Shouts from the desert

I have some difficulty understanding why Rudd's strip-club trip a few years ago is making news over the past few days. Perhaps in other parts of the country they have more prudish ways, but the part I find surprising is that Rudd claims only to have been to a strip club on this one occasion. I have been to strip clubs on half a dozen occasions I can recall (and probably one or two I cannot recall), and I do not remember on any of those occasions any of the gentlemen in the group heading home out of shame.

Are we really becoming that backwards as a nation that we would pass judgement on somebody parttaking of perfectly legal entertainment? If that is the case then viewers of Big Brother and Australian Idol must have major cause for concern.

Unless the person visiting the strip club is also parttaking of some of the "extra services" some clubs offer (and in my opinion not even then) there is really nothing to pass judgement on.

The only cause for embarrassment would be if Rudd's behaviour once in the venue was inappropriate, if he was asked if he wanted to go upstairs and responded with "what's upstairs", or if he was silly enough to pay the cover charge asked by the door staff. Paying the full cover charge would indeed be reason to question his judgement, but I see no error in judgement in merely attending a strip club.