Friends have put a pole up in the middle of their living room.....

[FieldsOf]

Two friends of mine, who are married and in their mid 30's. Let's call them Tom and Ann. One DS.

Ann's been getting into pole dancing recently. So last month Tom put a fixed pole up right in the middle of the living room. She 'practises' on it and they've had a few 'Pole parties' where other female friends come over and all have a go. Tom and all the other husband's love it and will just sit there while their 'amazing' wives are 'exercising' while they sit their toasting each other with their beer

To be clear, it's a proper, fixed, permanent pole, that runs from the floor and attached to the ceiling. House is a small two bed semi. Living room normal size for that kind of house, ie - not extended and now there's just enough room for the corner sofa and TV.

Anyway this morning I get a text from Ann saying their DS, who's walking and bolting around now, ran into the pole and was in A&E all night! She sent me a photo and he has a massive golf ball size lump on his forehead, with lots of bruising already.
She told the doctor he hit it on the doorframe.

They are 'okay' parents but generally seem to want to change very little in their lives since DS came along.
Tbh this friendship has been on its way out for a long time on my behalf anyway, this is the cherry on the cake.

AIBU to say this is:

• Incredibly selfish
• Dangerous
• Dishonest
• Bit weird
• Generally just pretty grim?

YABU

@Pandaintheporridge my gym throws parties!! We also do team training days! So far there has been 2 family fun days also.. Many reasons behind it.

I bet you were secretly delighted when that child hit his head. I bet you’ve been desperate to ditch these people, but knew you’d look uptight and judgemental if you dropped them because they had a pole and ‘parties’. Now you can legitimately take the moral high ground and, like the paragon of virtue that you are, solemnly state that, while what they do in private is their own business, you cannot stand by and condone it when there is a child at risk. You get to feel like you’ve taken the high ground and you get rid of ‘friends’ you don’t really like into the bargain.

How delightfully chavtastic they sound poor child...

OMG, shocking, Rachelover60! 😲

That dance, straight out of Latin American brothels, and look how she's rubbing her vag on his leg - and on TV too! How chavvy and tacky.

Just look at this for exploitation too. Horrifically exploitative.

There are some really bonkers prudish people on this thread.

Pole is just a vertical gymnastics bar. I've a lot of awe for those who execute it.

Rachelover60
I'm not sure I'll ever be able to achieve such levels of grim, but I was thinking more along these lines:
No chance of rubbing vag with such a tight skirt, though.

It's a shame they told the A&E staff that he'd run into a door frame. It probably would have given them a giggle to hear he'd run into Mummy's pole.

I can't get worked up about it. Toddler could just as easily have run into a door frame. My DC1 ran straight into a fireman's pole at a playground.

I think your friendship may have run it's course though as you don't seem very keen on her.

Thanks for the detailed review of my Statement.
I suppose all my male friends are just constantly hiding their big throbbing erections from me and darting to the loo for quick wanks.
Thanks for opening my eyes to the truth, hopefully now they have been opened they don't ejaculate into them with their big uncontrollable hard ons.

Good to see that your reading comprehension and understanding is as sub par and unsubtle as your attempt to be sarcastic & vulgar.

Since you clearly didn't grasp one iota of my point (or try to) .. in saying that people, even close friends, don't verbalise every thought that flits through their head esp if they feel it's inappropriate, or perhaps unflattering to themselves... and therefore you don't necessarily know the entirety of their feelings about/reactions to anything, including this subject - I was not suggesting that the males who attended the performances you referred to either had erections at the time or ran to the toilets to masturbate. Clearly you can't imagine sexual reactions or thoughts outside of that level.

Have no idea why I'm wasting my time, I won't on another post.

Criticising someone’s ‘reading comprehension’ is fast becoming the Mumsnet version of Godwin’s Law.

Yeah I think it’s weird.. I’d find a new friend.

How delightfully chavtastic they sound grin poor child...

Aside from.all the thread details along the "pole dancing is not remotely sexual, and has no associations with stripping/the sex industry, what is wrong with you?!!!" lines that i couldn't help but be drawn into; this was my main objection ...
The sheer cringy chaviness of it (and I suppose the fuckedupedness of suburban wives aping sex workers in order to feel "empowered" (not) and titlllate their husbands .. I thought that was passé, over and done with a few years back; with suburban wives moving onto fifty shades of shite and the purchase of cheap, tacky BDSM gear as the next trend to be empowered (while being submissive to men), dread to think whats next).

The pole location and placement of the pole also an accident waiting to happen for the poor kid too.

Well, bless your little heart.

*derails

Wow there’s so many judgmental people in here

@Pandaintheporridge My friend was on the pole team at her uni, they toured and did competitions with other universities, I went to one of the comps and there was no gyrating or sexy faces, or provocative moves, the team was mostly women but a few male students too. The upper body strength it takes is incredible, and it was as entertaining to watch as a gymnastics or dance routine. What's more likely, that it's a seedy secret pole dancing society in a suburban two up two down where the husbands watch each others wives perform a strip routine, or a group of adults having drinks at a friend's and once tipsy deciding to have a laugh by attempting and most likely failing to climb the pole in the front room? People are far more boring than you think they are

If it was my friends I’d be asking to have a go and could she teach me!! It’s supposed to be brilliant exercise as you use all the muscles all the time. Wish I had room for one in my room!!

I’m disturbed as to how many of you haven’t thought about the kid in all this. Running headfirst into wood is VERY different to running head first into metal! And the fact that she lied is disgraceful! If she had at least said, metal railing then the drs may have treated the child differently.
Absolutely disgusted!

Our baby slipped over and smacked his face really hard on our baby gate - glad no one called social services on us lol.

I pole and have the pole in my sitting room. It's not fixed, it's tension mounted and can come down in 2 minutes. I would imagine that hers is the same because the most popular brand is tension mounted.

It's in the sitting room because that's where I have most space. Pole is an amazing workout and builds a huge amount of strength. It's not simply about sexy dancing, although people can do that style if that want.

I find it very hard to believe that the women go around to the house and the men sit there and watch lol You made yourself sound around 150 years old with that silly story that you told!

These are sex people Lynne.

Partridge?

The bit about the blokes watching - if true - is weird.

They can just wrap in foam during the day. It sounds like harmless fun

I did once have a go at pole dancing it was a disaster! Probably because I was wearing slippy leggings and I couldn't get a grip of the pole!

This is Kate Moss doing it tastefully.

Another prude here. Sorry but to me a pole is irrevocably about women objectifying themselves while men watch. It will be centuries if it's ever mainstream enough to be dissociated from stripping/sex industry and it's not something I would want to explain to children. I've only ever seen pole dancing moves that are very specialised in nature.

And I don't really care who i offend when I say pole dancing/stripping is tacky/chavvy.