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    Default Stripper Student Article

    Student by day, stripper by night
    Dancers often struggle to balance professional, school commitments
    By Zack Teibloom | Indiana Daily Student | Wednesday, February 07, 2007
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    A stripper who calls herself Portia shows off her dancing skills at Night Moves in Bloomington. Portia is one of 10 students who dance at the club for college money. Ronni Moore/IDSLit up by a series of blacklights that reflect off walls splashed with neon Jackson Pollack-esque paint, a student dancer who calls herself Portia spins around on a pole at Night Moves in Bloomington. As she strips, her panties accidentally come undone in front of one of her professors who's visiting the club. Suddenly, Portia's dual identity of student by day, stripper by night, is as exposed as her privates.

    She's one of 10 students among the club's 35

    dancers, working to earn enough money in tips to cover books and tuition.

    Though tips can be high, working as a dancer while being a full-time student still has its downsides, from both a social and an academic perspective.

    Balancing herself upside down while spreading her legs on a pole appears to be easier than balancing working late at night and getting up early for class.

    "It's hard to get up for your 8 a.m. after giving lap dances until 3:30 a.m.," said Portia, a junior. "By the time you get home, it's almost time for class."

    Night Moves waitress and former dancer Heather Emerson has also had her share of problems balancing both sides of her double identity. The semester when she was in a small discussion class of eight students, her professor came into the club, paid the entrance fee and left immediately after making eye contact with her.

    "It was awkward talking to him after that," said Emerson, who plans to graduate next spring.

    She said several people she knows, including her school principal, math teacher and people she went to Sunday school with, have seen her perform. Her ex-boyfriend's dad came in as well but, instead of leaving upon recognizing his son's ex, paid her for three lap dances and asked her not to tell his son about it.

    Aside from the occasional awkward encounter, a number of the dancers said they have a good relationship with regular customers and their bosses. One of Portia's best customers brings her cookies on days she has tests and gives her $200 at the beginning of the semester for book money. Her regulars treat her like family, and often order her favorite kind of pizza and have it waiting for her when she comes in to work.

    But dancing for strangers can be dangerous, and dancers have to put up with threatening men inside and outside the club. Portia said she always carries mace with her in case someone follows her home. Inside the club, Emerson has to hide her emotions while dealing with rude customers, she said. Dancers are never completely nude, they are required to wear panties and cover their nipples at all times.

    Emerson said guys have told her they've slept with hotter women and that she has the smallest breasts they've ever seen, but she has to just grin and bear it.

    "At first you think it's a great job," Emerson said. "You just take your clothes off and make money, but eventually guys say things that get to you. I just smiled the whole time, but I really wanted to punch him in the face."



    Student dancers

    Even among the dancers there is a great deal of fighting. Emerson left her job at Brad's Brass Flamingo in Indianapolis after another dancer punched her in the face during an argument. Portia has seen women strangle each other at Night Moves over wearing another dancer's outfit without asking and both she and Emerson said there is a ton of cat-fighting in the club. However, they try to stay out of it.

    Night Moves Co-owner Rodney Domer said there's a clear difference between the student dancers and the other women.

    "Students act more intelligently," he said. "They're here to make money, while some of the other others use it like a night out."

    Domer even helps students out by giving them the night off when schoolwork becomes stressful. He also said he lets them use the club's wireless Internet to do homework on the premises.

    IU graduate Nicki, a waitress at the club who wished not to be identified, said her gender studies major has helped her see stripping from a different perspective. From what she's learned, she said the feminist movement has varying opinions on whether it's degrading to women or empowering.

    "You know, student by day stripper by night," she said. "They come here and take guys' money making them think they're something they're not. Why not?"

    She said she definitely notices a difference between student dancers and others.

    "The way they carry themselves and treat customers, they have different social skills than some the other girls and I think it helps them make more money," Nicki said.



