the U.S. Senate from California, describes in her memoir, “Tough Choices,” how she was disinvited to an important lunch back in the early 1980s when it turned out the clients wanted to go to a strip club. “I had no idea what I was supposed to do in this situation,” she writes. “I couldn’t tell myself it didn’t matter—it clearly was important to meet these clients and to convince [her boss] that I should be taken seriously. It never occurred to me to be outraged and demand that they not go—it wouldn’t have worked anyway.”

Fiorina decided to go along, “tried to sound knowledgeable ... and desperately tried to ignore what was going on all around me”—her drunk boss calling over women to perform lap dances. The “next day in the office,” she concludes, “the balance of power had shifted perceptibly. I had shown [her bosses] that I would not be intimidated, even if I was terrified.”

I don’t quite see this as the victory Fiorina does: Why should she have had to grin and bear the lap dances to get ahead? Three decades later, Allison Meyers with her flock of eagles at Voyeur is even more troubling. Either she felt pressured to go along with the boys—in which case we haven’t come a long way after all. Or she thought it was a big hoot to watch, as The Washington Post described it, “topless dancers wearing horse bridles and other bondage gear while mimicking sex acts”—in which case we’ve slid way, way back.
   
Ruth Marcus’ e-mail address is marcusr(at symbol)washpost.com.
   
© 2010, Washington Post Writers Group


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By berniem, April 4, 2010 at 5:28 pm Link to this comment

Forgive me Henny, wherever you are, But I gotta do it, so here goes; “Who was that woman I saw you with last night?”...“That was no woman, that was a republican.”

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By johnnyfarout, April 4, 2010 at 8:05 am Link to this comment

Isn’t this what Republicans stand for, and actually do all the time: go have a sordid blast, with and on, other people’s money? This is a small vignette, a bit of an epiphany really, that in it, the political party of the corporate rich should run around all night in lurid scenes swilling good liquor and pinching lower class behinds. Oh, and they brought their own girl to pay the way and show how liberal they are! It’s all the same dirty joke on the USA with these guys. Could it be this woman thinks she leaped beyond the glass ceiling with the Republicans? …when all that is happening is they are looking up her skirt the whole time.

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By neoconscience, April 3, 2010 at 11:17 am Link to this comment

Except when Nancy Pelosi publicly supports a San Francisco ungerground gay street fair (where particapants wear bondage gear, or simply come nude) than it is alright?

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By thinkingman101, April 2, 2010 at 8:35 pm Link to this comment

This is halarious. Only the prudish Republicans. Vote Libertarian, because we are understanding of everyones lifestyle.

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By Clovis, April 2, 2010 at 1:35 pm Link to this comment

The late Queen Victoria was asked why there were no laws against homosexual
contact among women, and replied that she didn’t see how such was even
possible. Likewise, missing from this story is the possibility that not only the boys
would appreciate a bit of girl-on-girl action. This may
have been the level playing field everyone is seeking. It sure beats golf.

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By andre, April 2, 2010 at 12:05 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

Maybe if they had gone to a male strip club it would have been more acceptable and not degrading to women, who are ***always*** the victims when it comes to sex?

Why didn’t anyone think about that? Perhaps next year.

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By jauntyg, April 2, 2010 at 8:17 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

In my opinion this TruthDig story missed a very important feature of the affair:  the $2,000 tab.  Did that include, for example, tips?  While we still don’t know how many of these “Young Eagles” (were these maybe Bald Eagles?) accompanied Ms Meyers, a couple of grand for the evening seems a bit lame—or perhaps “limp” would be a more appropriate term?  I doubt this level of enthusiasm for the performance impressed the ladies, much less generated any real support for the Republican Party (if you could call that a party).  Personally, I think it’s time to put the “publican” back in Republican; then we really could party hardy.

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By Burt, April 2, 2010 at 4:29 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

I can’t believe some of the comments I see here. These kind of clubs are training ground for Abu Graib.  They are also training sites for exploitation and violence against women. Submission, humiliation, bondage, are not entertainment. They are the symptoms of a sick society. It is the dream of Rebublicans to have a class of people who can be humiliated, tho

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By DaEggman, April 1, 2010 at 5:53 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

Men have penises, women have vaginas, get over it already. Another piece of non-news spurred on by those who think morals come from the bible. Don’t be so shocked when people like seeing other people naked, its totally natural; if it weren’t, we’d all have never existed.

