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If you are a feminist who poles…
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That's a good way to put it, I hadn't thought of relationships in a transactional context before. I think it may just be that I don't find the stripper/client relationship sexy.
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That is completely understandable! I think there's room for all types of sexuality under the umbrella of womanhood. Whether we pole with 8 inch heels or bare feet or sneakers, I think we mostly pole for the same overarching reason–it makes us feel good! 🙂
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I’ll say that as a female who has gone to strip clubs, there is definitely a possibility for a respectful relationship there. I’ve had dancers offer me dances because they can tell I’m there for fun and not to be sleazy; they enjoy the playful flirting with me, and to demonstrate to them that I respect them, I don’t try to touch them or push physical boundaries. I keep my hands at my sides and let them do what they want.
A lot of whether that relationship is respectful depends on the client. The fact that not every client is respectful is a huge factor in determining those of us who could do that line of work and those of us who couldn’t. Because once the client pushes that boundary, it’s up to the dancer to handle that emotionally or not. If you can look at that the same way a waitress would look at a bad tip “that’s shitty and not cool. Get the F out of here.” then it’s not much different. But if you’re the sort of person who would feel horribly violated from a customer’s lack of respect, then that person probably shouldn’t strip OR waitress haha.
I honestly believe that morally right/wrong is at least partly connected to whether it’s right or wrong specifically for the person doing the action. If you can be comfortable with stripping and it doesn’t damage you as a person to do it, and you aren’t knowingly doing anything unethical with clients, I can’t find anything wrong there.
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"Also, remember that all relationships are transactional. I give my fiance sex, and in return, he provides emotional stability and various other benefits (this goes both ways; I'm just using it on my side to illustrate a point). The client/stripper relationship is no different, but the transaction gets a bad rap because people tend to romanticize relationships rather than seeing that all relationships are transactional, but the pay scale (and type) of transaction varies widely."
I really tried to understand and relate to that and I can relate to all of it except for sex being transactional. For me and my husband, the different jobs we do to keep our household running are transactional (he works full time so while he's working I am the caretaker of our kids/ he deals with the upkeep of our vehicles, but I do most of the yardwork etc…) but our sexual relationship so far has been it's own currency. Sex for us is straight across mutual enjoyment. If it did transition to being a bargaining chip in other aspects of our relationship, it would end up being just that for me…a job, and would cease being sexy for me. And for it to still be enjoyable for my husband I'd probably have to pretend that it was enjoyable for me, because he's not the type that would enjoy it if he thought I wasn't enjoying it. And I have run into some guys who find the stripper culture, or overt sexuality in general to be mortifying and not sexy, so they're out there too.
I definitely think what Poledanceromance says is valid though. I can understand that there are people out there who work the strip-club scene and genuinely love their jobs. And I gotta say, I think it's an honest living. At a bar it doesn't distress me when guys rub up on me on the dance floor, or when drunk guys hit on me with their hands (for lack of a better way to describe it, haha), and from what I understand that wouldn't even be allowed in a strip club dancer/customer setting (so maybe I could hack it as a stripper), but as far as finding it sexy…..yeah, not so much. So it's no surprise that the stripper culture, stripper look, stripper shoes ect don't ring my bell either.
When I run into someone who favors the "artistic" side of pole dancing and doesn't get the "stripper" style, I don't take it as snobbery. I just know there's nothing weirder than watching something that you know the performer means to be sexy and not finding it sexy yourself. It's like the 'walking in on your parents' feeling…it's not that you're judging….you're just not into it.
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Whate an interesting topic for discussion. I have come across similar surprise and exasperation when faced with another person's negative or dogmatic opinion.
One thing I like to say to myself is "Those who havn't tried it shouldn't judge it" and that goes for many things and for everyone, including me. If someone has actually experienced being a stripper or a pole dancer and found it uncomfortable or demeaning, then they have a right to express their informed opinion. But it irritates me that many people feel entitled to voice their beliefs loudly and obnoxiously when they have no particular knowledge in that area. It would be like me stating something decisively about chemical engineering being against nature – I don't know anything about chemical engineering so who am I to dismiss or condemn it? I think trying something is an important part of forming an accurate judgment because often we have these preconceptions in our heads about how we would react in a certain situation or what's wrong and right, but then when it comes to living it in the moment, our instincts or our true selves astonish us.
So maybe you could say to these critics: "Why don't you try it and then tell me your informed opinion." ….? Or something along those lines 😉
I'd like to say also; I am a feminist, and I have been a stripper, and I am proud to be a pole dancer. If I was so worried about being sexually objectified that I couldn't enjoy my physicality and express my sensuality, THEN I would be repressed. Being comfortable in my body, exhibiting myself nude, enjoying my sensuality, enetertaining others with my body…. that is empowering to me. Just as being confident in my intelligence, exhibiting my knowledge, entertaining others with my wit is empowering. Being respected as a woman and being considered equal to man shouldn't mean denying a part of ourselves; our femine allure.
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*feminine
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Whoooa, not saying that I don't enjoy sex with my (now) husband! I'm not saying it's not romantic, sexy, etc.
