Figleaf posts about pole dancing, and includes this footnote:
[Quick note: The post by 100% Injury Rate, the source of the version of photo I used, above, mentions that the Australian program teaches girls *and* boys, which is at least one step in a positive direction, although it sounds like it's for kids as early as age seven. --fl]
I’m just going to repost the comment I left over there:
I don’t understand why something has to be done by boys/men for it to be seen as valid.
And Figleaf, as I’m sure you will appreciate, if I see one more person dismissively refer to pole dancing as “spreading your legs around a pole” and otherwise talking out of their ass about it, my head is going to fucking explode. Seriously people. If you have never tried it? SHUT THE FUCK UP ABOUT IT. You don’t know what you’re talking about.
I have NO patience for this. NONE.
On a side note, Figleaf, if you are reading this, I have to say… you know I value and respect your writing, but I’ve been pretty baffled by some of the things you’ve written lately, and what appears to be (in many cases) a regression to more “conservative” sexual and social views. What gives?
And no, before anybody asks, I am not going to fly off the handle about “OMG they’re teaching pole dancing to children!!!“, which is what the expected/approved reaction seems to be. Look. Perceptions never change if we don’t challenge them. Get the fuck over it. And, the meaning of something is different depending on the context! This should not be a difficult concept! (Jenny, I know you’ve written about this, but if it was on your blog, I can’t find the post right now. Or maybe it was in a comment here?) Yes, pole dancing originated in strip clubs. So what?? Jazz music has its roots in slavery… does that mean if you like jazz you’re giving the stamp of approval to slavery?
(Besides, kids climb on poles all the time, we just don’t call it “pole dancing!”)
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17 Responses to "And again, and again, and again…"
As another pole dancing student and instructor, it is all I can do to keep from my own head practically exploding from this argument.
I have to consciously not lash out when reading other blogs when the refer to a girl in an seductive outfit as “some stripper” or a girl “just shakin’ it on the pole.”
Really people? Please stop talking out of your ass. This is a FITNESS endeavor for me, and for many of the girls in my class. It just so happens that we do it around a vertically-placed pole, in sometimes skimpy clothing.
Look at ballet… considered the complete opposite of pole dancing. But… it has a pole (in a class setting), though it is horizontal. The dancers are usually in very form-fitting, skimpy clothing. The dancing itself can range from slow, reflective music with lots of graceful moves, or be upbeat with lots of jumping, lifting, bouncing around, and it can be very seductive.
Pole dancing. Pole? Check. It’s vertical. Skimpy clothing? Check, and in a class setting, it doesn’t even show anything that you wouldn’t see on the beach. Varied music? Definitely. If you’ve ever been to one of our showcases, you’ll see everything from Massive Attack’s “Teardrops” to Nine Inch Nails and everything in between.
Yes, that may be a bit of an extreme comparison, but really, when it comes to dance, does everything have to be segmented into “acceptable and not”?
Right on! :)
And also, the other thing people don’t realize about “skimpy clothing” is that it’s practical. For doing any intermediate or advanced pole tricks (climbing, inverting, etc.) you need as much exposed skin as possible, because your skin is what helps you stick to the pole. Ever wonder why you don’t see many people pole dancing in jeans, or long sleeves, or nylons? THAT’S WHY. It’s not safe.
I think for the kids’ class it depends on the context. If they are teaching some of the same movements one sees at a strip club, it’s inappropriate, period, end of story. If it’s focusing around strength, agility, climbing, I see no problem with it. Especially if it isn’t called pole dancing, because like it or not that does have ramifications that shouldn’t be projected onto children. Which would be the possibly unintended result of such nomenclature.
I fully agree with the need to challenge the perception of pole dancing and think it’s great to promote the athleticism and fun and yes, sexuality, that can be involved. I don’t think we need to use children as guinea pigs in this. If it can be taught to them as a purely athletic activity — fine. If young girls are taught to ape stripper moves — that’s when I break down, join the PTA, and leverage all the ABA members on it to clamp down hard.
Also — another thought on a way to teach kids agility, flexibility and strength involving swinging, balancing, stamina and endurance. It’s called gymnastics.
I’m about as conservative as the Pope, and pole dancing does have a sexual connotation, just because of how it started, and where it’s typically seen. Having said that, any form of dance can have a sexual context. I mean, it’s not a stretch to see a tango or a samba as similar to pole dancing, only on a person instead of a static pole. I think it looks like a heckuva lotta fun. Why not let kids do it, God knows they climb everything else. As for the Aussies doing it- you see wee kids in spandex ballroom dancing down there. Oh- and your Jazz reference? You know the saxaphone is the Devil’s Instrument.
