"18 years later, I'm still stripping.  It's gotten harder in the past few years to explain this.  For most of my years in the industry, I have been a university student.  When I was younger, it was a very plausible story: the stripper working her way through college.  I finished one degree, entered my mid-twenties, decided I was enjoying life too much as it was, so continued stripping, and headed back to school for another degree.  I traveled lots, earned the envy of others while at the same time accumulating greater disdain.  It was celebrated that I was so committed to my education, so well traveled and free-spirited, but there was a growing sense of impatience among my loved ones about when I would exit the sex industry.

[...]

Apparently when you are in the sex industry, the only way to keep it remotely respectable is to have a clearly mapped out plan for your escape.  It doesn’t matter if you are happy, healthy, satisfied.  You MUST have an exit plan."

-- Wrenna Roberston, in The Healing Power of Sex Work on lovesexfamily.com