The hard math of beauty and desire is sex equals money and nothing personifies this equation like a strip club. Fancy ones with gown shows and top shelf vodka and dingy ones with stains on their carpets. Topless ones and full nude ones. Ones where you can't touch and ones where you can get beer and pubic hair in the same room. They come in different styles and different atmospheres, and yet they all come attached with a certain stigma; no matter how clean the club, no matter how hot the entertainment, there is something shameful about them and the women who perform on their stages.

The power and draw of erotic dance can be traced back to the biblical story when Salome danced for King Herod, pleasing him so thoroughly that he offered her anything she asked. She requested the head of John the Baptist on a silver platter and, of course, she got it. By the 1800's one could watch the very sexual flamenco dance in European cafes or attend a showgirl performance in Parisian clubs. The real, rowdy, intelligently sexy grandmom of contemporary erotic dance, however, was born in the 1840's with Burlesque theater and its scanty costumes and sexual innuendo. Famous, even respected performers such as Lili St. Cyr and Gypsy Rose Lee introduced the striptease to American audiences before hanging up their g-strings at the Exotic World Burlesque Museum.

Now, with Showgirls and Striptease in the video stores, Howard Stern on the radio, Anna Nicole on E!, Jenna Jameson on the book shelves and Pam Anderson on just about everything, the culture that may marginalize erotic dancers in "real life" betrays an apparent obsession with them in media. Though some may argue that these celebrity strippers only reinforce negative stereotypes about how painted a dancer looks, how stupidly she talks and how trashy she acts, others may insist that the media visibility of strippers at least opens the public eye to the issues that surround them. The adult entertainment industry hauls in about $10 billion a year and strip clubs represent a small but dynamic and controversial portion of the pie. Perhaps because the entertainment is live and perhaps because it breaks the code of acceptable female sexuality, many moral and political issues cling like a spandex gown to the idea of erotic dance.

On many levels, the culture of adult dancers is an organized, united and professional world. There are stripper unions, stripper magazines, stripper stores and even stripper schools. A gal can get her outfit at StripperZone, her knowledge at Erotic Dancer Bulletin, her rights at the International Union of Sex Workers or Erotic Dancers Alliance and her moves from Naked Assets Inc. For that matter, if she's not necessarily into going the full mile but just covets the stripper thighs, some gyms now offer stripper aerobics classes as a pilates alternative. So much for strippers being only the stuff of darkened clubs, married mens' dirty secrets and drug-addicted bimbos' last resorts.

Strippers are largely diverse, professional performers and, at times, among the more liberated and feminist businesswomen in the contemporary workforce. Despite the professionalism of the occupation and the main streaming of the stripper culture, however, there remains something taboo and threatening about erotic dance.

Live, nude dancing is a persecuted profession. From localized restrictions on hours of operation, licensing, zoning, dancer attire and customer contact to the wider ranging implications of Ashcroft's anti-porn crusade, strippers and strip club operators face a definite struggle to protect their rights and occupations. Erotic dance is constitutionally protected under the First Amendment as free speech, meaning that local governments cannot attempt to regulate nude dancing simply because they are offended by it. Unfortunately, our society maintains a fear of sexuality, especially that of women, and a sense that expression of and indulgence in anything other than behind-closed-doors "vanilla" sex is shameful and somehow dangerous.

During the 1972 case of California v. LaRue, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in favor of strict regulations on dress and behavior of dancers working in clubs that serve alcohol. A decision that Justice Thurgood Marshall called "a broadscale attack on First Amendment freedoms," the court insisted that the restrictions would prevent sex crimes and drug use. Subsequent cases involving the constitutionality of restrictions on nude dancing exposed this tension between the freedom of expression and a fear of the indecency and disorder that it could incite. The doctrine of "secondary effects" was developed, allowing governments to inflict their fear of sexual expression upon any club under the pretense of preventing harmful consequences such as decreased property values or high crime rates allegedly associated with strip clubs. Aware of a need to protect their rights, dancers have joined manicured hands with organizations like the Free Speech Coalition, launching stripping from the arena of entertainment to the arena of political activism.

If choosing to perform nude for consenting adults in a safe and legal environment is viewed so negatively by many communities and legislators, the question arises of how such a decision can affect the life of a woman who makes it. A profession that is demanding both physically and emotionally, erotic dancing has its appeal for numerous women from club dancers to feature entertainers. Taking money, creating a character, performing and choosing to display oneself on stage can be considered a seizure of control and a liberating form of sexual expression. Whether students, mothers, single or married women or adult entertainment professionals, all dancers generally share a desire for financial independence and an excitement associated with erotic performance.

For all the financial perks and feminist justifications for erotic dancing, there is no doubt that it is a profession with a high burn out rate. Some dancers speak of it as an addiction, of being hooked on the money and lifestyle. Others become overwhelmed by the negative associations with their professions inside the club and out. Stripping can offer a woman money, confidence and flexibility, but it can also affect her sexuality, identity and relationships.

For Lily Burana, former dancer and author of Strip City, the toll is not "the near-nudity...the physical vulnerability, or working well outside the margins of acceptable female behavior. It's the damn neediness: lonely men professing love...they want some kind of connection, to tap into the life of a live, nude girl."

Pia is a tall, slender blonde, but not in the way that Jenna Jameson or Pam Anderson are tall, slender and blonde. With unstyled hair, natural breasts and no makeup on her honest hazel eyes, she is pretty but simply does not look the part. But then again, she's not at work, so why would she. "If you're a stripper, when you're outside a club, [people think] you have to still be dressing like that," she tosses off as one of the many stripper stereotypes that she's encountered, and it seems ridiculous to think that anyone could look the part all the time.

Pia is undeniably, however, a pro. Having supported herself and her education by dancing for the past eight years, she has worked as a club dancer in New Haven, Connecticut as well as "traveled around with it" to places like Miami and Puerto Rico. Now, at twenty-eight, she feels it's "time to move on," but not because she feels her experience in the industry has been negative. She simply says "it's definitely a career which is geared towards girls when they're younger. And I'm not young anymore."

While Pia refuses to characterize her dancing experience as negative, she does get frustrated by the stereotypes that surround it: "If you're a girl and you're in the industry, then you're easy. You're a slut. You're a drug addict. You must have been abused." She says that she often feels hesitant about discussing her profession with others because "You're not supposed to know a stripper. You're just supposed to go and see them in a club. People don't assume that they exist outside that world and so when they meet them outside that world, sometimes they can't handle it."

The question remains; is a stripper just a stripper, or is she something more? Is she simply a woman who dances nude or is she a symbol of free expression? Some may wish to see her as a subversive super-woman. Peeling off her satin tights she is super-sized femininity, super-sized fantasy; such super-sized sex as if to negate the code of social acceptability entirely. Some may wish to see her as a woman who is doing the job that she chose for herself while others may wish to see her not at all. Not everyone may feel comfortable with spending an evening in a strip club, whether to work or watch, and of course, that is just fine. Many people, however, can enjoy the excitement of erotic dance, the validity of dancing as a profession and the beauty of female sexuality. These are the people who should be applauded for their appreciation rather than shamed, stereotyped, ridiculed or demonized.