LEEDS, England – College students from middle-class backgrounds compose nearly one-third of exotic dancers in the UK, a pair of academics at the University of Leeds has discovered.

For their study, published in the British Journal of Sociology of Education, Teela Sanders and Kate Hardy interviewed about 200 strippers, ultimately concluding that “growing acceptance and normalization of adult entertainment among undergraduate students in the United Kingdom,” not desperation, contributed to many of the young women’s choice of part-time jobs.

Many of the dancers “are from middle-class backgrounds,” Sanders told Times Higher Education magazine. “They are not coming from families where money is a big issue.”

In fact, according to the study’s authors, “normalization of porn” and a general trend toward “raunch culture” have given rise to “increased ‘respectability’ in how people view adult club services as leisure and also work.” Clubs now openly advertise for new talent by distributing flyers during university “freshers’ weeks,” or freshman orientations.

Many of the dancing students who participated in the study indicated their choice is justifiable for two interconnected reasons: Stripping is “increasingly acceptable, because there is arguably less stigma attached to the industry,” and higher education’s skyrocketing expense can burden graduates with years of debt unless they are independently wealthy or find a good-paying job during their student years.