A Lap-Dancing 'Expert?' That's What a Columbia University Ph.D Calls Herself

Just where, exactly, will a doctorate in anthropology from Columbia University take you in life? For Judith Hanna, Ph.D, it has taken her from the ivy halls of academia to the dimly lit champagne rooms of strip clubs, where she studies the "art" of the lap dance.

While some might envision an anthropologist to be a bespectacled, stern-faced scholar who traverses the globe studying the very bedrocks of civilization, Hanna, instead, treks to strip clubs -- and has over 4,000 times in fact -- to hone her expertise.

To parlay all this "experience" into a lucrative, full-time career, Hanna provides expert testimony in court for clients, generally strip club owners and exotic dancers, who she says are a targets of the "Christian right."

But Hanna's magnum opus might have come recently, when she defended Nite Moves, an "adult" juice bar, and set out to prove why lap dance, as an art-form, should not be subject to sales tax.

FoxBusiness reports:

Nite Moves's accountants held that lap dances were like other artistic performances, and not subject to sales taxes. The club, armed with Hanna's expertise, took the auditor before a New York state administrative law judge and won. The auditor, however, appealed.

The court concluded that Nite Moves did not put up sufficient evidence to back its claims. It said that while Hanna viewed stage performances at the club, she did not actually observe the private performances there.

Still, Hanna made what some might call a compelling argument when she explained how lap-dancing is much like ballet, but more "customized." And, rather than taking place in a grand theater, it takes place "next to a patron's table" and sometimes "on the patron's lap." She says:

"The dancer artistically communicates to a patron, through her

choreographed body movement, proximity, touch and dim light, the fantasy of "I am interested in you and you alone. I understand you. You're special and important to me. I want you. I desire you."

(H/T: FoxBusiness)