    Three-figure tips

    Money is the reason the women dance in the first place, and they make a lot of it. Emerson said she makes about $200 a night in tips as a waitress, while Portia brings in $700 to $1,000 on a good weekend night. Her earnings allowed her to pay for a new $16,000 car in cash after a year of working.

    Most men sitting in what the dancers refer to as "pervert row" -- the chairs around the stage -- tip a dollar or two, but dancers remember their biggest tips well. The day after Christmas, one guy was so happy to have 15 minutes with Emerson that he gave her a $200 dollar tip and said "Merry Christmas." The tips are often given for the dancing, but men will occasionally proposition sex for a much larger tip. One man put $1,000 dollars on the table and propositioned Portia, but she turned him down.

    The money was what attracted Emerson to stripping, since she was trying to find a way to get out of her parents' house and get her own apartment. But her plan left her on her own quicker than she thought. Her parents found out the day after she started stripping and kicked her out, forcing her to pack a garbage bag full of clothes and find a new place to stay.

    She said that ever since she started dancing, she hasn't done as well in school, and she said she imagined a different life for herself.

    "If I could do it again I probably would have found another way to get out of my mom's house," Emerson said. "I could have lived in the dorms, known different people and I would have graduated by now."

    Portia had friends who danced and decided to do it after breaking up with a boyfriend who was against it. When college ends, Portia plans to end her dancing career. For her, it's just a way to make money and a little secret that she'll keep from her future husband and family.

    "I will never tell my future husband," she said. "I don't think a respectful person will respect what I've done."

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    Veteran Member Cyndi08's Avatar
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    Default Re: Stripper Student Article

    I didn't like that last comment. A respectful person whom you marry should love you for who you are, not who you tell them you are... including your past... but that's just my opinion I guess. Dancing is not something to be ashamed of. It's a job, like modeling or anything in the fashion industry.

    Good article.

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    Default Re: Stripper Student Article

    What is with the photo tho'? Couldn't they find a better one?

    Article was decent enough. The last comment made by "Portia" is a little wrong IMO.

    This is a legitmate business. I should know, I pay tax on it!


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    Default Re: Stripper Student Article

    What about the fact that as a student, stripping enables you to only work a couple days a week, yet still make as much money in that week that alot of people make in a month. And you get to live comfortably unlike alot of other college students that have to work all the time while still not making enough to live. I've done both, and stripping is by far the better deal.

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    Default Re: Stripper Student Article

    That article sucks. Poorly written and inaccurate to boot.
    "Doc still loved true things, but he knew it was not a general love and it could be a very dangerous mistress." - John Steinbeck, Cannery Row


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    Default Re: Stripper Student Article

    her outfit just makes her look like a gogo dancer and not a stripper




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    Default Re: Stripper Student Article

    A respectful person won't repsect what she's doing? Then she's not respectful? What?

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    Default Re: Stripper Student Article

    Hmm, I find it odd that she is unable to keep up her grades dancing. I mean, if she's really making the amounts of money she claims, and her boss is really that great, she could take days off to study. Hell, this semester my grades are the best they've ever been.
    I believe you Dottie and you have my support

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    Default Re: Stripper Student Article

    Let me also point out that I've worked with girls that came from clubs in Bloomington and they were shocked to find out that $150 wasn't a GREAT night. So I think she may have been playing up the money she was making. Maybe not, but I tend to think otherwise. Considering Bloomington is mainly filled with broke college kids........

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    Default Re: Stripper Student Article

    Quote Originally Posted by GoldCoastGirl View Post
    What is with the photo tho'? Couldn't they find a better one?
    Perhaps she didn't want to show her face? But, still, a crap picture.

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    Default Re: Stripper Student Article

    Sounds like propaganda.

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    Default Re: Stripper Student Article

    Quote Originally Posted by Optimist View Post
    Sounds like propaganda.
    That's what I was thinking. I mean this just sounds like the same canned student who strips story that I've been reading in college campus papers for about the last 15 years.
    Former SCJ now in rehab.

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