Work colleagues found photos from when I used to do pole fitness and are mocking me

I still resistance train and do spin classes but all at home now so no real room for a pole. Just feels better exercising at home rather than where people can laugh at me

@spikefaithbuffyangel I'm sorry to hear you've stopped because of some twats on the internet😣 is there any chance you can buy your own and put it in your house? I have one where my dining table should be😂Every time there is an advert break on I have a quick spin lol As pp have stated it is excellent exercise. Resistance training as lifting you own body weight, requires flexibility, grace (not so much in my case) never gets boring as always a new move to learn, sociable classes. People of all ages and sizes. (Out instructor is a man and we have a 67 year old in our class who is AMAZING!) Please start back up again!

That goes for you too OP!

You seem awfully angry for the middle of the night.

I guess if all you’ve got is a hammer then every problem is a nail and anyone who disagrees will seem obtuse. This is not an issue of being ‘too friendly’ with work colleagues, so your advice on that is not ‘nuanced’, nor your angle acute, it’s simply irrelevant. There is no lesson for her here, despite you having a lesson you want to share. Unless you think there is something inherently shameful about the activity, she hasn’t been overly friendly in discussing it.

Bullying and harassment won’t be tolerated by most decent workplaces, someone’s gone out of their way to find the pic to share it and then they’re all making derogatory comments. Totally within your right to take it to HR.

@Whatevernext9 Oh FFS I said she did nothing wrong in my first post otherwise I wouldn’t have said to report to her manager or HR. Obtuse as a triangle, you are.

But Ms Lacking in Nuance, being not wrong doesn’t necessarily make you right.

I don’t believe OP has indicated that she thought these people were friends at all (though I may have missed it) so not sure why your advice on that is needed here.

They were friendly enough to be sharing stories of pole fitness with 🤷‍♀️ But if they weren’t work friends then the advice is even more pertinent.

If one’s going to use a laughing emoji… own it 🤣😂😅

🙄

Kids?

Yes.
There are teaching courses specifically for this.

1. In your workplace, this IS sexual harrassment
2. Your photos are no less than the holiday photos Julie puts on her instagram
3. Don’t cry. You aren’t ashamed , so don’t give them that power over you.

Why can’t people just let others enjoy what they do. It isn’t hurting them. I’ve taught pole alongside full time corporate for a very long time now, Shock,horror, it’s on my CV.

The attempt to use stripper as some sort of insult is boring in 2025. It isn’t an insult.

it really makes me cringe to see grown adults shit on others because the hobby doesn’t interest them.

I do miss the laughing emoji…

Well done for finally acknowledging OP has done nothing wrong. Most of us - judging from the responses here - would not think of OP as ‘the pole dancer at work’ despite your insistence on that being reality. I don’t believe OP has indicated that she thought these people were friends at all (though I may have missed it) so not sure why your advice on that is needed here.

You are willingly being obtuse at this point?

I’ll keep it simple. The OP legally or policy wise did nothing wrong. Agree, Yes? Good now stay with me.

There is a difference between legal and policy and the real world that we all live in.

The rest of my advice is based on that real world we live in.

By willingly sharing this information with her coworkers she opened the door. Even if she reports, it’s investigated, and her coworkers are sanctioned (up to and including dismissal) she will be ‘the pole dancer’ at her job.

Now I don’t know about anyone else but that’s not something that I want to be known as or remembered by in a professional setting. The rest of the advice I gave is based on reality and not a policy book.

This is actually the second reply this week I’ve given along the same lines of work friends being different from real friends to an OP that has over shared or gotten the two conflated. It is good advice that I received early on and has been reinforced over my career by situations similar to the OPs and other professional sources.

You of course are free to disagree with me but please do me the courtesy of disagreeing with something I actually said.

Nope, I referenced that bit when I said ‘As you say, still harassment and should be investigated…’

‘Involved in this activity’? An exercise class six years ago? You seem to be implying that OP is responsible for being harassed. That’s legally incorrect and, if you are a manager, you really should brush up on your knowledge. Not everyone is prepared to ‘tough it out’ any more, and the law is on their side, whether you like it or not. If a colleague searched for photographs of your children because you mentioned your family, I’m sure you wouldn’t think that acceptable.

