“I would never recommend that any girls go into this industry”: In conversation with a Warwick student stripper

This article contains adult themes.

Students are often surprised to hear that Leamington Spa has a strip club. Tucked behind an unassuming black door across from Kelsey’s, the venue is marked by metallic letters spelling SHADES above a corner store. Billed as a ‘gentlemen’s club’, it draws a mix of locals, students, and out-of-town visitors.

Inside, it’s just as you’d expect — poles and private booths in a dimly lit room, mirrored walls reflecting the glow of red LEDs. What we didn’t expect was our meeting with Phoenix, a student dancer who worked there and agreed to join us for coffee.

I’m not ashamed of what I do

Phoenix, not her real name, has worked as a language teacher since she was 19 and has been dancing on and off for over a decade. Working internationally and across the UK, she has gained two years of experience at Shades Gentleman’s Club. 

A mature Arts student at Warwick University, Phoenix balances her degree alongside working at the club full-time during the holidays and when necessary during term time. 

“I’m not ashamed of what I do,” she asserts. Due to her age, Phoenix finds herself in the minority among younger undergraduates. “I normally tell everybody. But at uni, because I already feel quite ostracised, I don’t want to give anyone any other reason to gossip about me.”

We asked Phoenix about her decision to go back to university after a significant time out of education. “I actually applied quite a few times to go to uni. I always got in. But I just kept changing my mind. I wanted to travel and live abroad.”

In 2023, over 56,000 students engaged in sex work to make money at university, such as taking intimate photos of themselves for money, phone sex, or escorting. Phoenix disagrees with strippers being classified as ‘sex workers’ and sees herself as an ‘indirect sex worker’ as no part of her job can be classified as ‘sex’. Dancing is vital to supporting Phoenix’s degree: “I do have my loans, but that doesn’t cover my living costs. So the only way that I can afford to be at university is to work at Shades.”

On a good night, she can take home hundreds of pounds and the night we met her, Phoenix made £700 – an amount which would take a minimum-wage worker over 60 hours to earn. However, she can also “come home with nothing” on a particularly bad night.

Dancing and studying do not always go hand in hand for Phoenix, as the late nights required at her job often get in the way of her degree. Phoenix describes her first-year attempts to “juggle” online tutoring in the afternoons, a full-time degree, and working at Shades. “And that was way too much.”

The balancing act is necessary for Phoenix, as her degree is required to kickstart her goal of becoming a full-time teacher. Working at Shades isn’t a job Phoenix intends to do for much longer and she does not view it as a career, just a means of earning fast cash. She expresses that stripping has a biological “time limit” and Phoenix views it as a financial means to an end: a well-paid teaching position.

A Higher Education Policy Institute survey found that 56% of UK undergraduates take on paid employment while at university. Phoenix’s job allows her to earn significantly more than other students in a far shorter period. On a good night, she can take home hundreds of pounds and the night we met her, Phoenix made £700 – an amount which would take a minimum-wage worker over 60 hours to earn. However, she can also “come home with nothing” on a particularly bad night.

Phoenix is self-employed and pays a house fee for each shift she works. She earns her income by performing private dances that are priced by duration: £20 for three minutes, £60 for a 10-minute “VIP” dance, £120 for 20 minutes, and £160 for half an hour. The club takes a 25% cut at the end of the night.

According to her, working at a strip club is rife with competition. “I’ve worked at a lot of different clubs and some of them are so competitive. In London, a girl actually pushed me to the ground to get to a customer before me.” Because more dances equates to more money, the club has an “unspoken rule” that the first dancers to be ready are the first to speak to customers. “Not everybody respects the rules, but it’s a very competitive environment because everyone is there to make money.”

Phoenix has cultivated a “good relationship” with Shades’ management over the past two years. “I’m one of the older girls, I’m one of the top earners, and I’m really chummy with the manager. That means that I always get my shifts. Even if they’re full, they’ll let me in.” 

As we spoke to Phoenix, we were confronted with our own preconceptions about indirect sex work – humbled by the extent to which Hollywood films and a lack of genuine understanding shaped our view. We were curious as to how Phoenix navigates the social stigma surrounding her profession, especially with her friends and family. “I’ve never had anyone say ‘Oh my god, that’s disgusting! What are you doing?’, like never. When I first started, I told everybody and people would say ‘Oh that’s so cool’, people still do. People are more curious than judgemental … the most judgemental people I’ve come across are in the club already. Guys think that they can be arseholes and come wanting to disrespect us. They think that we’re there because we’re desperate. I’m not there because I’m desperate. I’m there because I want to live a certain lifestyle while I’m at uni.”

please, please, please, print the negatives of the job.

At this point in the conversation, Phoenix takes it upon herself to clarify what her job entails, “One thing that I don’t think that people understand is what actually goes on in the club … very recently my mum asked me what I actually do at work. This is 15 years after I started. She thought that it was like a peep show. She thought that I was dancing while men touched themselves. I was so shocked. First of all, that’s really, really, really yucky. And not at all what happens. So, the girls get fully naked. I don’t care. I’m very happy on a nudist beach, that doesn’t bother me at all. The men either have their hands by their side, behind their backs, or limited touching. They’re not allowed to touch themselves. If it’s a couple, they’re not allowed to touch each other.” Phoenix describes her job as a “performance”, emphasising that “it’s not an interactive thing”.

We inquire into Phoenix’s likes and dislikes of working at the club. As for her pros, she enjoys the “freedom and flexibility” that comes from being self-employed, allowing her to “work as little or as much” as she likes. “There’s no interview, there’s no waiting 6 weeks till you get paid. It’s very quick access to money.” Phoenix also enjoys the “sociable aspect” of her job. “I’m a very sociable person, I love meeting new people. Although the interactions aren’t always genuine, sometimes you meet really interesting people and it can be really fun. I love the girls. The girls who are my friends, we are very, very close because it’s the kind of job that you cannot understand what it’s like unless you’ve done that job. We have a bond that you can’t find anywhere else. And I like to be Phoenix. I like to have this kind of alter-ego, it’s fun.”

