Ok now that I've fumed a bit I'm going to do a "Joel" post here:
In psychology, there's what's called a conditioned response. It's the process of conditioning a person or animal to have a response that they would normally have to a certain object to another. It's the experiment with making the dogs drool when they heard a bell ringing because they associated that ringing bell with food over a period of time. The example they used in my psychology class was a young couple used to meet at the same big oak tree every day, then long after the couple broke up, the girl would still get warm fuzzy feelings whenever she saw that tree, even though the relationship was over.
Unfortunately, society has a conditioned response to pole dancing, and in particular, to the pole. They automatically associate strippers with a pole because it's how it's always been used. It's an icon of the industry. But it's misplaced.
In the Bible, people always quote that popular passage as saying that "money is the root of evil". But they are mistaken - it reads that "the LOVE of money is the root of evil." The money is often the catalyst to bring out a person's evil tendencies. The money itself is not evil - it is amoral. It's an inanimate object. Money can be used to do good things like the offering at church being used to build a new addition to the church. But it can also be used for some not-so-good things, which you can all think of your own examples for that.
Applying the same reasoning here: a pole is not evil. It's a THING. It's not sitting in your room just radiating evil in a black void thinking to itself, " Oh I think I'll make him/her do *this* tonight...." It's a piece of frickin' metal. It's people's own minds that add their own meaning to it and make them respond to it, whether that be to start pulling clothes off and humping it or to see it as a tool for spiritual expression and health.
Most of us on this site see the pole as a tool, a piece of equipment, for the betterment of ourselves. Betterment can mean physically as most of us use it to work out and keep in shape, but it can also mean confidence in ourselves. We accomplish new moves and feel empowered, and it can also venture into the more sexual side where we show that we have confidence in our bodies and sexuality, but it is by no means sinful as we are not doing it to encourage lustful thoughts of each other, and we don't watch each other to be tempted as such. And, like Jungle, for some of us the pole is a means of expressing ourselves on a much deeper emotional and spiritual level.
A Christian college I went to for 2 years had dancing banned on campus. However, there was a girl who regularly performed "color guard" at the chapel services. She was doing interpretive dance using flags. Jungle's praise dances are nothing more than interpretive dance using a pole - but at the same time, "nothing more" is an oxymoron as there is so much more to it.
Religious or not, we all need to learn to let go of the response our society is conditioned to give to the pole and realize that this is a beautiful means of spiritual expression that can be just as moving and emotional as a prayer.
