A few weeks ago, a British paper printed an article that made my day. It claimed that according to a recent study, 25% of UK lap dancers have college or university degrees.
1 in 4! The article made me happy because:

1) I felt I was in good company;

2) I felt that now – at last – strippers were recognized as educated women, rather than pitied as ‘victims’ or dismissed/condemned as women of loose morals;

3) I liked seeing the term ‘stripper’ used as a job title, not a demeaning label.

I was even more excited when a few days later a Toronto newspaper contacted me, asking for my comments on the story and whether I could estimate the number of college or university educated women among Toronto strippers. I replied with an enthusiastic email in which I shared that:

1) Many exotic dancers (especially Eastern European women) who immigrated to Canada as adults have postsecondary degrees that they were unable to apply either because their language skills aren’t up to par, or because they require recertification or additional coursework, which is both time consuming, very expensive and doesn’t guarantee a well-paying job placement;

2) Quite a few dancers only strip part time and have demanding full time jobs, many of which require some form of postsecondary training (i.e. teachers);

3) Percentage of dancers who already have or are studying toward a degree in a given club hugely depends on the type of strip club and its location. Big city strip clubs are more likely to have higher numbers of educated dancers than small town strip joins (not fact, but this is my own estimation based on experience and observation);

4) Most women who contact me through this blog are students who are considering exotic dancing as a means of paying their way through school and covering the sky-high cost of living in Toronto.

I was looking forward to the possibility that the newspaper might run a story that would ask questions about what it actually means that such a high percentage of exotic dancers have degrees. For instance, why do so many educated and skilled women choose to work in sex trade? How does this percentage compare to other service industries? What does it say about the ability of our society to fully utilize the talent and expertise that took years and thousands of dollars in tuition fees to acquire? ( days later, 2 things happened. Craiglist shut down its adult services, and there was an announcement that Canada would be cracking down on sex trafficking in order to save the victims – sex workers and strippers.)

Consider this. Approximately 8,000 women currently hold exotic dancer licences in Toronto (this does not include other areas of the GTA. They have different licensing requirements.) If the UK numbers applied here (and it seems very plausible to me that they would), then about 2,000 of downtown Toronto strippers either possess university/college degrees or are working toward them. That’s 2,000 able and educated women, most of whom at one point decided that stripping was a more desirable way to earn a living and support their families.
We already knew that many of our university educated minds defect to the USA to seek well-paid employment there. Now we know that many others find sex work to be more lucrative than employment in their field of studies. Why is that?

Are all these women simply misguided? Morally corrupt? Naturally promiscuous? Greedy? Or does this number suggest that we, as a society, are far more willing to pay for sex and entertainment, than spend our resources on producing and utilizing brilliant teachers, nurses, designers etc?

I’d guess it’s the latter, although we deny it every step of the way. We want sex- in music, television, clothing, social trends and government policy. Sex all the way and from every angle.
This is where condemnation of honest sex work and victimization of sex workers proves especially sexy and worthwhile. Canada allows prostitution, but living of the avails of prostitution is illegal. Pimping is bad. Exploitation is bad. Only crackdowns on sex trafficking don’t yield results because rather than hunting down actual criminals, they focus on sex workers and saving those who made a conscious choice to engage in sex work and do not want to be saved.

You see, as long as you have an active sex trade, there is a steady flow of government funding. As long as you keep feeding heart-wrenching victim stories to the public and rejecting the notion that sex work can and often is a choice, as long as you ignore the numbers (25%!), money is made, careers are built. The ‘rescue’ industry thrives.

Now, that’s pimping!

But I am optimistic. The newspaper article may come out yet, and –gasp – it may even ask the right questions. I probably won’t see it tomorrow morning, or next week, but maybe once day I’ll find a small write up somewhere between the ad for American Apparel and Gaga-related gossip. A discussion of actual numbers and real issues is what I’d like to see. Until then, I’ll enjoy my time on the club stage. It’s the one place where I don’t think about whether my 2 degrees were ever worth it.