In gym class they have you climb a rope. Climbing a pole is the same thing except you don’t get rope burn.
I don’t think anybody is advocating for kids to be taught “stripper moves.” But there are tons of strength-building exercises that can be taught on the pole. It builds upper body strength, which women often are lacking in. It’s more effective that traditional weight-lifting, because you are lifting your own body weight. It builds strong core muscles, which is something a lot of work-outs ignore (focusing instead on arms and legs), even though a strong core is essential.
Rootie,
Even cats do it!
Octogalore - Gymnastics is great and all, but for someone who fell into the 98% percentile for height since I was born (I’m 6′ tall), most of those things were not for me as a kid - I was too gangly, too awkward, and essentially shamed out of class.
I’m not disagreeing with you that pole dancing’s sensual/sexual aspects should not be taught to children. I agree with that.
However, putting the proper connotations behind it and focusing on climbing, lifting one’s own body weight, walking tall and confident (a big part of my classes, as posture is important) can be a good thing for kids of all ages… and I mean “kids” from 8-80.
Amber and Muse — if we’re talking about pure strength and flexibility moves here, as I mentioned in my comment, then we’re all on the same page.
Muse — I competed with (and got my ass kicked by) a few six-footers in gymnastics. You’re right, you won’t see many or any competing at elite levels, but you do see a number at pretty advanced levels. The uneven bars, which is the closest to pole work in terms of the kinds of moves involved, is one example where height is not a major disadvantage. Tumbling is where taller women and men have most difficulty, eg in doing as many rotations mid-air. So I think any feelings of awkwardness that would put someone off the uneven bars would apply to pole work as well, and both would be good resources for overcoming those feelings.
Bottom line — I read Figleaf’s post, since he made an analogy to thongs sold to 10-yo girls, as critiquing pole dancing taught to kids in the context of teaching sexy moves. I didn’t read it as stating that if you have a vertical pole rather than a vertical rope for learning strength moves that this is a problem. But if you are teaching “pole dancing” then you are teaching dancing moves, and the implication is a certain kind of dancing moves.
Again, I think we walk a fine line here. If we want to shift public opinion, we need to do it from a standpoint that is reasonable and not utopian. Girls in schools feeling like they need to dress like Britney to be liked is a problem that has increasing relevance. In this context, arguing for (or not against) teaching kids pole dancing is going to come across a certain way and invalidate the very reasonable arguments as to why adult pole dancing and other forms of adult sexual expression are important to support and not condemn unthinkingly.
Octo,
I’ll be honest, my rant here wasn’t a reaction *just* to Figleaf or *just* to the 100% Injury Rate post (which was *way* more offensive than what Figleaf wrote) - it’s a reaction to *all* the bullshit I’ve seen, and continue to see, about pole dancing. It just gets so repetitive, and OLD, but it keeps on coming, and I’m frankly fed up with it.
Erg. I know what you’re talking about but I can’t figure out where I wrote it either. :P Maybe tomorrow if I can get a little more sleep.
And I love this post. If tomorrow doesn’t suck all the life out of me, I’ll be back to comment.
So are you saying it’s appropriate that all these fitness-center pole-dancing and stripper-cise classes appropriate from sex-worker-created art forms while rejecting any association with sex-workers themselves? Which is certainly how people drawing “pole dancing came from stripping / jazz came from slavery” parallels sound. Yes, I know you don’t feel that way, Amber. I’m just saying an awful lot of people aren’t just careless how they say it, they’re outright bigoted.
And also, since when did it become conservative to prefer open sexuality, and recognition of straight-up sex-work, to turning it into “whatever do you mean, sir” sexualization?
figleaf
I don’t have experience w/ classes that reject any association w/ sex workers themselves, so I can’t speak to that. In fact I’ve written about why such a rejection (although personally hypothetical, bc again I have never experienced it) would be wrong.
I know that I’m probably going to get hammered for this, but I have to say it anyway.
It seems to me that this entire debate boils down to one factor, once you filter out the noise: When is the line crossed between using pole dancing for “higher purposes” such as physical fitness or art, and when it is used as part of an enticement to sexually arouse people?? The former is considered acceptable in a way that the latter isn’t: apparently, once a man’s erection enters the picture, an act of “female empowerment” supposedly becomes the essential part of the evil “pornographic raunch culture” which supposedly infects impressionable girls with all the “wrong” ideas about sexuality. In short, if pole dancing becomes even remotely sexual, it becomes automatically suspect and cause for derision and hostility.
