To think burlesque IS empowering?

[Neverknowing]

Following on from the 'burlesque' thread, I want to ask peoples opinion on burlesque I think if a woman is getting paid to do something they enjoy and they feel empowered by it then there's nothing wrong? I have a friend who did burlesque for years and said men and women who went to the shows were always respectful and she loved doing it!
Does anyone have any reasons they think burlesque isn't empowering?

totally agree user.

No. The majority of pole dancers do it because they love it

what is your source for this?
And where there hell do 'most' pole dancers perform if not in adult/strip clubs?

If you think burlesque shows in general are conforming to every male defined concept of female beauty, I have to assume you've not seen any. The diversity and inclusivity of burlesque is one of its attractions.

My source for it is being in constant contact with pole dancers and teachers in my city and across the country, talking to them, seeing their shows and sometimes performing alongside them. I am familiar with the community. They work their bums off to get that level of strength and flexibility and they do it because they are passionate about it as gymnastic dance. Aerial hoop and silks are just as beautiful but they don't get this level of ignorance.

Ironically, it's only because strip clubs latched on to pole dancing that it's now got this reputation. Hoop and silks are left alone. All these people spouting about how pole demeans women have been taken in by the very sex industry they loathe.

Go to a circus skills show sometime, there are lots of showcases at this time of year.

In fact, don't take my word for it. Ring up a few local pole teachers yourself. Tell them you want a career working in strip clubs, so can they teach you since that is what pole is about. And see what they say.

Diversity of what?

it's still about taking your bra off and getting audience approval to be some how 'empowered'

I have no issue with it but I hate it being called 'empowering'

Oh come off it.
You know what this thread is about. It is NOT about people doing exercise classes. Its about women who pole dance to make money to live.
Don't tell me your 'constant contact' (how the hell do you manage that?) is with women who work in the industry.

My source for it is being in constant contact with pole dancers and teachers in my city and across the country, talking to them, seeing their shows and sometimes performing alongside them

Your source is the MINORITY of people who do pole dancing. Do you dance in the strip clubs and talk to them? No, you don't. So you assume your lived experience is that of the majority.
You're a priviliged dilettante.

Tell them you want a career working in strip clubs, so can they teach you since that is what pole is about. And see what they say

They will say they don't do that. Because they see themselves as above that, as you do.
And then you dare to try and erase their experience because you think yours is superior.

Quick google tells me that pole dancing has a history of a circus act but was very quickly incorporated in burlesque and stripping.
The craze for pole dancing as a recreational activity is much younger.
I think your timeline is confused.

privileged women who can feed their kids on their good (or their OH's) wages getting their kicks doing a watered down version of what thousands of women feel they have to do.

And feeling superior about it because they are empowered by it.

FFS

Exactly. It's the worse kind of appropriation.

'In 2016, Daily Dot[41] ran a story which covered the attempt by some pole dancers to distance themselves from strippers, with their story "Strippers Talk Back to the hashtag #Notastripper". The story utilized the hashtag "yes a stripper" in support of the origins of pole dance. On the social media platform Instagram, some pole dancers try to differentiate between their exercise method, and the origin of the method, by using "not a stripper" as a hashtag. The hashtag can be viewed as derogatory, and pole dancing strippers utilize "yes a stripper" as a defense against the denigration of their style of dance, which is created and used in strip clubs'

I haven't RTFT but I am pleased to see I'm not the only one uncomfortable with burlesque.

I went to a 1940s night once which was great. It was all based around watching a live 'radio' show. But then at the end, burlesque dancers all female- suddenly appeared. I felt pissed off that it was sort of sprung on us and like I couldn't march out or shout 'fuck this bs' because it was 'arty' and 'funny'.

I can concede a mixed sex show might be a bit more tolerable - if you'd chosen to go and see it.

I still dislike the notion it is empowering that people find you visually acceptable and fuckable - whatever sex you or the viewer is. And often of course it is women being made to feel they are ok and acceptable to the male gaze which they've been fretting about their entire life - or that is often the narrative anyway.

I suppose it is "empowering" in the same way that getting breast augmentation or doing 'lingerie photoshoots' apparently are too.

