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Volume 40, Issue 13
April 22, 2003
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April 22, 2003
Sex pays for education
Jobs in adult entertainment industry help
students meet rising cost of college
By Marika DeHay
and Carly Schorman
Mesa Legend
Editors note: Names were changed at the request of those
involved.
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The rising cost of education combined with the stumbling economy has placed
a considerable stress on students struggling to make ends meet.
Financing an education is more necessary than ever, but it is also more
costly.
Some students have taken second jobs.
Others have sought more financial aid.
A few have entered non-traditional fields for support.
Some students have turned to the sex industry to pay for their education.
Young women, and some men, take jobs as strippers or dancers, escorts,
nude models and prostitutes for additional money.
The Hi Liter is a popular club just east of downtown Phoenix.
Inside, the club is decorated with mirrors, fluorescent colored chairs,
small black tables, and a stage extended 12 feet from the back wall.
In the dressing room a popular Hi-Liter dancer and MCC student, Amber,
sat getting ready for work.
Amber has long blond braided extensions and wore a long-sleeved fishnet
top, white T-bar or thong, 7 inch clear heels, a rhinestone necklace and
a garter around her ankle.
“There’s no other job this flexible with my school schedule
for the amount of money I’m able to make. I work three to four nights
a week depending on my bills. I don’t know if I like the job. Let’s
just say it pays my bills,” she said.
Other students share this view.
One sat in a diner studying biology, wearing thick glasses, blue jeans
and a red sweater.
Anyone in the restaurant would pass her off as nothing more than a young
college student, which she is.
No one would be likely to recognize her in her work clothes which consist
entirely of black leather.
Victoria or Mistress Victoria began working at an escort agency answering
phones.
Ads placed by various escort companies often present the women as independent
of any company, with a personal phone number for the gentlemen to use.
“Men would call in thinking they were calling a specific girl. Instead,
they’d get my switchboard and I’d pretend to be whomever they
thought they were talking to. I’d make the arrangements to meet up
at his house or wherever. Then, I’d fill in the girls on what the
guy expected and send her over,” said Victoria.
Sometimes, men would call the agency directly to make specific requests.
When she noticed a number of requests were being made for a dominatrix,
she decided to fill the position.
“Where else can you get paid for beating up men and ordering them
around, and do the whole thing in black leather?” said Victoria,
explaining why she chose to work as a dominatrix.
She has now opted out of the sex business and is employed as a teller
for a bank.
“The money was good, but the drugs were just too much,” she
said. “Maybe not everywhere, but where I worked, everyone around
me was using drugs. I’m an herbal girl and the agency was heavy in
chemicals.”
Victoria is a nursing student and pointed out that her college costs,
in addition to rent, insurance, food, clothes, and other incidentals can
be overwhelming and admitted that, “It’s a lot harder to pay
bills now.”
India, another dancer at Hi-Liter, sees a minimal amount of substance
use in her work environment, “A lot of people assume that we do drugs
and make a lot of money. I’d say like 5 percent of them do drugs,
if even. For the most part we’re normal people who go to school,
have day jobs, or take care of our families. I personally like the extra
time I can spend with my son or taking classes.”
Another student in the sex industry is Nicki, she danced at club lit entirely
with black lights, which she felt served to accentuate her tan (a business
expense) and glow-in-the-dark 6 inch plastic heels.
She took a second job working for an escort agency that is actually a
front for a modern day brothel.
Working there she practiced prostitution, or what she describes as “The
world’s oldest profession”
Nicki explained she intended on using the money to support herself through
school and to “diversify my stock portfolio.”
“I’d make over a grand in one night,” she said.
She also revealed that charges for her services were as high as $1,200.
“Girls can make over a thousand dollars a night, but they’d
been with the agency longer and had regular customers.”
“Men didn’t pay me just for sex,” she explained that some
men hired her to indulge certain fetishes while others simply wanted companionship.
“I loved working there. I made great money, and I liked what I did.
The men that came in worshiped you,” Nicki stated. “Where else
could I do all that?”
Drugs were not permitted by the agency she worked for.
Nicki’s positive sentiments are shared by others in the sex business,
like India who said, “People are always asking me if it’s hard
psychologically, but I’m really comfortable with my body and myself
in general. I look at dancing as an art form, but I’m barely wearing
any clothes. It’s like theatre, but I’m getting money for it.”
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