The Problem with the Association between Pole Dance and Sexuality.

Alright, let me state something thoroughly and for the record: there is absolutely NOTHING wrong with being sexy. There is nothing wrong with women embracing their sexuality and there is nothing wrong with a sexy, or even a sexual, pole dance. However, there IS something wrong with the inherent and exclusive association of sexuality and pole because it is a limited perspective on all that pole dance has the potential to be.

Now we all know and (if you’re anything like me) love, love, love pole dance, but as someone who has a vested interest in expanding pole dance as an artist genre that can communicate powerful messages and build cohesive, well-composed dance works that incorporate both the vertical and horizontal planes of movement, the association of pole dance to strip clubs or sexiness or sexuality can be really frustrating. This isn’t because I don’t think pole does have this aspect to it or shouldn’t have this aspect to it, it’s because, as an artist and a pole dancer, that is not my personal draw to pole dance at all. I get tired of having to justify all my conversations with people like this:

“So what do you do?”

“Well, I run a local pole dance company… but it’s not what you think! We combine pole dance with traditional styles of dance, such as ballet, jazz, modern… we are dedicated to expanding it as an art form.”

More often than not, even with this excessive justification (that, truthfully, shouldn’t even be necessary at all), I’m still usually met with an “Uh-huh, suuuure…” or “Pole dancing?!” followed by an undeniably creepy body scan.

As much as I would love to say that pole has brought me sexual empowerment (because I definitely see sexual empowerment as a great thing for all women), it has not brought me this at all. Sexual empowerment is something that I was lucky enough to have felt my whole life. I grew up in a family that was very sex-positive and spoke very openly and positively of women’s sexuality, but also emphasized safe decision-making and sexual awareness. That was just me, though; depending on your perspective, I was just lucky or raised horrendously inappropriately.

But just because pole never brought me sexual empowerment doesn’t mean I never received empowerment and inspiration from it. As someone who grew up dancing and was extremely and sometimes destructively critical of my body, pole brought me empowerment through physical strength. My focus moved from constantly desiring and sometimes seeking unhealthy avenues to achieve thinness to becoming strong and capable. It allowed me to find an appreciation of my body and to let go of some of the criticisms because, even if I found fat here or there that I didn’t like, I still knew that underneath it I was capable of doing super-human things on the pole. Furthermore, as someone who decided to pursue modern dance choreography as

my career, when I began pole dancing I saw a whole new dance frontier. Hardly any dance companies incorporated pole and aerial dance with more traditional styles like modern and ballet (and those that did do this almost never incorporated modern dance compositional techniques). For me, this was an area of inspiration and pioneering as a conceptual and choreographic medium. Based on my experiences, my mind simply never really went to the sexuality route so much as artistry and mental health. As someone who has taught pole dance classes and run a company, I’ve worked with all sorts of pole dancers, so I know I’m not alone in saying that sexual empowerment or exploration/expression of my sexuality are not the only reasons people enjoy or do pole. Plenty of people have other reasons why they do pole that are equally as valid, such as purely because it is a fantastic workout that isn’t as boring as running on a treadmill for an hour. But if so many people ARE getting this sexual empowerment from pole, why is it such a big deal that it has this strong association? Well, simply put, the stronger the schema, the narrower the conceptualization. The fact of the matter is that, while I and many others see women’s sexuality in a positive light, there are many people in society that prescribe to more traditional views and see it as a negative thing that should be suppressed. There is genuine prejudice that exists toward women’s sexuality. While I do agree that it is my obligation as a feminist to fight these negative views and the discrimination that results from it, I don’t see pole dance as a place where I should be fighting this battle. Why? Because my experience and use of pole dance has absolutely nothing to do with my sexuality the same way that when I do a plié in ballet class, there is no secret metaphor for losing my virginity. The battle for women’s sexual freedom is a totally separate battle that I will fight with all of hell’s fire at my heels, but why am I fighting it in an area that, for me, doesn’t have anything to do with my sexuality. For some people, the two might be related, but for the large portion of women and men who don’t feel or experience the connection between their sexuality and their pole dancing, it has the effect of shoving a label onto something that doesn’t apply. To put this in a different context, there are many women in this world that have no desire or intention of becoming mothers. It is very problematic for these women, then, when people assume that they are defective because they don’t want to have kids, or when people tell them “oh, you say that now, but just wait until you’re older; you’ll want them then!” Just as this inherent association is not fair to the women that don’t fit into the stereotype that women are “supposed to be” mothers, it is not fair to the artists like me who restage a ballet piece about a dying swan on the pole and STILL have people in the audience who can’t seem to get sex off their brains. To so many people the pole is the equivalent of sex and sexuality so strongly that no matter what you do, no matter how you present yourself, they will always see sex. This is something that I became aware of early on in my pole career when I pole danced in a Christmas parade wearing jeans, tennis shoes, and a long-sleeve leotard (aka, everything on my body was covered except for my neck and face) and still got not only a very ignorant article written in the local paper that made stripper jokes about me and the other dancers, but a letter to the editor complaining about how we

were destroying the family-friendliness of the parade. Please excuse me while I rant, but there is more nudity and sexuality in The Little Mermaid than any of us displayed in that parade, unless you consider physical strength enough to flip around in the air to be sexual (in which case, sorry gymnasts, but, spoiler alert, you’re a bunch of sluts!).