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By Mike G, April 1, 2010 at 5:00 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

This sounds kinda hot actually!

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By bogi666, April 1, 2010 at 5:02 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

somehow I don’t think this incident means the collapse of western civilization although we would be better off if it did.

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By BarbieQue, April 1, 2010 at 12:13 am Link to this comment

Thankfully, the (D)emocrats never *Ever* fail in such monumental ways.

If this country would stop listening to divisive bullsh*t and realize we’re all being ripped off by a bunch of Elite Scam Artists we might have a chance.

Sometimes a Cigar is just a Cigar.

And sometimes a Trillion Dollars is a Trillion in stolen treasure.
http://costofwar.com/

But talk of sex club “voyeurism” is so much more productive.
To our enemies.

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By JF, March 31, 2010 at 11:55 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

@ author.  Did you ever consider she might have liked it as mUch as guys.  Not everyone sticks with
missionary sex.  And yes you are a prude.

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By CaptRon, March 31, 2010 at 10:25 pm Link to this comment

1)I think they are trying to get around this by sacrificing the most logical person signing off on this excursion of pleasure, especially after the beating they took on health care. If I remember correctly, Michael Steele could not sign off on these expenses alone due to prior misappropriation of funding. The RNC changed it so more than Steele had to sign off giving the OK but who or how many I don’t know. So I think that if this is still true, more heads would have to roll including maybe Steele’s. Somebody’s covering up where and how the money goes and to who for what, at least.
2)Is Fiorina trying to pass this off as a training mission for the up and comers by relating her side of a story that happened to her, which is unrelated to this incident. If she is, does this mean they might turn out like her, or will soon be getting rooms at “C” Street, or be card toting Tea Party members, or are they the next religious right movement members who will preach doing the right thing, or…......you know, I think she needs a lap dance.
3)After seeing her TV ads about sheep with red eyes, well, I would rather go to a bondage club. I think the people working there are more real.

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By P. T., March 31, 2010 at 9:01 pm Link to this comment

Maybe Allison is a dominatrix.  My college roommate’s girlfriend was a topless dancer into some offbeat stuff.  Different people have different tastes.

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By faith, March 31, 2010 at 3:50 pm Link to this comment

Fiorina would have received much more respect had she chosen not to attend
the luncheon.  It was not “a tough choice”.  There are many men who would
have stepped up and said no thanks, I have a family and I have no business,
whatsoever, in a strip joint.  Values, integrity are applicable to both genders. 
Fiorina isn’t fooling anyone by saying she felt compelled to attend.  But then,
her behavior goes along with all the individuals that she fired from their jobs in
order to make herself look good in corporate america where it is the bottom
line that counts.

The republicans who attended this latest “voyeuristic” soiree are not fooling
anyone either.  I do wonder though if it was a set-up.  It is difficult to believe
that anyone, even the RNC would do something so inapropos and foolish in
today’s political climate.  It really doesn’t make any sense.  That is, unless the
RNC has become so callous and arrogant that they feel impervious to any
critique.

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By Jon, March 31, 2010 at 3:35 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

My experience is that women in business feel they cannot act according to their own code of ethics and morality but instead have to ‘take it’ to their male superiors, which is what Fiorina did.  She put her ideology aside and went along.  Then only later did she lament this choice, but she knew full well what she was doing:  being ‘as tough’ as her male superiors were in that club.  It’s a common sellout that women on the way up believe they have to make every day:  appear one of the guys, while abandoning themselves in the process.  Fiorina had to make a decision at that club invite—-to be one of the boys she so detests in business.  In doing so, she played the game, and didn’t stand on her principles.  The paycheck kept coming, her rise on the org chart not impeded, which was the point.  Only afterward did she get all touchy feely about it, doing that soppy bit of writing quoted in this diary.  Typical of how women wear different faces depending on where the money comes from.

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