Who's hiring?...the adult entertainment industry

Will someone in Nashville please give this girl a good job and get her out of the strip clubs?

Jobs, money attract many unemployed to adult entertainment sector

By Janell Ross • THE TENNESSEAN • October 19, 2009

Jamie Tillman looked for a job for nearly eight months.

The 22-year-old applied to sit-down restaurants, fast-food chains and retail stores at the mall — all the kinds of places she has worked before.

But in August, with the unemployment rate at 9.6 percent in Davidson County and 10.7 percent statewide, she wasn't having much luck. After losing her car and running out of friends' couches to sleep on, Tillman found herself in a Nashville homeless shelter.

To get there, she walked past one of the city's five adult entertainment clubs. Then it hit her.

"I wonder what it takes to work in there," said Tillman.

She explained her situation to the manager, who guided her through the application process for obtaining a sexually oriented business license from Metro. On Tuesday, she and five other applicants went to the Metro Office Building on Second Avenue to receive their permits.

Tillman worked in an adult entertainment club for the first time Thursday night. (The Tennessean is not naming the establishment at Tillman's request, though the paper did verify her employment there.)

Across the country, there is anecdotal evidence that the number of people entering sex industry work — legal and illegal — is on the rise as joblessness continues, said Bernadette Barton, an associate professor of sociology and women's studies at Morehead State University in Kentucky who specializes in the study of sexuality.

In clubs visited by The Tennessean for this story, there was a former real estate agent, a former dog groomer and Iraq war veterans — all new to the industry and working in the clubs because of the economy, they said.

read the entire article at the Tennessean...the rest of the Jamie Tillman story there is sad but unfortunately may be somewhat typical.