Hello Veeners:
I am her professor, and the last thing I wanted to do was offend this group which I feel provides a valuable and safe haven for polers. I will try to provide a little background in case that helps. As she is currently a student honing her research skills, as well as in the process of learning about pole through trying it out and interacting with other polers, I would very much like this to be a positive welcoming experience for her rather than a negative one. Because of that, plus the way in which many of the questions offending you are mine, I ask all of you to please direct any anger and frustration towards me and not her. I welcome your feedback so feel free to contact me individually here (or my personal e-mail indicated on the survey). I do have some experience with pole, a couple years worth, and have a pipe in my backyard. I have also read about many polers' experiences with people who they feel misunderstand the activity. These misunderstandings are multiple, and can be perpetuated by studios themselves. Meanwhile, there is research in the literature on pole but it is very limited and it is often framed by issues of whether the sexualisation of culture is good or bad, etc. At the end of the day, I feel that polers are in the process of creating various meanings for pole, in the midst of a society that has framed it in potentially other ways. I wanted the survey (amongst other things) to give polers a chance to discuss this. I did fear the survey would be read by polers as potentially offensive. Interestingly enough, I actually put the survey up on a computer and discussed how polers and non-polers might read or misread the survey. Although we made changes, I knew some people might still be offended and misread from whence some questions came (read more below), but I took the risk because I think it is important to understand what good and bad stereotypes people have about pole, and because a researcher has to begin tackling the issue by addressing and building off the literature that already exists (whether he/she agrees or disagrees with that framing).
This survey was designed to start looking at what motivates people to take pole classes (as well as more erotic dance classes at studios), and to see how people's perceptions can change after they take classes or try pole through some other outlet. For example, personally trying pole made me viscerally realize pole required things out of my mind and body that I did not previously anticipate. Rather than automatically assume that the expression of one's sexuality, versus one's strength, or flexibility, or anything else, is separate from the other...we wanted to give people a chance to discuss if/how they felt these are separate or overlap.
Question wording does affect people's answers. Even the order in which answer choices are given affects people's answers. That being said, many of the questions that are troubling this group were not worded by myself or my student. They are standard wording used to understand why people do what they do, whether it is pole or something else entirely, like not chewing gum in school. This includes that list of questions about acting without thinking or doing things for fun. To make this study relate to those theories about why people act the way they do, we utilized those questions. Of the questions we did word, we tried to take a more balanced approach. Further, my student wanted to give polers a chance to really express themselves in their own words, which is why she included questions where people could just write in their thoughts and would not be constrained by artificial answer choices. I can't say too much about the theories here as I think that might bias anyone else who wants to take the study, but I would be happy to discuss this with anyone individually.
As for the sample, I encouraged my student to ask the first questions of people who have very limited knowledge and experience with pole. I also encouraged her to give the survey to a very different group of people, those who have experience poling. Home polers who have never taken classes were given somewhat different questions from those who have taken classes (although this probably was not obvious). I thought it would be valuable to see if/how all of these groups' experiences and thoughts are different. It can start to tell us if the world really has moved on from stereotypes and issues polers may have faced years ago, or not.
