While our university scientists investigate teleportation machines, cures for cancer and water on the moon, Leeds University is seeking a lap-dance researcher.
Applicants for the government-funded post within in the School of Sociology and Social Policy must have “prior experience of conducting research in the female sex industry”, and if hired, will delve into the “the rise and regulation of lap dancing and the place of sexual labour and consumption in the night-time economy,” according to the advertisement.
The job will include interviewing more than 300 strippers across the UK to assess their backgrounds and their working conditions in hopes of offering up a picture of how exotic dancing has become mainstream entertainment.
The proposed study has already drawn ire from some anti-government waste crusaders in the United Kingdom, including Susie Squire, the political director of the TaxPayers’ Alliance.
“This is the ultimate non-job and will both anger and bemuse taxpayers,” she said. “It may be a dream job for some men, but it’s just another nightmare of public sector waste for the ordinary people who pay for it.”
But sociologists from the school insist that the research project will provide insight into the growing commercialisation of women’s bodies and sexuality. Sounds like sexy research with serious implications to us.