Letters to the Editor
-
do it and trust in your future
you have already thought about your options and know the risks very well. i think it's a win for you. it is true that it is MUCH more likely now that your nude image or video might make it out onto the internet, but so what. you are not alone. many thousands of women have been put in that same situation unknowingly. strip under an assumed identity, wear a wig, and take proper precautions. everything will turn out just fine. we are living in an increasingly voyeuristic society. it won't be a big deal if you have naked photos laying about.
-
what's the difference
Your question implies that there is some degree of dishonor in being a nude dancer, and that you fear being found out by students, colleagues, faculty, etc. But why? People who go to nude dance shows for entertainment are on the same level as the dancers. But would you not weild a degree of power when you defend yourself by saying that an accuser has first-hand knowledge of your activity? This may be a simplistic analysis, but up to this point, has there really been any negative response to your dancing? If you are really concerned, why not ring up credit card debt now, then after graduation, when there is less risk, you can dance to pay it off.
-
Forget the moralizing
Merely observe that not a single person with a background in academia on this thread has recommended that you continue. Not one.
The "oooh, yeah, go for it baby" comments mostly sound like they come from men who would like to find out where you work so they could come stick some of their girlfriends' hard earned cash in your thong. One has suggested that you upgrade to full prostitution. Forget these losers.
Look at the letters from the people who actually work in universities or have been in graduate school.
It isn't really about your personal freedom, as much as it perhaps ought to be. If this is really about your job chances, including keeping the TA job you have now, stop dancing. BTW you hardly mention your TA job and seem to dismiss it lightly. You certainly don't seem very proud of it. That might be something to think about before the boys in your class start giggling about how you are not a TA but just T and A.
-
stop selling yourself short
stripping is not the same thing as dancing. yes, there are contemporary dancers who dance naked but the effect is visually stimulating, not sexually stimulating. as a big fan of dance, i have never been to a stripper bar because that's not where one goes to enjoy the art of dance. the purpose of stripping is to sexually stimulate clients. as such, it is a form of prostitution, albeit with supposedly lesser consequences do to less contact.
and yes, you will be judged for it. hell i'm judging you for it - especially the utter hypocrisy behind your statement that Patriarchy is to blame for your need to strip for money. You live in a free country with individual rights on your side - no man is forcing you to strip for his jollies.
as a young woman who paid her way through graduate school via loans and many part-time jobs, i never dreamed of stripping because the thought of men as old as my father getting off on seeing me covort around a stage naked makes me sick (like other posters, i agree that there is a certain mentality that is more amenable to sex work because of the boundary issues). of course, i'm from canada where tuition is a lot less, but then again, there are lots of young women willing to strip for money here too so i doubt that that's the defining factor. Having said that, most young women, even the great looking ones! do not go into sex work. it is, as its also been, marginal/marginalized work.
-
Gotta do what ya gotta do
I went through two MA's and a PhD and after the library closed I saw many, shall we say, artistic dances.
One of my all time favorite students was a young
Cuban man who was brilliant. Only later did I hear that he had worked his way through school as
a female impersonator. The last I heard he was
an interpreter at the UN.
Even in the merry widows of the 50s, I still
claimed who I would be.
Be who you are as you are and you'll be happy.
-
Messed up financing
First, your response was great. I agree with everything, and that's not my usual reaction.
The larger social issue is that we are making all of our students sharecroppers. Unless a young person is born into a very wealthy family, she will end up with a massive debt load by the time she finishes graduate or professional school.
I have met young doctors who came out of their training with in excess of $300,000 in debt. I know young lawyers with six figure debts.
That's truly and literally insane. How could any culture or nation create a future for itself when it treats students as mortgage holders? How can young people innovate, when they have to toe the line to pay down their debt?
We can spend $750,000,000,000 to pay for arms and wars, and we cannot find $70,000,000,000 (if it would cost that much) to insure that we have a strong medical profession.
The lunatics are definitely running the asylum.
And, it sounds as though your correspondent is managing to stay out of the asylum. Good luck to her.
-
Way to commit professional suicide
Cary Tennis and all those suggesting you do this don't have a clue. When they find out, your undergraduate students will eat you alive. Your colleagues will treat you as a joke. Whatever position one might take on the ultimate morality of all this, you can forget about an academic career if you do it --- except maybe in some backwater where none of the academics have much credibility.
-
I have been mulling over a small point. . .
the point made was, stripping women would commute to farther out communities in order to avoid accidentally stripping for their fathers/brothers.
And I have been wondering, if it's so ok and liberating and free and healthy. . .
why would they care if their dad or brother wanted a lap dance?
The obvious answer is, it's not at all liberating or free.