At What Price?

It seems as though every time I turn on my T.V I am smacked in the face with half naked females shaking their butts in a camera for some hip hop artists music video. After a quick look of disgust I wonder if their parents are proud of what they are doing with their lives. I wonder if their parents even know that the booty they are looking at is their youngest daughters, who was thought to have more sense than to run around with a g-string on for a couple of dollars. I never really understood why so many girls want to be video girls and why they seem to degrade themselves to everyone staring at them each time the video airs. So I propose the question, "At what price will you push you self respect and dignity aside in order to move up in an industry that could potentially be the 'chance of a lifetime'?" I have tried many times to see how these girls are looking at the world, from their perspective, but I cannot ever come to the conclusion that what they are doing is at all the "chance of a lifetime" or the ideal dream job. I know many girls who love to dance and want to be in these videos to show off their footwork, not their butt cheeks. If I was a dancer, and I went to a video audition to dance, and they determined whether I would be in the video by my bra size, I would leave right then and there. I do not believe that there is any amount of money someone could pay me to take my clothes off for a simple music video. That one music video could potentially boost my career, or it could do absolutely nothing. Then I just took my clothes off in front of hundreds of men for nothing but a "good job". It's not worth it in the least.
Self respect is very important to me and seeing all these young beautiful women running around in nothing but lingerie thinking they are going to be famous after this video and snag them a NFL player, is saddening. Do you ever wonder what happened to all those girls in the infamous "Tip Drill" video? How many other videos have you seen them in? I may have seen one or two of the girls from that video in another one, but the rest... well, they just got a credit card swiped down their ass for basically nothing.
Now, I have seem numerous videos on MTV and BET that show fully clothed girls all throughout, and I enjoy the video just as much. Degrading yourself and lowering whatever standards you have for yourself for a few dollars is something that is not worth it in the long run. Sure you were paid $5,000 to slap your butt cheeks together for Diddy, but what do you have to show for it? That money will be gone soon, but the video will not. That video only has to air once for someone to record it and share it with everyone, including your family. And when they see it and ask why you would do such a thing, what are you going to say? That you got paid $5,000 to take off your clothes? You better come up with a better answer than that.