Celtyradfem

lafememeistnoire:

mothermayhem:

sadicalfeminist:

skepticbrowngirl:

sadicalfeminist:

Any radfems wanna have a discussion about the rise of pole dancing/pole fitness classes?

Speaking from a somewhat personal point of view as last month I gave up attending these classes after 1.5 years of doing so.

I have a very strange mixture of emotions about it but I decided to give it up partly since it was such an expensive waste of my time but moreover because I could not remove the nagging feeling from my mind that it was somewhat of an anti-feminist recreational activity.

There are, I think, pros and cons to it just like with everything. It definitely improved my body strength and I bonded with some great women during my time there, it was fun. Yet it could also be somewhat two-faced and competitive, and in particular classes wherein we focused on doing ‘sexy’ dance routines I think the pressure to be ‘sexy’ was so overwhelming for some of the women that they forgot to actually have fun?

I’m pretty in my feelings about it since I just gave it up but it would nice to hear some outside perspectives on pole in general. What do you think?

Definitely think it’s misogynistic because A) promoting a profession that’s entirely about exploiting women for the male gaze and B) not really for men, so sexist by default.

And yeah it can build up great muscle/healthy lifestyle but so can many other non sexist sports so why not choose the non sexist sports instead? 

Defo agree with your second part about there being better ways to build body strength, one downside of pole was always that your appearance did matter to some extent… like the girls spent so much money on nice outfits to wear when just a cheap shirt and a pair of shorts would do fine. But of course self objectification, patriarchy, male gaze etc etc we all know the score

The first part… I see your point, though the studio I attended were good in that they did seem to encourage fitness and strength over everything else. I should point out that my studio offered other aerial arts such as hoop and silk as well, pole was just their most popular class. I did aerial silk for a while as well and it struck me as much more.. I guess artistic? It was definitely harder than pole for the most part. I think the overlying problem with pole is that you will never be able to remove the stigma around pole=strippers. When I told people that I danced I always hesitated to tell them what kind of dancing I did because you knew some people would have that reaction. Most people did. Especially men :/// now that i think about it 

I actually used to strip, so I have complicated feelings about pole dance classes.

One the one hand, teaching pole dance classes is a great way for strippers to get out of the industry. Getting out of the sex industry is hard because many of these women lack marketable skills, and they either have to admit to sex work on a resume, or they have a huge gap, neither of which looks good to potential employers. Pole studios are usually owned by former strippers and classes are usually taught by them. Or at least they used to be – now that it’s so popular, that’s changing. 

And that’s one of my complaints with “pole fitness.” As the fad grows, the same stigma towards stripping/strippers is creeping in. The IG tags for pole dance are full of “Not a stripper, just fit and flexible af. I don’t do it for men/money, I do it for me! #strongnotsexy” Like, they’re trying to “normalize” pole dancing while still shitting on strippers. “Oh, it’s okay for me to pole dance, because I’m not one of those gross strippers.” And they tend to go off on rants about the history of pole dancing like “Indian men have a traditional form of pole dancing! It’s not just for strippers!” Sure Jan, but I don’t think that

Mallakhamb is performed to a soundtrack of Pitbull songs.

You know that quote, “Men pay porn stars to act like that to convince you to do it for free?” It’s the same thing.

And like, there are now full-blown pole dance competitions that don’t allow strippers to participate. Seriously. That’s how serious “pole fitness” enthusiasts are about the whole “we’re not gross dirty strippers!” thing.

But then there’s the issue of self-objectification. I think that part of the “we’re not dirty strippers” thing is to try to deal with the cognitive dissonance of turning a sexual display into a sport. Ultimately, no, I don’t think pole dance is a feminist hobby, because it’s inherently a sexual display. It’s fun, a hell of a workout, and it makes you strong af, but the point is to emulate a stripper. You can’t separate pole dance from strippers, because the pole dancing you’re doing was created to be a sexual performance. It would be like trying to turn heterosexual sex in cowgirl/girl-on-top position into fitness because it’s a great thigh workout. The act is inherently sexual. (Side note to consider: you literally can’t do most pole tricks while wearing pants or long sleeves, and the fewer clothes you wear, the easier it is, because the tricks rely, at least in part, on the friction between your skin and the pole.)

I’m not about to start a campaign against recreational pole dancing or anything, but I will say that if you want to do it, you should support strippers who are leaving or trying to leave the industry. And you shouldn’t try to pretend it is anything other than what it is.

You can avoid most of these problems by doing any of the many other similar hobbies with a less sexual focus and history – aerial silks, hoops, or trapeze if you like the “gravity defying” stuff, gymnastics or adult dance/ballet classes if you like dancing, yoga if you want flexibility, normal bodyweight fitness routines if you want to get stronger without lifting weights, pilates for a challenging workout that focuses a lot on core strength, etc etc etc.