Point flew straight over your head then.

If by ‘lib-fem’ you mean people with the ability to distinguish between dancing in front of other women who cheer each other on for their skill and strength, and women taking off their clothes while dancing in front of men who throw money at them, then I guess I’m a lib-fem.

No I didn’t miss the bit from the OP. The coworkers would have never searched for the photos had the OP not shared that she was involved in this activity.

But you seemed to have missed this bit from my response:

As your manager(public):

• you should report to me or HR if you think you’ve been harassed in any way. All reports will be taken seriously and investigated.

The rest of it is 100% applicable and true in my experience.

This is sexual harassment.

It doesn’t matter what your colleagues or other posters think, if you tell HR they will recognise it immediately and also understand the legal implications of not responding appropriately (you could sue). Tell HR.

Even now a lot of pole dancing classes market it as a way to get in touch with your sexy side, or for events like pre-wedding bonding stuff with your bridesmaids, and stripping is the main association for it.

the association is there, and there is also a perception that a lot of women who do it are having a bit of a stripper fantasy. I think that's not generally accurate actually, but it's a common POV and the marketing doesn't necessarily contradict that.

It's kind of like women who do boxercise with no intention of ever really boxing, it is still associated with the sport of boxing, it trades somewhat on the "tough" image of boxing, and people who really think boxing is awful aren't likely to do it. And you might not mention it at your weekly pacifist meet.

I do thing they were being kind of mean and unprofessional OP. I'm not sure I'd report personally, I'd be more likely to say something to them up front. I do think that if you are consdering reporting a good idea is always to think about the outcome you want, vs what is actually likely to happen. Once you go higher up it's no longer in your hands, iyswim.

I will say though, that as much as lots of people want to say that it's "just fitness" that is really not at all how a lot of people think of it. Everyone knows it comes from stripping and there are enough classes that explicitly market it as something sexy that it's not likely to lose that connotation soon - this isn't something under your control or where people are even really wrong to make that association, which is why I suspect many people wouldn't have brought it up at work. Your co-workers seem to think of it as "stripping-adjacent" and also that you were happy enough to talk about it openly, so may have thought that joking about it would also be reasonable.

Why would someone feel the need to go searching for your past previous fitness pictures.Sounds to me there's some jealousy of you and this person felt the need to try and humiliate you.

What do you mean?

That’s your choice to not do it though.
And if you want to judge other women first chosing to do pole dancing, go for it.

But not at work. Not publicly. Not in a way that is aimed at making the person feel bad/humiliate them.

Sure, yes I do,if that makes you feel better. Look, people can do whatever they want but personally I’m not going to pretend that pole “fitness” isn’t inherently derived from a sexist industry and there are a fuckton of other sports and fitness activities that aren’t. But hooray for the typical lib-fem “I choose my choice” delusional bullshit I guess…

Your female colleague searched Google and showed your photograph in a public place for no other reason other than to try and embarass and humiliate you. What a nasty person. Her actions were deliberate and calculated. She chose to show them to others where she hoped they would result in a reaction from others. The behaviour and comments that followed were wrong.
You have done nothing wrong. What action would you like? What do you feel confident doing?

Address it in the same group setting pointing out the inappropriateness of something said in private being used in a way to try and embarass you which resulted in hurtful comments.
Speak to your manager, HR or both and let them deal with it. Don't let it fester.
Good luck to you. Hold your head high.

Do you refuse wedding invites on the basis that marriage is rooted in legalised rape and the denial of women’s autonomy?

This response would make complete sense had OP shared photos of her pole dancing and was no upset at the response. As you say, still harassment and should be investigated but possibly a life lesson for OP too.

But that’s not what happened. A colleague searched online for a photo of OP from several years ago and then shared it with others. You seem to have either missed that bit or be under the - legally incorrect - impression that this is acceptable workplace behaviour. Part of cultivating a professional persona is knowing the difference between ‘banter’ and things that cross the line, but an even more important part is attention to detail.

Are you really not capable of recognising the difference between taking part in pole fitness classes and pole dancing in the ‘stripper’ sense ?

I think your posts say more about you than the subject matter TBH.