Stripper gets mixed reviews at Left Party meeting

Some members of Sweden’s Left Party were less than amused with the choice of entertainment at a meeting last weekend after a stripper was brought in to promote the party message. The exotic performer, known to her clients as Miss Cookie, stripped down to just her pants – with the party’s logo disguising her nipples – at the open meeting in Jarna near Stockholm.

The show, entitled “Rock the arse off the right”, was not well received by everyone and, according to local media reports, several people walked out of the meeting in protest.

Sodertalje councillor Staffan Norberg defended the choice of entertainment in a report by The Local, saying the strip was an interpretation of the right’s bad taste falling away to reveal the Left’s good core.

“As burlesque and circus and cabaret, which I think it was marketed as, I think it is okay,” he said. “I thought that there was a political message,” he said, adding, “but broadly, naturally.”

Despite the Left Party’s well-known feminist profile, Norberg went on to say, “If you don’t like burlesque and lack a sense of humour and satire then this was not the right place to be.” He also pointed out that there was a half-naked man on stage as well, juggling with knives while eating an apple.

According to Dagens Nyheter (DN), Miss Cookie does not consider her act to be a “striptease” but “burlesque with an element of humour”.

“I think that a woman has the right to use her body for humour. There was also a man in the show who stripped down to reveal a naked upper-body and was thus more naked than I, but no one is upset about that,” she said to DN.