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Jefe, where do you get this crap? Stripping objectifies women. I know because I was one. I am not an intellectual and in fact don't even have a degree. I love my body and think it is beautiful. I don't think I'm holier than anybody. Your stereotyping is all completely false.

Nobody can possibly support a drug habit on $7/hr. That is one of the many reasons why the sex industry, according to every study ever done, does in fact have a higher rate of drug abuse. Jefe, I worked with these women. I knew them. I watched one of them get sexually assaulted by the man who owned our strip club, so let me break it down for you.

When they say to you that they love their jobs, they are lying because they know that a man, a customer, does not want to hear how unhappy they are. If you knew these women personally or even spent as much time around them as I did, you would know that the ones who earnestly claim to love what they do are almost universally obviously mentally/emotionally disturbed.

Nobody told me I had to be tolerant of sexual abuse of the emotionally unbalanced. Fuck you.

(Note: My comment was originally posted in response to someone who was taking a holier-than-thou elitist stance.)

I'm sorry for your individual experiences, but they hardly hold true for everyone. I have known a handful of dancers personally, outside of the clubs, as friends and to a person they've told me the same thing: they liked what they did or they wouldn't choose (just as you chose) to do it. A choice is a choice and lamenting a choice made as having been the victim of exploitation or objectification is simply a weak attempt at excusing oneself of responsibility.

As to the argument that "stripping objectifies women" I have to ask how stripping is any different than anything else? Do other mediums such as television, film or print not also objectify women? Is a Hollywood actress strutting across the screen any more real than a dancer strutting across the stage? At least the dancer is there in real life maintaining some form of real-world connection as opposed to two dimensional fantasy. Should we feel shame for every time we’ve watched a film or clicked on the television because we are objectifying someone? Or do we all shun society and go live in caves for fear that our actions may somehow objectify someone else?

To your other point, it most certainly is possible to sustain a habit on minimum wage. If it weren't I wouldn't have had so many employees missing shifts or showing up bombed over my time in the workforce. Granted they're probably not getting high grade cocaine, but there is a reason why meth is so prevalent these days. The availability and widespread abuse of drugs amongst the poor is one of our nation’s biggest problems. You don’t really think that only rich people and the middle class get hooked, do you?

jefe: WOW....get a life dude...youve "known" handfuls of women who are strippers??? define "known"..me thinks you doth protest too much...now be quiet and stuff those dollars back in your back pocket...