There have been efforts to help redefine the association of pole dance and sexuality, especially in recent years. Let’s look, for example, at the viral youtube video “Why I Dance” that erupted across the internet about six months to a year ago. In this video, one can see several different women dancing in black outfits underneath a white sweater. They eventually take the sweater off and then dance on the pole at the end, both together and individually. Throughout the video, the women hold up signs that say something about who they are and their personal identities, such as “activist, “psychologist,” “little sister,” and many others showing the great diversity of who these women are as individuals. They also hold up signs that say, in congruence with the title of the video, why they dance, the very first of which is “because the expression of my sexuality does not negate my integrity, intelligence, and autonomy.” Let’s first talk about what is good about this video. First and foremost: diversity, diversity, diversity! This video represents diversity at its finest. We are getting women from a variety of different cultures, races, and ethnicities. We are getting women of all different ages. We are getting women of all different educational and career backgrounds. We are getting women of all different body types…which leads me to another strength of this video: This video absolutely gives a beautiful portrayal of non-media-defined conceptualizations of beauty. None of these women embody our modern society’s impossible and limiting standard of beauty, but they are all gorgeous in their own unique way. Their bodies are not flawless but they are owning and loving and sharing their flaws. That alone is an incredible powerful and valuable message that this video brings to the table. And, finally, the main and most important message: portraying women’s sexuality as a thing of beauty rather than something to be ashamed of and tamed and silenced, showing that women’s sexuality does not, as the initial sign says “negate [women’s] integrity, intelligence, and autonomy.” This video thoroughly brought this message to the table in the most empowering and beautiful way; this is something I thoroughly think our society needs.

The video, however, is not without flaws. Despite my strong feminist support and sentiments, I wasn’t sent this video for its message on sexuality, I was sent this video under the headline “A pole-dancing video so beautiful, my hair stood on end.” The fact of this title alone suggests that people were seeing pole dancing more than they were seeing the video’s message which, truthfully, has nothing to do with pole dancing. Perhaps many people would disagree and say that the pole has everything to do with the video because these women found sexual empowerment via pole dance. Okay, yes, that might be true that this is where they FOUND their empowerment, but the video itself isn’t about the pole, it’s about the experience of the women and portraying their sexuality as something beautiful and to take pride in. From the very first time I watched this video all I could wonder is “why is there a

pole here at all?” These women are gorgeous and the portrayal of sexuality is gorgeous, but the message is perfectly clear without the pole. One might disagree and say that the pole adds the element of strength through sexuality to these women. Personally, I saw their embracing of their sexuality without shame as far more strength-based than climbing the pole. I saw them coming together and the deep intimacy these women shared with each other as they shared their love of their bodies with the world to be far more brave and empowering than the physical act of doing tricks on the pole. I’m sure there are people that disagree, but you could easily remove the pole dancing from that video and still have the same absolutely brilliant message about women’s sexuality while also avoiding an inherently problematic association.

The fact of the matter is that, even though the message in this video is powerful and, in my opinion, needed, it is still reinforcing the idea that pole has everything to do with women’s sexuality, when it doesn’t. It can, but then what about the people like me for which it doesn’t? We’re now being lumped into this category as well when our goals with pole and our relationship with pole are nothing like this at all. We are now being viewed under a lens of sexuality when maybe we want to viewed under a lens of artistry, a lens of strength, or a lens of personal health. By defining the pole as an object of sexual expression, it is then invalidating and misrepresenting the experiences of everyone else who has a different experience.

Perhaps people might think I am exaggerating this as a problem, especially because of my ambivalence that results from the fact that I am huge proponent of women’s embracing of their sexuality. I have even created dance works that are based centered on the idea of how women’s sexuality is perceived by society. In that context, you may absolutely view my work through this lens. But the same way that a black person doesn’t want to be seen as a criminal because our media has constantly portrayed black men and women as being such, I don’t want my art to be stereotyped either. No one likes it and anyone who has experienced this can tell you how hard it is to correct people’s schemas. Next time you hear someone make a racist, sexist, or classist remark, even if it doesn’t apply to you, try confronting it and seeing how the person responds. Even if you go about it kindly, more often than not they justify their opinions, no matter how false, stereotypical, or narrow they might be, or they brush off what you’re saying altogether. It’s a very belittling and invalidating experience, especially when you have a personal connection to the assumption being made!

I am not arguing that pole is not a powerful tool for women to embrace their sexuality and to find empowerment within it. It absolutely can be! What I am arguing is that this is not the ONLY function that pole dancing can serve to women. In fact, pole dancing can serve more than just women! Pole dance can be art; it can be fitness, it can be dance, and, yes, it can be empowerment through sexuality. It can be any number of things to any individual person, but having only one association that comes to mind is extremely problematic to the people whose love of pole falls into any other category. I have been pole dancing for two years and I am still yet to do a sexy pole dance; my style is more contemporary/modern and would sooner be considered vertical ballet than it would ever be sexy or sexual. No one’s approach to pole is right or wrong, but their experiences are personal and, as such, shouldn’t be misrepresented at the hands of a stereotype.

#uproarpolecollective #poledance #uproar