There’s no need to break laws in order to degrade yourself. Plenty of jobs let you do that – and they’re legal, too.

Our society’s will to fight gender discrimination fails when we allow women to work as strippers, porn stars and bikini baristas. These jobs should not continue as legal and glamorized professions. They are nothing but fronts for prostitution.

In case you don’t know what a bikini barista is, it’s a saleswoman dressed in almost nonexistent swimwear who serves beverages at a coffee shop with a titillating innuendo for a name. Among these fine establishments are Chicka Latte, Candy Girls and Java Jugs.

According to an article by NBC News, three bikini baristas at the drive-through of Hillbilly Hotties in Everett, Wash., were arrested for inappropriate behavior. Police said two of the women would be charged with violating the city’s adult cabaret law – specifically, performing in public while either unclothed or exposing their private parts. The third will be charged with lewd conduct.

The article said in 2009 five bikini baristas at the Grab-n-Go Bikini Hut, also in Everett, were charged with prostitution for charging customers $80 to touch their breasts and buttocks.

Many argue that bikini baristas are no more lewd or daring than women who wear swimsuits at the beach. In this case, however, women expose their bodies to attract customers to a place of business.

Strip clubs are even more egregious to women. Strip teases and erotic private dances are derogatory and harmful to women. These clubs are particularly popularized and frequented by many influential male celebrities who glorify them in music videos and songs.

People are fooled into thinking that strip clubs are harmless fun. By exposing your nude body you are demeaning what is supposed to be respected and preserved. People are not objects to sell. Women are willingly seducing men for money and there should be more appropriate alternatives.

Not only are they disgraceful but strippers are harmful to personal relationships. Bachelor – and bachelorette for that matter – parties are billed as allowing one to celebrate things you “won’t” be allowed to do once you are married, but typically degenerate into simply consuming large amounts of alcohol and acting in a manner that one wouldn’t dare display in front of one’s spouse. If it isn’t okay to do these things while you’re married then why would it be okay to do it the night or week before your marriage?

Pornography is the representation in books, magazines, photographs, films, and other media incorporating scenes of sexual behavior that are erotic or lewd and are designed to arouse sexual interest. It is hypocritical to look down upon prostitutes yet engage and encourage the pornography business.

Porn lowers the human value of women and men. It ruins marriages and it is far too accessible. According to the Huffington Post, porn sites get more visitors each month than Netflix, Amazon and Twitter combined, 70 percent of which are men.

Additionally according to the Huffington Post, supporters of a ballot measure to require condoms on porn shoots released an independent study that found undiagnosed sexually transmitted diseases may be more common in the adult film industry than previously reported.

Just because people have the freedom to do what they want doesn’t mean it’s right or safe. These businesses produce a negative perception of women by normalizing them as sexual objects.

Bikini baristas, strip clubs and pornography pose a threat to the way that women are perceived in society, communities and personal relationships. Attitudes will not change until we make some effort to condemn these practices. We should ban and make all of these institutions illegal and provide a better example of women in society.

-Chelsea Keyes is a sophomore communication major from Tacoma. She can be contacted at 335-2290 or by [email protected]. The opinions expressed in this column are not necessarily those of the staff of The Daily Evergreen or those of Student Publications.