Extinguishing the “Temptation of Monetary Inducements”: The State Regulation and Stigmatization of Adult Entertainment Recruiters on Post-secondary Campuses in British Columbia

In this article, we explore the directive issued in August 2012 by the Minister of Advanced Education in British Columbia to ban “aggressive” adult entertainment recruiters from campus job fairs. We argue that the Liberal minister’s move to differentiate “appropriate” and “safe” employment from the purportedly perilous behaviour intrinsic to “exotic dancing” deflects attention from the economic crisis facing most post-secondary students. We contend that exotic dancing is being used as a convenient scapegoat, a bottomless container for fear and anxiety eminently exploitable in the service of moral governance masquerading as state advocacy. Some students already work in the sex industry, including the world of commercial burlesque. The minister’s message to university and college presidents in British Columbia reads as a cynical, desperate ploy a) to exploit fear for political gain, and b) to obfuscate the grave, deepening crush of debt shouldered by post-secondary students.