It can be difficult to escape the classic skint student stereotype when living as a student in Edinburgh. I find myself perpetually making unrealistic budgets, living for loans day and berating my landlord for having the audacity to politely request that the rent be paid on time.

Before landing an admittedly stereotypical job as a waitress, I found myself embarking upon the virtual pilgrimage to the online Mecca of part-time employment – Gumtree. Amongst the slightly offensive advertisements for models turned bartenders and requests for waiters that fluently speak no less than four languages, I stumbled across a lone advertisement: females wanted for call centre work. Expecting to find a job contractually binding me to inform the world of the latest low-cost call plan, I clicked. Alas, not a low-cost call plan in sight. The advertisement was recruiting sex line operators.

 Rarely is there an opportunity for the idiom "put your money where your mouth is" to be taken literally, but I would count this amongst the few exceptions. Having quickly clicked back to the safety of the bar work section, the £5.85 many bars were offering to pull a pint seemed meagre in comparison. The carnal call centre was offering a standard rate of £15 an hour, almost three times minimum wage. And I always thought talk was cheap.

If low quality gangster films have taught us anything, it is that money and morality are often interlinked. Too frequently is our conscience questioned when we consider what we would do for cash. Mandy, a University of Edinburgh graduate who worked as a stripper to fund her studies, explained to The Student: "My motivations were primarily financial. I was also having a good-looking year and reasoned I should put my youthful good looks and magnificent chebs to use."

A survey conducted by The Student which drew responses from 105 Edinburgh University students found that one in five know a fellow student that is actively involved in the sex industry as a means of funding their studies. A number that in reality is probably higher, due to the prevailing stigma which surrounds the sex industry. This marks a significant rise from only three per cent of students ten years ago. With the average student creating debts upwards of £4,500 a year, an increasing number are turning to the sex industry as a means of surviving. The Student’s survey also found that 16 percent of students would consider taking up work as a stripper, lap dancer or escort to fund their studies. Sex sells, but does that mean that students should sell out?

The sex industry itself is certainly no new phenomenon. What is changing however, is the attraction it has to students. What financial situation have we let ourselves in to if a sixth of students have considered this their only option? The obvious answer appears to be the credit crunch - a term too easily thrown at any financially bleak situation. However, our attitudes towards sex have also moved forward enormously as our exposure to the sex industry has escalated greatly. Indeed, The Student’s survey found that 43 per cent of respondents felt that working in the sex industry to fund studies was acceptable. Paying for sex, be it physically or employing the use of a telephone, is becoming less of a taboo topic. Yes, financially the credit crunch has devastated our economy, and yes, the sex industry has experienced an enormous boom. Put them together, and you have an inevitable solution; students clawing their way out of debt using an increasingly prominent option - sex.  

 As with any profession, the job comes in many varying degrees. For those that answered the lone Gumtree advertisement, there is work as a sex line operator. Any freeview box owner who has stayed up past the watershed knows that the media is plagued with advertisements for ‘late night phone fun’. The glamorised images of young girls happily conversing for the ‘low, low price of £3 a minute’ are pin-pointed as the selling point to customers across the UK. Rarely is this the reality. In some cases, the person on the other end of the phone is a student, struggling to fund their course and keep up with their lifestyle. Far from the under-dressed and over-enthusiastic playboy bunny that the caller is expecting, it is an exhausted student merely attempting to make ends meet; in some cases feeling like it is their only option. For those that feel trapped, the ‘low, low cost of £3 a minute’ is a high price to pay.

Mandy points out, however, that many of the worst problems linked to sex work are unassumed: "One of the biggest issues with stripping is the lack of employment rights and the government’s complete failure to recognise or rectify the situation. Problems include having no basic wage so if you don’t make your commission you’re actually in debt to the club, managers having the freedom to charge you anything you like to work in their venue, which can be up to £120 a night, and no laws in a place regarding breaks, working hours or dismissal."

Perhaps the fact that students are so heavily split as to whether prostitution should be legal or not, with 42 per cent saying the profession should remain legal, and 42 per cent saying it should be made illegal suggests that students are unaware of the issues encountered by sex-workers arising from a lack of regulation. 

There are numerous part-time job opportunities for full-time students that offer financial assistance. From bar staff to box office, cafés to call centres (and this time I do mean the non-sexual kind), the opportunities to make money as a student are endless. Amongst my close friends alone, the range is extraordinary; from ghost hunters to golf shop assistants. With such a great variety of employment to choose from, the question has to be asked, why has the sex industry seen such a student boom?

As a number of studies have found, cases of students becoming sex workers to fund their way through University have risen inextricably in the last ten years. It would be foolish of us not to attribute economic and social factors to the enormity of the rise. Indeed, times are hard and in a lot of cases the money is good, but we have to ask ourselves: why are so many people ruling out the safer options? Reports suggest that workers in the sex industry are more likely to be exposed to psychological damage, domestic violence and rape. However Mandy explains another side to this. "The truth of it is: I made a lot of money, had very flexible working hours, met lovely friends and would not have been able to progress in my career had it not been for the money I had made there which enabled me to do months of unpaid work experience."

When Belle de Jour dropped her anonymity and revealed her identity as Dr. Brooke Magnanti, she shocked the world. Having tantalised millions of readers with her secrecy, her online blogs detailing her work as a prostitute were finally revealed to be the work of a cancer research scientist and former university student. She admitted that her purpose for entering the business was to fund her time at University, and that without that regular income, it would have been a struggle. Dr. Magnanti is just one example amongst many.

As long as the job in question is both legal and safe, then it is a student’s prerogative to work anywhere they choose, as long as the choice was made with every option in mind. Whether the night’s tips are found in a jar or in a bra, the moral cost of a job surely must be considered alongside the pay packet. What the survey failed to uncover is exactly how many students are working in the industry against their will.

 Rather than attempting to explain the reasons that the sex industry is on the rise amongst students, we should be looking for ways to understand it. Is there too much financial pressure on young people today? Why is such an expanding business still taboo? A quarter of students have apparently considered it and it is impossible to walk through the city centre without being temporarily blinded by a giant pair of flashing neon breasts, so why does it continue to be secret? As more and more students are using the sex industry as a way out of debt, we have to ask ourselves – why use the red light to get out of the red?