But this is one stripper who doesn't live up to the stereotype. Charley spends her evenings taking her clothes off to pay for a degree in sports science - her passport, she hopes, to a better life.
"Stripping is just an escape from everything. I go in there and I'm a completely different person."
Charley, who grew up in one of the less salubrious parts of Edinburgh, adds: "A lot of people that I grew up with don't really care and just skive.
I'm totally the opposite. Because the place I live in isn't a very good area, I want to be better and do my family proud. To do that, I am a stripper."
With universities charging £9,000 a year or more in tuition fees, she's far from being the only student to turn to sex work to survive.
A recent study published by the British Journal of Sociology of Education found that as many as one in three strippers are students and blamed the figure on the increasing costs of tuition fees.
And it's not just strip clubs that have benefited from students who turn to sex work to pay their fees.
Others fund their studies by turning to sugar daddy websites such as Sponsor a Scholar, where girls are paid up to £15,000 a year in exchange for 'companionship'.
Experts have also claimed that one of the reasons for the increase in student sex workers is that the work is becoming more socially acceptable.
Speaking to the Times Higher Education magazine, sociologist Teela Sanders said that some student strippers saw themselves as "dancers, not sex workers' because 'selling striptease had become more palatable and socially acceptable."
For Charley, who still lives at home with her father, stripping is the first job she's ever had and she admits she was thrilled when she was told she'd got it.
"I applied for a lot of jobs before and I kept getting knocked back because I had no experience.
I have no idea how I had the confidence to walk in here... It's crazy. It just sort of happened really quickly.
I was so excited afterwards. I was thinking "I'm 18 and I've got a job!" I went and had icecream afterwards to celebrate."
She now spends six nights a week working at Baby Dolls, one of three strip clubs that make up Edinburgh's 'Pubic Triangle'.
It's not always easy, although Charley, who makes around £100 a night, says the work has given her extra confidence.
"When I was at school, the boys found some girls attractive but not once did they look at me.
The other girls were all really skinny with nice clothes, and nice hair, and I was a bit chubby.
I got into dancing to prove that I can be beautiful, I can be sexy.
A year ago, I couldn't get on buses without being really anxious.
I feel better about myself, even though dancing maybe isn't the prettiest job in the world and I know some people would say it's sleazy.
I walk out with my head held high and it's empowering."
Boyfriend Connor doesn't share her enthusiasm however and says he worries about Charley's safety when she's at work.
"I think strip clubs can be seedy places and I'm worried for her wellbeing.
I think I might get a bit jealous if I was to see her doing sexy provocative stuff...
I think "that's just for me!" but at the end of the day, I know it's just her job."
Charley herself has imposed a set of strict rules on Connor and refuses to let him go to the club where she works.
"I don't want him to see me doing this. I think it would hurt him too much. He just means too much to me for me to do that to him."
Ultimately, for Charley, stripping, however distasteful, is a means to an end and a route out of the grim estate where she grew up and still lives.
I really hate where I live. It's a horrible, horrible place. I wouldn't bring my children up here and I kind of hate that I was brought up here."
Her goal, she says, is to use her sports science degree to become a policewoman.
"I like that you get to be a strong independent woman.
I like the idea of helping the public and dealing with tough situations."
She's certainly no stranger to the latter.
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