I think I understand Figleaf’s point that most people do associate pole dancing with the overtly sexual world of strip joints and porn; I just don’t see why Amber or any other woman should be derided because she happens to like using pole dancing for her own motives…physical fitness, erotic art, or whatever. And that would even include if she or any other woman happened to get a sexual charge out of doing pole dancing or any other type of erotic art. (I am NOT assuming anything about Amber’s motives in any way, BTW; however she uses pole dancing is her business and as an adult woman, no one has any right to abridge her of that.)
What kinda bothers me, though, is that once again even self-identified “sex positive” people are projecting some of the most conservative and classically reactionary attitudes about how MEN view women who are more overtly sexual. It’s as if any show that even smacks of overt or even covert sexuality is deemed to cause bad, bad things merely by enticing male sexual arousal (read that to mean, an erection); which is said to then cause all the usual aftereffects of “raunch culture”: young girls dressing like Britney (or worse, like Jenna) leading to them going straight to dressing and acting like porn starlets/adult models, which leads straight to the supposedly “wrong” kind of sex. That this is cloaked in the mantle of feminism and “protecting young women” makes it no less a concern to me than when it is propogated by the Christian Right in the name of fighting “moral corruption of our youth”..
Frankly, my response to the notion that some men will only see pole dancing as overtly sexual is “So what???” As long as they still are willing to respect the subject of their sexual desire and treat her is a genuine human being, I don’t see why he should be condemned to the pits of hell for having a working human libido. If some men do happen to see such women as only “sex objects” and not fully human, than that is the fault of our dominant sex-negative culture and those who exploit such negativity to their own profit; the women themselves and the men who respect and desire them should not be the issue here.
As for teaching young kids to perform “stripper moves”….well, I do acknowledge that this can be very problematic in the development of kids’ sexuality…..but I still wonder how much of that is much more the classical meme used time and time again as a wedge against consensual adult sexual expression that those more sexually conservative don’t happen to like??? Whatever you may feel about young adults being impressionable, this still should not deny the basic fact that one way or another, they will learn about themselves as developing sexual beings…..and that so-called “raunch culture” can and will exert some influence on their development and actions.
This isn’t about teaching 10-year-olds “stripper moves”, anyway….it’s about whether adult women should be able to exercise their autonomy as full human beings.
My nickel’s worth….
Anthony
Anthony,
There’s a lot I want to address in your comment, but since I’m at work right now and pressed for time, this will have to be short. Longer reply (probably in the form of a separate post) to come later.
You touched on something that bothers me not just about pole dancing, but about society in general… the idea that there’s a line that’s crossed between the prurient and anything that has “higher value,” and that irritates me. Apparently something isn’t worthwhile if its sole or main purpose is sexual in nature. This pisses me off because it’s the body/mind dichotomy again (when in reality there is no such divide), and the idea that sexuality for its own sake isn’t good enough, or is “base” - that’s a word that gets used a lot. Something has to have higher “artistic” value to be worthwhile. That’s bullshit and it really bothers me. (Dacia has written about this before and has done so far more eloquently than every time I’ve tried.)
Now one quick thing re: this:
I don’t know if you were responding to Figleaf, me, someone else, or all of us. But I know I’ve written before about being annoyed at how a lot of men don’t appreciate the work that goes into pole dancing. For me the problem/complaint is not a question of whether anyone sees it as “overtly sexual.” I really don’t care about that. But yeah it bothers me to not have my hard work appreciated - in ANY endeavor. And honestly I think this is another one of those situations where, if one hasn’t done it (well, or even if they have!), one doesn’t get to call bullshit on MY experience.
Agreed.
More later, hopefully!
Amber:
Please note that my comment IN NO WAY was meant to diminish your hard work; it was not really directed at anyone other than those who do attempt to dismiss your work as nothing more than “overtly sexual”. Indeed, I believe that even those who do in fact do pole dancing or any other form of erotic expression for overtly sexual attractiveness reasons should be respected as human beings for their motives as much as those who do such work for more mundane reasons. They do as much hard work and should be respected to that regard…the fact that their hard work may result in someone being sexually aroused should not diminish them deserving their proper respect as human beings.
Anthony
“As for teaching young kids to perform “stripper movesâ€â€¦.well, I do acknowledge that this can be very problematic in the development of kids’ sexuality…..but I still wonder how much of that is much more the classical meme used time and time again as a wedge against consensual adult sexual expression that those more sexually conservative don’t happen to like???”
That’s one of two key reasons NOT to argue that we can/should teach it to kids under that name or with those moves. Because it can’t be used as a “wedge” if there’s no “it.” Fucking around with — hey, let’s teach kids pole dancing, only without the sexy moves, despite probably confusion on part of kids/parents and other sports that work the same areas and focus in on agility, flexibility and strengh — is a great way to squander the argument. Which is, as you’ve stated: “consensual adult sexual expression .” That needs to be the focus.
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