The transaction goes both ways! We please each other, and for us, sex is mutually beneficient. All relationships are different, though, and not everyone feels the same way. I'm not going to judge a sugar daddy/May-December relationship any differently than I would judge two young star-crossed kids getting married right after high school. As long as everyone is happy, why should I care?
Relationships have so many different ways of working out successfully. I just think it's terrible when people judge them against a standard they've created for themselves.
And as for pole, I get what you're saying about feeling uncomfortable when people express a sexuality that you don't share, and that's fine. think when that happens, people should just turn their heads and look the other way and move on, which is unfortunately not what we tend to experience outside of this community. To do otherwise sounds uncomfortably close to what people say about the LGBT community: "Your version of sexuality doesn't match mine so you should change to what I find comfortable."
I'm not saying that anyone here is alternative lifetstyle-bashing, or that anyone here is suggesting that people should not inject sexy into pole dance, just that the exact same argument is used against gays demonstrating affection in public. I'm also not comparing our troubles to the LGBT community–just putting out there that the argument is ridiculous no matter what the subject is.
I also agree with scarletthoney that it's really tough to get people to listen to you about a job if you haven't worked it the field!
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This is a good question and something that the author of "Living Dolls" felt was a sign of a backlash against feminism, while I personally feel it's anything but, or at the very least, that "it depends" on the person.
For me: I took a pole class because – big deep breath and- I thought it was tacky and couldn't understand why women today would sign up for this. So naturally, the best way to understand something is to just do it, and once I did I loved it and I've been thinking about my prior opinion on it a lot and where it came from.
Ok, we know where my old opinion came from: I can't watch re-runs of the sporanos without scenes of zombified girls rubbing themselves against poles unenthusiastically in every episode. That's the common preception of pole dancers. I didn't even know there was more to it than dancing around a pole naked until I youtubed it.
The bigger annoyence for me is the "but it's sexual" part. here's the thing: guys are turned on by women, no matter what we do. Woman washing a car: SEXUAL. Woman bending over to check something in the oven: SEXUAL. Woman doing yoga: SEXUAL. Woman in rain (ffs!!): SEXUAL https://www.studioveena.com/img/smilies/icon_e_surprised.gif. That's how horney guys are! We have no control of what someone sees as "sexual" and it's not our problem. And this is especially important for me because I grew up in the arabian gulf where just walking down the street covered in black (not that I ever needed to do the all black thing 'cos I'm not from saudi or iran, but most women do dress that way in my country because it's culteral) are sexy. They actually find blobs of black silk SEXY. They'll point out a particular blob and say to their friends "she's hot. I think she's fliritng with me". There is nothing women can do to discourage sexual thought, and in the torah, apparently it's pretty explicity said that this is men's problem, not womens.
Pole dancing in itself is neither repressive nor liberating: it depends on the context.
A (hypothetical) pole dancer who is being exploited is no worse off than a girl working in a sweat shop and being exploited (so is my sewing machine a tool or repression too? or just a money saving gizmo?) or spraying pesticides on tomatoes (same question re: my watering can), etc.People object most vocally against the symbols that they can't hide of things they wish didn't exsist; the girl in the sweat shop or tomato feild aren't visible, but the pole dancer is. What they should be objecting to is inequality, but it's easier to hide the pole dancer than it is to change inequality.
Lots of other sensitivies are representative of this sentiment.
xxxxx
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I hope I didn't come off like I was judging your particular relationship Fever. I do think it's sad when people judge what works for someone else. I was illustrating the difference between judging, and knowing what turns me on vs. what doesn't turn me on, and why the stripper scene doesn't turn me on. Some people are really into the stripper aspect of pole: love the shoes, love poling in lingerie, go to pole classes called "stripper 101". And for a while I thought it meant I was judgmental if I didn't, which had me wondering if I was a walking contradiction.
I knew the first time I tried it that I loved pole dance, the sensual aspect, the strong aspect, the exercise aspect, the dance and artistic aspect, and I'm even fascinated by pole dance's relationship to exotic dance and think that aspect has a lot to teach me. I think it's fun to pay homage to every aspect of pole (still working on my booty pop and sexy floorwork). I loved learning from Fawnia in Vegas. But at the end of the day l have a dance style preference that's all my own. I can understand why some people aren't into certain parts of pole dance, and I realize their preference might not have anything to do with judgment. It is true that some people's aversion to pole dance may be based on judgment, stereotypes, jealousy, or just irrational negative feelings that they don't really even know the cause of, but I'll try to anticipate the best from people.
I don't think that anyone has to change their style of pole dance to fit anyone else's either, I think diversity is one of the things that makes the pole community great and keeps it from going stale.
girlunblogged, thanks for sharing your pole story! Pole dance has been therapeutic for me, as I grew up in a conservative family where I was taught I had to strictly cover my body between x and y in order to not be thought of as a sex object. That way of teaching modesty really just reinforced to me that my body was indeed a sex object. Even as an adult I felt like my body was not for my own enjoyment, but for my husband. I had been so conditioned to go out of my way to keep it covered, often at the expense of my own comfort and preference. Pole dance has helped me be able to acknowledge that my body was built to house an analytical mind, to appear sexy, to perform physical labor, to bear children, and (no less important) for my own joyful experience, and that a mature person will see me as a whole person, and not objectify me, no matter what I'm wearing/doing.
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