Paris- A 26-year old film student at the prestigious Sorbonne University in Paris has sparked controversy by starring in porn movies to pay for her upkeep – evidence of a growing phenomenon of French students selling their flesh to stay afloat.
Rachel – her stage name – said that she began her career in erotic films 18 months ago after replying to a newspaper advert by a production company because she “didn’t have a penny”.
The fresh-faced brunette, who lives in Paris’s chic 15th arrondissement, was taken on by John B. Root – a well-known name in the erotic film industry.
Just like other Sorbonne students, she attends lectures and writes essays on her laptop from her small flat.
But she has just finished acting in a film that will be broadcast on France’s top pay-TV channel Canal Plus.
Her £1,200 monthly wage now helps pay for her accommodation and studies.
While other professors were appalled, her art philosophy tutor stood by her choice.
“When the big cheeses at the University found out she was in X-rated films, they turned the other way. Their silence was scornful,” Francois Aubral told the newspaper Le Parisien.
“But this girl is very sensitive and intelligent,” he added.
Citing the great 17th century philosopher Baruch Spinoza, Mr Aubral said his student had “understood” his famous statement that: “the soul is the idea of the body.”
Describing her extra-curricular profession as “art”, the student, who will not reveal her real name, said it helped her escape family and drug-related problems.
“I am neither a feminist nor submissive, but I am challenging myself and I’m challenging society,” she said.
Her dissertation is on the Amazons, all-female warriors of Greek mythology. “Perhaps I am an Amazon,” she said.
The story of Rachel comes weeks after a property-for-sex scandal erupted over the growing number of young French women prepared to sleep with strangers in exchange for accommodation.
France was first alerted to the problem by the account of Laura D, whose book, (Mes Chères Études), details the anonymous young woman’s slide from being an undergraduate, to a poverty-stricken student, to a 19-year-old selling her body to pay the rent.
In French property websites it is easy to spot advertisements including the words contre services – when a room in an apartment is offered, sometimes “free”, in exchange for services.
Some of these clearly imply that the services should be of a sexual nature.
France is in the grip of its worst housing crisis since the end of World War II, with property prices rocketing in recent years and demand far outweighing supply, particularly in Paris.