If social cons get their way, Pennsylvania strippers will have to kiss any sense of privacy or anonymity goodbye. Over 60 state legislators are co-sponsoring a bill that would force strippers to register with the Department of State, the Daily Beast reports.
The registry would require an astonishing amount of sensitive information from the performers, including stage names, height, weight, eye color, photo ID, addresses, phone numbers, and birth dates—along with a $50 registration fee.
The proposed law setting up the registry would also ban the sale of alcohol at strip clubs, and effectively outlaw lap dances by mandating that strippers be at least six feet away from customers when removing their clothes.
The bill’s sponsor, Republican state Representative Matt Baker, claims this will “help combat sex trafficking, abuse and exploitation of women.”
Angelina Spencer, executive director of a national trade association for nightclubs—which sponsors its own anti-sex trafficking program—told Watchdog.org she finds the whole premise absurd.
“I just don’t think that people should have to register with the government, much like a sex offender registry,” she said.
She especaially scoffed at the six-feet rule, saying, “I mean, c’mon. You’re going to legislate space between two people? I think money is better spent elsewhere.”
The Cato Institute’s Jim Harper told the Daily Beast there are also serious privacy concerns for the entertainers, should they be forced to disclose such sensitive information.
“The security challenge here is that bad people could do seriously bad things with a registry of adult entertainers,” he said. “I would worry about whose hands it might fall into, or how it is maintained by the state.”