AN ‘X-RATED’ ALL male strip show that took place in a Belfast bar complex called The Devenish has prompted three days of newspaper headlines in Northern Ireland, and investigations by the PSNI and the city council.
The Pleasure Boys took their XXL tour to the venue Finaghy in Belfast for a ‘Valentines Weekend Special’ show on Saturday, and videos of the last ten minutes of the event – which featured all-out nudity and performers and audience members simulating sex acts – have since gone viral online.
The UK Pleasure Boys offer a male strip show which holds nights in venues across the UK and in Dublin, which are often attended by hen parties.
In the Republic, where lap dancing clubs or club nights are not uncommon in cities and large towns, there has been some confusion as to why the strip show has caused such controversy.
The controversy, which has been covered in six separate reports in the Belfast Telegraph and multiple times by other news outlets in the region, received renewed interest today after the PSNI stated that it has received a complaint in relation to the show, and a review has been commenced.
It’s not clear if that complaint came from anyone who was in attendance at the show.
Over the weekend Belfast City Council, which is in charge of entertainment licensing in the city, said that it is “investigating” the event, and that it cannot comment further at this time.
Perhaps wisely, politicians have largely steered clear of the controversy.
Despite the media attention, it seems unlikely that the ethics of an erotic performer simulating sex positions in a bar in Belfast will rocket up the list of issues the newly re-established Stormont assembly has to contend with. There are a myriad of more pressing issues at hand.
But the controversy has caused some – including flagship BBC NI radio show presenter Stephen Nolan – to ask, “is Northern Ireland prudish?”
On social media, particularly on ‘Irish Twitter’, the viral content related to the event has shifted from videos of the event being shared, to memes that pose a question that has been asked many times before – is Northern Irish society puritanical or overly religiously infused? (The mind flashes to the image of ex-MLA Jonathan Bell praying on bended knee in the BBC NI broadcasting house before the tell-all interview that ignited the cash-for-ash scandal in 2016).
In considering this question, it is probably worth considering that The Nolan Show, which heard from callers on both sides of the Devenish debate this morning, platforms outrage on a range of topics week in, week out.
Belfast City Councillor @RonMcDowellTUV welcomes council investigation into Devenish strip show event "that ran out of control"
— The Nolan Show, BBC (@BBCNolan) February 20, 2024
Podcast 📲 @BBCSounds pic.twitter.com/nqKL29rm76
It’s also worth noting that the only politician available to speak on the matter this morning was TUV councillor Ron McDowell, who was as outraged as one might a Traditional Unionist Voice politician to be.
McDowell told Nolan that videos and clips from the show had made him “blush”, adding that an investigation into the events behind the blush-worthy material was “absolutely necessary”.
Focusing on the legislative aspect at play, McDowell pointed out that if Belfast City Council is overseeing the management of entertainment events at the Devenish via a licence, it is in part responsible for the event on Saturday night, which in his view, got “out of control” and was a “disgrace”.
Arguing that shows like these are not good “for society”, McDowell focused on the “humiliation” of the women who were audience members at the event. McDowell suggested that the “girls” who attended the 18+ show “got carried away in the euphoria or the excitement of the event” and are now facing the “consequences of going viral”.
McDowell said he felt sorry for the women.
“People are laughing at them, not with them,” he emphasised.
As often happens on the Nolan Show, a woman rang in and gave her no-nonsense view on the matter, taking the debate back down to Earth and into 2024.
“Context is everything,” the caller, Julie, pointed out – adding: “Ron needs to wind his neck in”.
“He’s said that those women were a laughing stock, says who? How dare he come on and say women were humiliated, have any of those women told him that?”
Julie said that when she looked at the clips she saw women enjoying a show for adults, and pointed out that when it comes to normalising erotic entertainment, Northern Ireland is “so far behind everywhere else in Europe”.
Lap dancing clubs aren’t established in Northern Ireland in the same way that they are in the rest of the UK and the Republic of Ireland.
Northern Ireland has steered its own regulatory course when it comes to the establishment of commercial sexual spaces and services, and the debate on the matter there has been more focused on religious values and moral reasoning than anywhere else in the UK, Queen’s University Belfast researchers have found.
This has meant that sex shops have very rarely been granted official licences, and there are no nightclubs that are advertised as lap-dance or striptease clubs.
In contrast, there are somewhere in the region of 20 such venues in the Republic, and hundreds of sexual entertainment venues across England, Scotland, and Wales.
One dedicated lap dancing venue opened in Belfast in 2002 in the Botanic Avenue area, and it was protested against by the DUP and other political parties. The Movie Star Cafe club closed down one year after it opened.
Since the uproar over the Pleasure Boys show began, however, the businessman behind the show has said that they have been inundated by requests to book them from other Belfast venues.
The reality is, Northern Ireland’s clampdown on sexual entertainment venues has not stopped shows like Saturday’s from becoming hugely popular, or stopped lap dancing agency performers from working in the region.
As for the controversy, by the end of this morning’s Nolan Show, callers were debating whether Finaghy is in fact in West or South Belfast, and where the cut off point for the two areas is. So… Back to regularly scheduled programming.
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