She doesn’t fit the stereotype. She’s got a nice body, yes, but not in an overt way. She does not spend time in the tanning bed nor are her boobs made of silicon. She describes herself as shy and nerdy and says she doesn’t like to party.

She pays her way through college by dancing at one of Minneapolis’s most popular strip clubs. But she’s not unintelligent, and she’s not a victim.

The press lately would have us believe that the economy is forcing hordes of intelligent, pure college graduates to turn to stripping. One Associated Press article portrayed strippers as women who could only get through a night by drinking. A woman is quoted, “Once you make an adult film, it never goes away.”

The strip club managers I talked to said that clubs have been hurt just like any other business, and they’ve also seen an increase in applications. “Not even McDonald’s is hiring, so people are trying everything,” says a manager at Schieks.

But no one could point to a huge increase in college graduates wanting to strip. And the dancer I talked to, a third-year Gender, Women and Sexuality Studies major who did not want her name printed, does not see her job as so terrible.

“I think stripping and sex work are a lot more inclusive than a lot of regulated employment,” she says. “Our whole system’s messed up. CEOs get paid more than teachers. It’s a way to live well while we’re all stuck here.”

She originally started because of her major. “I got really sick of sitting in a classroom and discussing and debating these things when everybody in the room had no idea what sex work actually was,” she says. So a year ago, when a friend mentioned how much she liked working at the club, she decided to try it.

“It does get tiring talking to people and trying to fit this fantasy,” she says. But for her the stripping part is not that big of a deal. “Once you’ve worked a few times, taking off your clothes doesn’t even faze you.”

Her job entails maintaining a sort of double life. She said her parents do not know what she does, and she has to be careful about which friends she tells. “I told a friend that I went to high school with,” she says. “And then he told like half of my high school graduating class.”

She doesn’t feel that keeping the two parts of her life separate is always bad, though. “You really have to become this persona at work in order to make money. I would go crazy, personally, if my personas matched,” she says.

“This woman who’s a dancer and a writer—she had this really great quote about being a dancer and not telling anybody. She calls us all ninjas, because we’re everywhere and you never know in what social situation, who’s a sex worker. And we’re such great actresses in both worlds,” she says.

Overall, between the flexible schedule and an average of $300-$500 per night, she does not feel exploited. “There’s the longstanding question of who’s being gypped—is it the dancer or the customer? From my perspective it’s definitely the customer.”