| Judge Calls Irish Dance Erotic
By Sean O’Driscoll
State officials in North Carolina are to appeal a federal judge’s ruling
that Irish stepdancing is erotic and that strip clubs should not face discrimination.
Judge N. Carlton Tilley accepted “convincing” evidence by a dance expert
that the pounding rhythm of Irish stepdancing replicated the rhythm of sex,
even though it is considered a rigid and sexless form of dance.
In ruling in favor of two erotic dance clubs, Tilley quoted the evidence
of University of Maryland anthropologist and dance expert Dr. Judith Hanna,
who has studied the sexual meaning of Irish stepdancing and other types
of dance.
“Even the Irish stepdance which involves a rigid upper body and a leg
pounding upon the ground can be associated with the phallus pounding the
female,” Tilley said.
He described Dr. Hanna’s testimony as “credible and uncontradicted.”
In a landmark ruling on the Constitution’s freedom of expression provisions,
Tilley struck down some provisions of a state law banning erotic dancing
and said that it was so broad that the sexually-charged performances of
Madonna or Britney Spears could be prosecuted under the law.
However, the chief counsel of North Carolina’s Alcohol Beverage Control
Commission, Fred Gregory, said that the ruling was flawed and that the North
Carolina attorney general’s office would appeal.
The clubs had hoped that Tilley’s ruling would end a five-year battle
by erotic dancing clubs against a state law that forbids professional dancers
from touching their bodies erotically.
State inspectors had prosecuted Christie’s Cabaret, a strip club in Greensboro,
North Carolina after inspectors saw some of the dancers move suggestively
on stage. The club faced a 30-day suspension of its permit before it decided
to fight the case.
After it won the first round before Tilley in 2002, the state assembly
rushed through an updated law that banned erotic dancers from dancing in
a manner that mimicked sex or that included suggestive fondling of body
parts.
However, Judge Tilley said that that even a fully clothed person could
be prosecuted if their dance routine appeared to mimic sexual acts, and
said the owners of a local stadium could be prosecuted for allowing the
Carolina Panther cheerleaders, the Topcats, “to perform dances incorporating
movements that, even momentarily, could be interpreted as simulating sexual
intercourse.
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