Perhaps we should just accept that 'empowerment' is now just a short-hand way for women to say, "I desperately need other people to find me sexy but at the same time, I really don't want you to think that I'm shallow, vain or anything like that, so I shall pretend its something very psychologically meaningful instead" .

I heart some of the posts in this thread so much; the MNers here have put words to the feelings of distaste I have at being approached about polefitness and burlesque classes.

It's disingenuous, wide-eyed dabbling in sex-work. "Oh, we do it for the great work-out!" Bullshit. Loads of things are strenuous and require great skill, such as tap-dancing but you went for an activity developed in its present form by strip clubs and associated in the popular imagination with 19 year-olds wearing nipple tassles.

Don't pretend that just happened.

In the process, you and your mates at the Wednesday classes, who will never have to set foot in a strip club, are giving strip clubs a false legitimacy and talking lap-dancing up as if it's a bloody vocation.

Good show! It's not going to be you who ever has to endure people expecting you to have enjoyed your shifts, is it.

They will say they don't do that. Because they see themselves as above that, as you do. And then you dare to try and erase their experience because you think yours is superior.

They will say they don't do that because they don't do that. For someone who is so vocal about erasing women's experiences, you are very keen to dismiss the ones that disprove your ignorance. And the judgement in this comment about sex workers is all your own.

And the reason I dance pole isn't because I think my experience is "superior", whatever that means. It's because I'm too fat, weak and stiff.

I'm really quite disappointed by the ignorance and hatred on this thread. The pole community has been trying for years to show the world that it's artistic gymnastics requiring incredible skill. But it seems that many people, especially those who claim to care about vulnerable women in the sex trade, just can't understand that if men appropriate a dance art, women can't possibly be doing it for themselves. Sad and ironic.

Maybe the pole community will succeed in its campaign to have pole made into an Olympic sport, and then people will actually learn something about it.

Ugh, I meant, the reason I DON'T dance pole. Wish I could.

I cannot find a posh form of stripping empowering.

The pole community has been trying for years to show the world that it's artistic gymnastics requiring incredible skill

Will you please stop pretending to know the "pole community" when you are excluding the majority of people who pole dance as well as the people who created it.
You sound like a white woman who is doing native american rain dances and then pretending its only white women that do it. It's pathetic and its just plain wrong.

it is pathetic.
How can pole dancing in hardly any clothes on be 'empowering'? fucking humiliating more like. And what is more embarrassing is that there are actually women who are so dumb that they have bought into this shit.

its just fat birds stripping, isn't it?

artistic gymnastics requiring incredible skill

This always gets trotted out. Ignore the odd throwaway comments; the main objection to polefitness is not that there's no skill required.

We weren't born yesterday- we can quite see that doing any form of complex dance or gymnastic routine requires skill.

But you must be born yesterday if you think its sudden popularity is because it's "artistic gymnastics".

The confidence argument is a straw man. On the face of it an activity that builds someone's self esteem and confidence should be fantastic. However I do tire of the argument that stripping has improved someone's body confidence, because it completely overlooks the fact that the entire activity is predicated on the basis of gaining public approval. So you've taken your clothes off and received applause and praise and improved your confidence, ignoring the fact it's based on the fact that strangers decided that your naked body passed muster. Would stripping have built your confidence if you'd been booed off the stage?

It's a shame that women's self-esteem depends so much on looking fuckable
A woman can have different levels of confidence in different areas. I was very confident at work and socialising with friends but body confidence took me a lot longer. And what's wrong with wanting sexual confidence?

I think lots of different styles of dancing is sexy. Just watching the Strictly pros dance to All That Jazz and thinking they look very sexy. I love burlesque. I did a stripping class with a mate years ago - it was fantastic fun and made me realise just how sexy confidence is. I was able to let go of those hangups about my flabby bits and feel good about myself.

I don't think you can label burlesque as empowering any more than you can label anything as empowering. It might be in some circumstances for some women, but there are plenty of times when it would be quite the opposite.

Stripping done well is something I find very erotic. I saw Dita Von Tease perform and she was amazingly sexy