Strip Club: "The Uncomfortable Story": Nothing Exotic About It

   She enters into a dark, purple room lit by black lights. A thick cloud of smoke greeted her as she walked in and immediately caked onto her skin like soot. The stench of cigarettes and cheap beer overwhelmed the place. Straight ahead were three poles, all occupied with young lady dancers seeming to be no older than 20. Their faces--Blank. There were other girls occupying the floor, making the acquaintance of the few men that were there. Before she had arrived here, her stomach churned sitting in the car--just the thought. What would she do? What would she say? How naked would these women be exactly? Stepping out of the car feeling nauseous; it did not help to see four mysterious looking men, all with leather jackets, hanging out on the corner of the building. In the lobby was a young girl behind the counter with a gigantic rack (like your typical Hooters waitress). She prints out the receipt and on the top it says "Mini Gulf Club." "What a way to disguise your dirty doings," she thinks. Above there is a sign--THE RULES. "No touching!" stood out like a sour thumb. She and her company proceed...now [we] are back [where we started] in the dark, purple room.
    The bartender is the only sense of welcome allotted to the girls. She talks to the first time visitors and tells them "She doesn't mind her job. It pays good money." Later talking to the girl they paid in the lobby; she has a three year old son. Her boyfriend ran away to Europe when she got pregnant. She had to drop out of college, lives with momma (as she calls her), and is now working at this strip club to save money to go back to school. "It makes good money." The assistant manager (an ex-dancer) comes out and sees the visitor pull out a recording device. "NO!" She screams. "You need to talk with the manager!" So they proceed to a small room with a plastic chair and cheap table with a man behind it who looks like the club owners you see straight out of the movies--Slick back hair, earring, jeans, and a t-shirt underneath of a suit jacket. "Ladies, Ladies" he says smoothly. He reiterates that the girls cannot talk to the dancers. The girls proceed out. Our main character comes back to her dorm and sobs. Her name is Nicole Chadwick.
    A sophomore at Elon University majoring in Broadcast Journalism, originally from Dallas, Texas. She was given the assignment in her Broadcast News Writing class to go to "an uncomfortable place" and find a story. The experience made Nicole second guess her ability to be a journalist. She thinks aloud, "Can I really manage to successfully separate my emotions from stories like these? My personal life from my business life?" The experience was a saddening, yet humbling one. To be in a strip club and see young women her age (20) and possibly even younger giving their bodies away for the whole world to see. "Most of them don't have a choice and most of them don't have much education. They need money and this is the easiest and fastest way to get it," Nicole says. She sniffles and puts herself back in that pitiful memory for a moment and proclaims, "I am so blessed. That could be me. That could be me."

[This story is my re-making/interpretation of an interview I conducted with Nicole Chadwick. This is not for re-print or re-distribution without permission from the writer].