Ivy League Stripper
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Heidi Mattson was raised in small-town New England, third in a family of four daughters. She was smart, ambitious, and ready for the world when the letter of acceptance came from Brown University, one of the most coveted and prestigious Ivy League schools. It was her dream come true, and yet without substantial monetary assistance the dream might never be realized. Working every part-time job she could until school began, Heidi scrimped and saved, budgeted every penny, and pulled together enough - with the Brown financial aid package - to pay her tuition, room, and board for the first year. But despite jobs waitressing and cleaning during her hours away from class, the money just wouldn't hold out. There seemed no way to keep up with the mounting tuition, book costs, and other bills, and working and studying full time was beginning to take its toll. A chance advertisement for the Foxy Lady - a local Providence nightclub - caught Heidi's attention, and, wary but open-minded, she decided to check it out. She promised herself, however, that the moment she felt compromised in any way she would be out the door. After a reassuring tour of the place, which catered to a wide range of customers and offered multiple nightly events, Heidi felt that this just might be the way to solve her problems. She signed on with the Foxy Lady, and before long her charm, beauty, and natural charisma won her a place as one of the club's top attractions. Heidi managed to balance her life at the Foxy Lady with her life at Brown, but for two years she couldn't bring herself to tell her family - especially her mother. When she finally did, the repercussions were dramatic and unexpected. Nevertheless she persevered, and graduated from Brown with a B.A. in English and American literature, having successfully straddled the worlds of sex and scholarship, learning more than a bit about human nature in the process. Publishers Weekly From a working-class family, Mattson was seriously in debt after two years at Brown University, where she wanted to remain to achieve her dream-an Ivy League education. Having tried her hand at a series of jobs that still left her unable to make ends meet, she took a shot at stripping, which, she quickly discovered, generated enough income to finance her education and then some. Moreover, she asserts, this career, which she embarked on with some trepidation, proved to be immensely empowering: drawing on the work of Camille Paglia, Mattson argues that men's desire for the female body empowers women who exploit this. While not all readers may agree with her version of gender politics, Mattson's account of how she negotiated an often bizarrely disjunctive double life during her remaining time at Brown is interesting and inspirational, and her commentary on the worlds between which she moved is clear-eyed and astute. Photos not seen by PW. (May)