This was very interesting to read, thank all of you ❤️

lafememeistnoire:

mothermayhem:

sadicalfeminist:

skepticbrowngirl:

sadicalfeminist:

Any radfems wanna have a discussion about the rise of pole dancing/pole fitness classes?

Speaking from a somewhat personal point of view as last month I gave up attending these classes after 1.5 years of doing so.

I have a very strange mixture of emotions about it but I decided to give it up partly since it was such an expensive waste of my time but moreover because I could not remove the nagging feeling from my mind that it was somewhat of an anti-feminist recreational activity.

There are, I think, pros and cons to it just like with everything. It definitely improved my body strength and I bonded with some great women during my time there, it was fun. Yet it could also be somewhat two-faced and competitive, and in particular classes wherein we focused on doing ‘sexy’ dance routines I think the pressure to be ‘sexy’ was so overwhelming for some of the women that they forgot to actually have fun?

I’m pretty in my feelings about it since I just gave it up but it would nice to hear some outside perspectives on pole in general. What do you think?

Definitely think it’s misogynistic because A) promoting a profession that’s entirely about exploiting women for the male gaze and B) not really for men, so sexist by default.

And yeah it can build up great muscle/healthy lifestyle but so can many other non sexist sports so why not choose the non sexist sports instead? 

Defo agree with your second part about there being better ways to build body strength, one downside of pole was always that your appearance did matter to some extent… like the girls spent so much money on nice outfits to wear when just a cheap shirt and a pair of shorts would do fine. But of course self objectification, patriarchy, male gaze etc etc we all know the score

The first part… I see your point, though the studio I attended were good in that they did seem to encourage fitness and strength over everything else. I should point out that my studio offered other aerial arts such as hoop and silk as well, pole was just their most popular class. I did aerial silk for a while as well and it struck me as much more.. I guess artistic? It was definitely harder than pole for the most part. I think the overlying problem with pole is that you will never be able to remove the stigma around pole=strippers. When I told people that I danced I always hesitated to tell them what kind of dancing I did because you knew some people would have that reaction. Most people did. Especially men :/// now that i think about it 

I actually used to strip, so I have complicated feelings about pole dance classes.

One the one hand, teaching pole dance classes is a great way for strippers to get out of the industry. Getting out of the sex industry is hard because many of these women lack marketable skills, and they either have to admit to sex work on a resume, or they have a huge gap, neither of which looks good to potential employers. Pole studios are usually owned by former strippers and classes are usually taught by them. Or at least they used to be – now that it’s so popular, that’s changing. 

And that’s one of my complaints with “pole fitness.” As the fad grows, the same stigma towards stripping/strippers is creeping in. The IG tags for pole dance are full of “Not a stripper, just fit and flexible af. I don’t do it for men/money, I do it for me! #strongnotsexy” Like, they’re trying to “normalize” pole dancing while still shitting on strippers. “Oh, it’s okay for me to pole dance, because I’m not one of those gross strippers.” And they tend to go off on rants about the history of pole dancing like “Indian men have a traditional form of pole dancing! It’s not just for strippers!” Sure Jan, but I don’t think that

Mallakhamb is performed to a soundtrack of Pitbull songs.

You know that quote, “Men pay porn stars to act like that to convince you to do it for free?” It’s the same thing.

And like, there are now full-blown pole dance competitions that don’t allow strippers to participate. Seriously. That’s how serious “pole fitness” enthusiasts are about the whole “we’re not gross dirty strippers!” thing.

But then there’s the issue of self-objectification. I think that part of the “we’re not dirty strippers” thing is to try to deal with the cognitive dissonance of turning a sexual display into a sport. Ultimately, no, I don’t think pole dance is a feminist hobby, because it’s inherently a sexual display. It’s fun, a hell of a workout, and it makes you strong af, but the point is to emulate a stripper. You can’t separate pole dance from strippers, because the pole dancing you’re doing was created to be a sexual performance. It would be like trying to turn heterosexual sex in cowgirl/girl-on-top position into fitness because it’s a great thigh workout. The act is inherently sexual. (Side note to consider: you literally can’t do most pole tricks while wearing pants or long sleeves, and the fewer clothes you wear, the easier it is, because the tricks rely, at least in part, on the friction between your skin and the pole.)

I’m not about to start a campaign against recreational pole dancing or anything, but I will say that if you want to do it, you should support strippers who are leaving or trying to leave the industry. And you shouldn’t try to pretend it is anything other than what it is.

You can avoid most of these problems by doing any of the many other similar hobbies with a less sexual focus and history – aerial silks, hoops, or trapeze if you like the “gravity defying” stuff, gymnastics or adult dance/ballet classes if you like dancing, yoga if you want flexibility, normal bodyweight fitness routines if you want to get stronger without lifting weights, pilates for a challenging workout that focuses a lot on core strength, etc etc etc.

This was very interesting to read, thank all of you ❤️