Ever since controversial undergrad/Duke porn star Belle Knox announced she’d be headlining her first strip show in NYC on Friday, college students have been racing to the poles.
Mike Diaz, manager of Show Palace, the all-nude joint in Queens where Knox will undress for a $2,000 fee, says that he’s been flooded with applicants eager to pay off college tuitions since the deal was inked in March.
“Some of these girls came out of school with a $50,000 [or] $100,000 debt. And this is a way for them to not have this debt,” says Diaz.
Plus students “can work around their school schedule very nicely with the gentlemen’s club industry,” adds Jeff Levy of the Association of Club Executives of New York, a trade and advocacy group for the adult entertainment industry.
We talked to three city coeds who signed up to strip at Show Palace. Each averages three nights and $1,500 to $2,000 a week, which goes toward tuition, school supplies, rent, savings and to their families.
Here, they bare all:
Vaughn Jackson, 20, A K A “Hennessy”
School: Baruch College
Major: Foreign language (Jackson speaks Arabic, Spanish and French)
Stripping since: September
How she got started: “My first semester, I was working five days a week at the 40/40 club from 6 p.m. to 4 a.m. trying to cover expenses like books. It’s crazy. You put yourself through hell. My grades sucked. Because of that, Baruch pulled all my financial aid . . . They said you need to get your grades up before you can get it back. But I couldn’t pay to go to school and get my grades up. It was a Catch-22. I couldn’t even go to the bank and take out a private loan. I tried everything. And so my friend said, ‘Come to Show Palace. [You can] make $1,500 one night and that’s a payment on school.’ So that was a quickly solved problem.”
Pole-dancing & proud: “A lot of girls marry guys for money and I feel like they’re being dependent. Whereas, you can come here and do your thing . . . and you’re becoming independent. You earn all your own money. You’re not depending on any man or mother or father, sister or brother. I feel like stripping’s empowering because I’m not really doing anything. I can stand there and somebody could walk up to me and throw me a couple hundred dollars and that’s it. It feels good.”
The Belle Knox effect: “She’s helping me come out of my shell. I’ve started being more open about it, realizing that stripping doesn’t need to be this secret.”
Motivation: “I think I’m going to do it until I reach [the] goal I’ve set. I want to save $1 million. I think I could do it only from stripping money. I have 50 grand so far.”
Bringing class to the club: “I bring my iPad on the train and do reading for class. If it’s not busy at the club, I will sit in the back and read. I study Monday morning.”
Biggest tip: “Some football team came in and they were going crazy. They probably left me $500.”
Her parents don’t know she strips . . . yet: “I could tell them at Thanksgiving dinner like everyone else. Or, they can find out in the New York Post.”
Dream job: “I would really like to travel and curate for different museums and collect art pieces. I really love art.”
Amanda Peña, 18, A K A “Egypt”
School: Borough of Manhattan Community College
Major: Criminal justice
Stripping since: March
How she got started: “I had read about Belle Knox in Rolling Stone. I mean, porn isn’t for me, but living in East Harlem, my parents don’t really have an income . . . I decided, OK, if this is a way of me being able to get money, I could totally come here.”
Pole dancing & proud: “I’m very open. My parents know. My whole family knows. They’re very supportive. But as far as school, I try not to mix my personal life.”
Motivation: “Not many of my immediate family members have graduated from high school and college. They all thought I was going to be 16 and pregnant. I wanted to prove them wrong, but also prove myself right . . . save money and go to school.”
Biggest tip: “A few hundred dollars.”
Dream job: “I think I want to change my major to business and own a strip club now.”
Maran Gorham, 20, A K A “Xena”
School: School of Visual Arts
Major: Graphic design
Stripping since: November
How she got started: “It started for a performance art project I wanted to do. I had been taking stripping classes, but they were too expensive, like $500 a month, so I decided to take the traditional route in learning how to pole dance and work at an actual club.”
Pole dancing & proud: “Once I got into it, I actually really liked it. I was really comfortable in my own skin. So that just made me keep going . . . So many people are going through so much debt with student loans, it’s almost ridiculous to ask people not to do stripping or porn to pay for that.”
Motivation: “My college tuition is $30,000 a year. And I was very fortunate for my grandparents to have enough money to pay for the first few semesters, but I’ve kind of run out of money at this point.”
Biggest tip: “Around $300.”
Her parents don’t know she strips . . . yet: “Hell, no! Their biggest concern would be, ‘Is it safe?’ I don’t think they would have that big of an issue with my being naked.”
Dream job: “My ultimate dream career would be to own a studio where people could learn to paint and also do yoga.”