'The manager told me if she had to hug and console every girl who endured rape or violence, they wouldn’t be able to work.' After years of visiting strip clubs and interviewing young women and girls working there, a criminologist dares to reveal the reality of this dark world

“For four and a half years, I sat in the dressing rooms of almost every strip club in Tel Aviv. I didn’t hear a single girl say it was her dream to be there, that she enjoys it, or even that any of the clients seemed nice to her. On the contrary, all the veteran girls, the ones who now claim that the client criminalization law is hurting business, I’ve seen them with my own eyes, heard them with my own ears, saying how they’re ‘dying to quit this stinking job,’ and ‘waiting for the day they can have a normal profession, a home, a family, and a little less shame to carry.’”