[Article first appeared at Red County]

Less than one year after KUOW Radio’s Conversation program had me on the air to discuss the controversy over the siting of the DreamGirls strip club within line drive distance of Safeco Field’s home plate entrance, the nude dancing club has already failed to make a good faith effort to adhere to compromise agreements made between the club’s owners and the Mariners’ front office.

Although DreamGirls installed monument-sized video screen above its street side entrance where it displays a rotating selection of images of scantily-clad models, often in sports-themed costumes, the adult-oriented spot agreed to only display text on the sign on kids’ days. The first Mariners Kids’ Day was Sunday, April 18^th, but the sign continued to display the sexually-charged images for all ages to see as they walked from southern parking spots to the ball field.

KIRO Radio’s Brian Shapiro reported on some of the public reaction:

Middle School teacher Christine Amend said she was "disgusted" by what she saw on the massive video signs when she went to the ballpark on Sunday with her sister on a Mariners’ advertised kids’ day.

"There are parents there with the strollers and they’re going ‘oh my God I can’t believe this is up.’ It’s kind of gross and just low class to be right outside of Safeco Field."

A photograph of the sign on the kids’ day can be seen in the article on MyNorthwest.com, linked above. DreamGirls defended their failure to honor the agreement by laying the blame at the Mariners’ cleats on the grounds that they had not been properly notified.

Pete Buck, the attorney who represents DreamGirls, says its [sic] not the club’s responsibility, "the agreement, not surprisingly, puts the burden on the Mariners to let the (Dream Girls) club know that there’s going to be a kids’ day."

Buck says the Mariners never informed the club that last Sunday was a kids’ day.

Of course, this all ignores the idea that every day at Safeco Field – a monument to the important values of hard work, perseverance, and teamwork – should be kids’ day. It also ignores the fact that Little Leagues organize outings to games on non-kids’ days, as do boys and girls clubs, school groups, church groups, etc. There used to be a crime on the books called contributing to the delinquency of a minor that was broadly applied to protect children from prurient interests. C’est passé, I suppose.

The cabaret’s position also presupposes that publishing a schedule available on the Seattle Mariners website and in wallet-sized print does not constitute notification. There should be a reasonable expectation that as a party to the agreement DreamGirls must take some responsibility to perform. Lord knows they’re committed to all manner of performance inside the walls of the club.

Even though an “I told you so” paces in my mind’s on-deck circle, despite the appearance that DreamGirls has won out over family-friendly activities such as baseball the glitzy and strategically-placed fleshpot may be the last toehold of a shrinking live adult entertainment industry in Seattle.

Rumors spin like dancers on the proverbial pole that the infamous Colacurcios and their business partners will take a plea deal to shut down their four area strip clubs in exchange for reducing or avoiding jail time in the racketeering case against their organization. Downtown Seattle’s Lusty Lady gained widespread attention in recent weeks after the announcement that the well-known peep show – known best for a streetside marquee that featured admittedly witty sexed-up puns – has made plans to close by the summer.

Listening to last week’s requiem for the Lusty Lady on National Public Radio’s eclectic All Things Considered program, one might have assumed that the First Avenue club held a cherished spot in the cultural fabric of the Emerald City. Yet, the Lusty Lady was not done in by pressure from advocacy groups, nor was their life as a business made more difficult because of any bad relationship with City Hall. It was not saved by the community the NPR programmers may want us to believe esteem its place in Seattle; business fail because they don’t generate enough income to sustain themselves.

Therefore, is the Colacurcio’s deal to escape lock-up not so much a punishment as an easy way to shed a business that may not be the cash cow it once was? Vice enterprises are almost universally privately-held companies, so there are no publicly available stockholder’s reports to go to for evidence. Looking for the presence of a black hole that may be siphoning the greed imperative out of the porn industry relies on clues when facts are unavailable.

The larger question to consider is whether the retirement of nefarious smut merchants or witty punsters on First Avenue in Seattle represents a shift in local attitudes about the place of sex in society. Is the decline of the porn industry a reflection of the economy in general, or is it a sign of a larger shift in American values?

A slew of media reports have been produced during this economic recession on the financial woes of the porn industry. Almost universally the analysis concludes that a variety of factors are depressing porn profits. Articles by the Los Angeles Times, the Daily Beast, and a CNBC cable television special blamed the poor performance of porn on the accessibility of no-cost pirated content and the poor economy in general. Missing from the analysis was any investigation of whether society may have begun to push back against a 30-year campaign to mainstream pornography into the culture and hedonize our attitudes about sexuality.

It is worth pondering whether at a time when Americans are dealing with financial anxieties that connect with basic needs of food and shelter an impulse to protect family structures might also kick in. The evidence of pornography as a corrosive element in society is abundant and the disincentives for infidelity – even the sort of virtual infidelity that former president Jimmy Carter confessed to/excused as committing “adultery in [his] heart” – may have begun moving society to find the point of diminishing returns on the cost/benefit curve for porn use.

For now, those wishing to eschew looking at the sign – on kids’ day or any other – should avoid walking up First Avenue S. and use Occidental Avenue to the east when parking south of the ballpark. The vendors who use to benefit from the walk-by traffic on First will just have to take up the issue of their losses with DreamGirls and Mayor McGinn.

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