A lawyer has told how she turned to stripping to pay bills after struggling to find a legal job in recession-weary America.
The attorney, giving her name only as Carla, graduated from law school ten years ago.
But after being made redundant in 2009, she had to take drastic action to avoid drowning in a sea of student loans and other debts.
After working as a waitress and a cashier in a gas station, she told MSNBC she became so desperate she took a job as an exotic dancer.
And now she has turned her finances around – and is earning enough to pay her fees for a Masters degree in law.
‘Did I ever think I’d be taking my top off for rent money? No. I was in my mid-30s and had never danced before,’ Carla, using her stage name, told MSNBC.
‘As a little girl, I never thought to myself, “I just want to grow up and be a stripper,” or, “All I ever wanted to do in life is climb in the lap of a sweaty stranger and take my top off.” But, with our economy the way it is, especially in smaller cities … you strip or you starve,’ she added.
Carla moved to California in the late 1990s to take law in college after growing up the Midwest.
All went well and she managed to get a good job after earning her degree, but the economic downturn left her without a job.
‘I went around to see if could get a job as cocktail waitress, but there was not a single retail or waitress job. No one was hiring, except for the topless places,’ she said. ‘It was an act of desperation.’
Now she earns an average of $20 an hour on weekdays and as much as $50 an hour at weekends.
‘Sometimes it sucks, it’s degrading and I hate it, but it is necessary right now and I’m glad I have the option of doing it.
‘My parents and a few friends know and they were horrified at first.
‘But now they are proud of me for sucking it up and doing what I have to do.’
She draws the line at dancing in private rooms, even though it can be much more lucrative and the bar she works in doesn’t allowed full nudity, which is just as well with her.
Carla is hoping to bade farewell to the stripper pole for good in about six months.
‘While I am proud of making a living by any legal means available to me, I realize that some will think of me as just a glorified legal prostitute and I would very much like to move on with my life and career at the earliest available opportunity,’ she said.
She told MSNBC that she had some close shaves with some aggressive customers.
Some have tried to ‘grab her, bite her, kiss her, or get their hands under the bottoms I wear’ before the bouncers can come to her rescue.
‘I’ve had men overcome me,’ she said. ‘Luckily help has arrived and nothing has happened. But I have been scared.’
But after working among the legal sharks, she said there is much greater camaraderie among the women she works with.
‘I thought the other women I worked with would be competitive and not supportive.
‘We are fighting over the same dollars. But my female coworkers are the best coworkers I’ve ever had.’
‘I work with war widows, a nurse, a med student, women who have had to go to work to save their home after their husbands have lost their jobs, and others who do this as a means to an end and who do not fit the profile of junkie/prostitute/dancer.
‘What we all have in common is being in a tight spot financially and living in an economy that provides limited options right now.
‘I’d be willing to bet that there are women like me working in it all over the country, out of necessity and not because our goal in life was to appear topless in front of creepy guys.’
‘While there are some real creeps that come in, there are also some very sweet guys who are regular customers and who I genuinely enjoy knowing.
‘The stereotype that says that only dirty old men frequent nudie bars is incorrect,’ she said in the interview.
‘I am no better than the next dancer by virtue of my education or previous work experience.
‘The universe has a funny way of putting a person in their place,’ she added.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2037177/Cash-strapped-lawyer-Carla-turns-exotic-dancing-pay-debts.html#ixzz1YlHQiu3G