As we progress into the cons of working at a strip club, Phoenix’s tone shifts to convey greater severity. “One thing that’s really important to me is that I don’t want this to go in the uni newspaper and be an advertisement for ‘go and work at Shades’. I would never recommend that any girls go into this industry.” Addressing us personally, Phoenix urges us to “please, please, please, print the negatives of the job.” 

“It’s not all fun and games.” Phoenix conveys how stripping is a “gateway” to the abuse of alcohol and drugs, putting pressure on “vulnerable or impressionable” young girls. Stripping is also a conduit to other direct sex work such as prostitution and porn. “I’ve never crossed that boundary, I’ve always been very strict with what I will and won’t do. But I know a lot of girls who start out very sweet and innocent, and then six months later, they’re going to after-parties and meeting up with customers outside of work.”

The men are often very rude, disrespectful… the amount of times I used to cry in the changing room because men would upset me.

“It’s very easy [to be negatively influenced]. Every single night that I work, somebody will offer me money to go to their hotel with them. I don’t care enough about money to do that, but it would be very, very tempting for someone younger and more impressionable.”

The job also places immense pressure on body image. “I’m really fortunate that I’ve never had any issues with my body image. But there are a lot of girls who start when they’re young and they start to get their lips done … and then they go and get a boob job, and then it’s something else.” It’s difficult, Phoenix relates, “When you’re being financially validated for your appearance.” “If you don’t have a very strong sense of your own value, then your self-worth can become dependent on how much money you’re making.”

“I don’t think young girls should be allowed [to strip]. When you are 18, you are so young, you’re being told ‘Oh, you’re so beautiful! Here are hundreds of pounds because you’re beautiful, it can create a very unhealthy relationship with money and make girls feel insecure.” Phoenix started stripping when she was just 20 and was “very, very upset a lot of the time” when she was starting out. “The men are often very rude, disrespectful… the amount of times I used to cry in the changing room because men would upset me.”

I’ve just seen so many girls come in and they’re so young and so lovely and then 6 months later, they’re just these monsters.

“You have to put up with a lot of very disrespectful people. And you also have to put up with being touched, which I think is extremely unhealthy for young people.” 

Now later on in her career, Phoenix has developed coping mechanisms for dealing with disrespect. “Now I just walk away because it’s not even worth getting upset about because they’re just ignorant idiots”. Creating boundaries is important to Phoenix in order to safeguard herself, “I never lost myself in the job… I’d turn up to work and put the eyelashes on and I’d be Phoenix. I always managed to keep that distinction between who I am outside of work and who I am inside of work. I’ve just seen so many girls come in and they’re so young and so lovely and then 6 months later, they’re just these monsters.”

Phoenix’s comments raise questions regarding the club’s treatment of the dancer’s safety. Clubs such as Shades are required to provide panic buttons for the dancers in case of danger. There are “cameras everywhere” used to monitor activity in the ‘private’ rooms. Aside from the physical dangers, we ask Phoenix what aspects of her profession she finds emotionally or physically exhausting. “You’re up all night, you’re walking around in ridiculous shoes, and you’re dancing. So it is very physically tiring. Emotionally tiring, probably because you have to be so incredibly patient. When people are being rude to you, it takes a lot of strength to walk away or to not argue back. Someone might call you a prostitute and upset you, and then you have to walk over to another customer and say ‘Hi! How are you?’”

Phoenix holds her hand high in the air. “You always have to be up here. Always happy, bubbly, confident, witty. Mentally, it’s draining, because you’re having six hours of conversation … I don’t get paid to sit and chat with customers, I have to get them in the VIP room, so the conversation needs to be carefully guided towards that the entire time. I will talk to a customer for a maximum of 10 minutes and then either directly suggest we have a dance, if not then I have to start all over again with the next customer. I rely on my conversation skills to keep them in the VIP room, as I’m unwilling to push the rules or boundaries to get them to spend more money on me. Sometimes I have to make conversation, with often quite boring, men for hours on end. And there’s no downtime, it is very draining.”

Picking up on Phoenix’s allusions to the disrespect she has experienced, we delved into her opinions on some of her clients. “There are some men who are spending hundreds of pounds on you, and then their phone goes off and there’s a picture of a young woman with two babies and you think ‘Why are you in here, spending money when you’ve got a family at home?’. I can’t judge them, because they’re paying my bills. This is one of the ethical dilemmas that this job poses for me, and why I never push people to spend more money than they want to.”

Despite the competitive nature of the profession, Phoenix describes the bond she has with other women in the industry. “There’s a solidarity with the girls. Because we’ve all got our own story as to why we’re here. A lot of girls might start that job because they were teenage mothers and they need money to support their kids. A certain kind of person is drawn to that kind of work [stripping]. Most of us probably had some kind of difficult childhood. If you’re well-rounded and have healthy aspirations, I don’t think you would do that job.”

Phoenix speaks about the fellow girls at Shades with affection, sharing her perspective on the female experience: “There is a lot of patience, a lot of strength, and a lot of confidence that you need to live in this modern world as a woman. I’ve found that working at a strip club has been very empowering to me.”

Reflecting on her wider thoughts of the industry, we probed Phoenix on her take on whether strip clubs and the industry surrounding stripping were ethical: “I do think that it can be done ethically and in a way that would be healthy for the girls. But, unless a club is very strict about the rules, it’s not gonna happen.”