Recession Strippers Are a Myth... Or Maybe It just Seems That Way to Me

I wanted to be a stripper long before I was laid off my bread and butter writing job, the one that turned my three week holiday in New York into a permanent thing almost two years ago and ended in November, but I am not sure I ever would have actually taken the plunge if the job market didn't seem so impenetrable at the moment in NYC.

I keep hearing reports about the recession stripper phenomenon, yet I haven't seen any evidence of it. I've worked at three clubs here in NYC, and I have to say, although I only started in late February, I haven't met another American-born woman who could legitimately say she started stripping for the first time recently because she was laid off of her white collar job. In fact, with only a couple of exceptions at each club, no matter how large or posh, I have found that American-born women are nearly as rare as yetis in this industry altogether. Most white girls who dance seem to be Russian, with a smaller percentage of Eastern Europeans thrown into the mix.

I've been asking everyone where the girls born in the US dance here in NYC, and nobody seems to know. They can't all be escorts, can they?

It's a mystery to me...

Though MSNBC says it' a fact:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29824663/

PS Note how uncomfortable the anchor and correspondent appear to be while presenting this segment.