Seems to have got stuck in Life on Mars

He’s right about the 21st century, but he seems to have got stuck in Life on Mars.

He might like to imagine that it is quite normal for writhing naked women to provide him with sexual titillation, but he shouldn’t fool himself that they are doing it for any reasons other than that they need the money.

The sex industry is notorious for its appalling employment practices. Not just the vulnerable and exploited (often trafficked) girls and women, paid to shake their breasts in the faces of inebriated louts, but also the miserable wages and conditions of bar staff and cleaners.

Oxford’s new sex club would not be offering generous sick pay, pensions or creche facilities.

This unsavoury club is not in the interests of either Oxford’s residents or its tourists. The sight of bouncers standing menacingly at the doors of a seedy club will scarcely be a welcome addition to the city’s attractions.

We can also assume that it will be council tax payers who will pick up the tab for the extra policing, for clearing up the vomit in the surrounding streets, and for the rise in petty – and not so petty – crime that invariably follows in the sleazy wake of these sex clubs.

Without doubt, it will be Oxford’s women and girls who will have to endure the increased sexual harassment from men fired up with alcohol and sex if we dare to go near the city centre after dark.

This club is not “near” a church – it’s beside it – and beside Sainsbury’s, and a street along from Christ Church Cathedral.

Perhaps Mr Davis thinks the new Ashmolean should have been relaunched with a display of poledancing, but he should try to understand that it isn’t “precious” to want to differentiate our city from downtown Bangkok. It’s actually rather good business sense. And it’s not just religious organisations who are “kicking up a fuss” – it’s anyone who believes in human dignity.

Many of us find it hard to understand how, or why, this unsavoury application was allowed to go ahead, with minimum public consultation and precious little official scrutiny.

In 2010 Britain, a licence to promote porn is issued as swiftly and as easily as a resident’s parking permit. Employers offering fair pay and good conditions of service are going bust for lack of a bank loan, but the sleaze merchants thrive.

There's nothing “pathetic” about our protest; it’s strong and proud and it’s getting louder every day.

PJ Ormerod, Jericho, Oxford