Ecdysiastaphobia and a Community College's Answer to It

The strip-tease show, while tacky, seems to unduly upset some people whether for moralistic or aesthetic reasons.  While I can understand the negative response to the term "gentlemen's clubs" in terms of its unwarranted assumption of quality in the attendees there, the typical entertainment that they have is of a low variety.  Still, the stripper is part of the scene.  This was not always  case: some ecydsiasts, to use the term coined first by Henry L. Mencken, were of first-rate talent, seductiveness, and entertainment quality: think of Gypsy Rose Lee, Blaze Starr, Linda Brigette, Lily St. Cyr, and others of the catwalk.

As a former mayor Martin Behrman of New Orleans once observed with regard to prostitution, "You can make it illegal, but you can't make it unpopular."

Anyway, Dr. Chauncey L. Tiddle, President of Swampland Community College in Florida, realized that stripping was a high-paying, seemingly recession-proof job, and he envisioned* this as a possible major to be developed and first offered by his community college.  Certainly, it would earn Swampland CC considerable publicity; even if some of it would come in the form of tut-tut-tuts from the Gray Strumpet in NYC or Faux News.

Some of the envisioned classes could also serve as electives for bored housewives or mistresses-to-be:

Introduction to the Strip Tease

Elementary Poledancing

Selecting the Stripper Wardrobe

Elementary Bump and Grind Techniques

Effective Clothing Discard Techniques

Effective Customer Relations

Encouraging Costume Money Inserts

The Stripper's Gaze as a Performance Feature

It was further felt by Dr. Tiddle, that with the establishment of a coherent curriculum for Professional Ecdysiast Specialists, it would lend a boost of respectability to the profession!  Already the regional academic accreditation association is studying the proposed curriculum, and they are planning to send a visiting team to several strip joints in the Miami area to evaluate the possibilities for a Professional Ecdysiast Specialist major!.

 

The new major served an additional purpose: Persons suffering from ecdysiastaphobia could get over their fear by taking the introductory course, whether they were viewers or performers.

 

*Only college presidents, business CEOs, and national-level politicians can envision; the rest of us just have ideas or notions.  Sorry.  Visions are left to those possible users of hallucinogens.