Claims by fundamentalist feminists from the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women Australia (CATWA) that tabletop dancing venues in Melbourne are offering sexual services and should be regulated like brothels, represented an alarming and extremist ideology masquerading as 'entertainment regulation'.

Sex Party President, Fiona Patten, said that the group’s allegations of a proliferation of ‘strip clubs’ did not stand up to scrutiny. “Since the first club appeared in Melbourne’s CBD nearly 20 years ago, there are still only seven clubs in the CBD and no more than 20 across the entire state”, she said. “It is ludicrous to even suggest that this represents a ‘proliferation’.

Ms Patten said that CATWA embraced a lesbian separatist philosophy on sexual matters that was fundamentalist in nature and supportive of the Swedish model of regulating prostitution - which was not to regulate it at all, but to jail men who engaged in commercial sexual services. In Sweden the language of lesbian separatists now means that any man who engages in a normal commercial sexual service is officially said to be involved in ‘sex trafficking’.

“These fundamentalist feminist groups have also picketed Sexpo recently and their sexual agenda is similar to fundamentalist religious campaigners like Fred Nile”, she said. “If these genteel 19th century notions of entertainment take hold in modern Victoria, thousands of people will be out of work and the tourism economy would take a huge hit”.

“Why don’t they focus their energies on something positive like getting rid of paedophile priests or putting proper sex education into schools?”

Ms Patten said that the Nightclub Owners Forum was now thinking of commissioning a 25 year old male club owner to do a report on ageing lesbian culture in Australia.