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?

I looked at a flat that had a pole in its living room. As the front door opened straight into said room, the pole was the first thing you saw. It wasn't shown on the photos either.

It was the poor estate agent's first day & the poor lad was embarrassed to the point of being puce. He couldn't tell me if it was structural work or a business opportunity either.

@00100001 Oh so now no-one is allowed to add or change any furniture in their house if a little kid is living there?

Ever heard of baby proofing a house? This applies to items that kids might hurt themselves on. It would include things like sharp corners on a table and, I don’t know, perhaps a hard metal pole in the MIDDLE of the front room? It’s called common sense to understand what might not be a good idea to have around with little kids

Running headfirst into wood is VERY different to running head first into metal!

How so?

If it's good enough for bojo and Jennifer..............

Toddlers run into everything.

Sounds like a fun thing to do that'll help with fitness. I bet the parties are more about the girls having a laugh with their new hobby than the guys being skeezy.

You're being ridiculous.

While it wouldn't be my taste it's their house and so their choice. What I find obnoxious is the term " baby proofing". Over protecting cotton wooling really annoys me, what happened to: pay attention, be prepared for small knocks and bumps and children learning from experience. My two spent their most formative years living on a building site... hopefully I'm an "ok" parent too!

I see Cool MN has turned out in force to show us all how achingly liberal they are. And yes, tbf, pole fitness requires incredible strength and athleticism and yes, OP sounds fairly judgey and doesn’t appear to like these friends very much.

However, it is still a bit odd to have a permanent pole fixed in a communal room of a family home and I can only imagine the mortification of their DS once he and his friends are of an age to understand the connotations of pole dancing.

Grim? Yes
Tacky? Yes

Yawn.

I would not want a pole in my own living room, nor would I want to be watched by other’s husbands; my home, my choice.

Yes you are being unreasonable, not only to judge another woman but also to make immediate links to pole exercise and sleaze.

I can see a personal connection here. By choice and not to please anyone else or to try and turn anyone on, I prefer to wear stockings to tights. Stockings are easily kept under wraps or under hemlines at least, but again have unwarrented associations with sleaze, the sex industry etc and if people know you wear them they pre-judge.

As for the pole being a permanant fixture, I would have thought a temporary fitting would be dangerous. And hey, children bang their heads all the time. It’s just sad they felt the need to lie.

*The pole itself

Your judgemental nature is grim

Only read 4 pages before eye rolling at all the grim/stripper/sexualised comments

But in a nutshell: child ran into object. Children do this all the time.

The whole story about women having a go, partners watching and admiring is a bit given that women learning or trying out pole fitness can spend a whole lesson learning basic spins and conditioning so they'd not have anything to "admire" when messing on at a party. You just told that story to whip up judgement really.

And there it is again, “cool” —wives— used as some kind of cutting put down. Yawn. It’s almost as tedious as handmaiden is.

OP’s played a blinder here, if I’m honest. Wind ‘em up, sit back and watch ‘em froth.

NotACleverName
Too true.

Cool wives is a stupid term anyway. Of course another woman couldn't possibly have different interests or opinions to me, nope she must be doing it to be cool for men.

Double yawn with knobs on!!

The only real bad part is lying. Any door frame injuries mine have had have left a very obvious line that a curved pole likely wouldn't so not telling the truth could cause unnecessary suspicion to a dr that sees these injuries all the time. Perhaps suggest foam pipe insulation on the pole for when her DS is running about

Unless the wife and her friends are gyrating around the pole in their knickers in front of small children then I'm not sure why it's "grim". Pole dance is brilliant for fitness, strength and a fun hobby. I'm not really sure I would want one in the middle of my living room but wouldn't life be boring if we were all the same! All kids bump into something at some point and I'm sure after this she will either move it or pad it when it's not being used.

If pole dancing is all about fitness and strength and entirely unrelated to anything sexual or remotely skeazy, why don’t they offer it as an option in school PE? They’re always looking for things to interest particularly girls but also non footbally boys in sport.

If pole dancing is all about fitness and strength and entirely unrelated to anything sexual or remotely skeazy

This is the thing. Pole dance doesn’t have just one genre. Classes are often separated into different styles.

For example , One class could involved pull ups, circuits, type of thing. The next could be 8 inch heels exotic style. It’s not to everyone’s tastes but it is grim to see women slagging off women doing something that takes a lot of confidence. I started the “fitness” and now I’d much rather do the latter, but that’s from years to training.

I will never dispute my hobby’s roots with strippers.

Why is there not pole classes in PE? Probably because poles, training and insurance is expensive, higher risk of injury and of course poles sexual connotations. And it fucking HURTS! Same goes for burlesque Etc.

But there are kids pole classes out there in studios. Often side by side with aerial hoop classes. The training for kids classes differs from the average instructor training.

“ t it is grim to see women slagging off women doing something that takes a lot of confidence.”

Is it? I think it’s pretty grim for women to contribute to the growing “pornification” of society and normalisation of women as sexual commodities, frankly.

And I am staggered that anyone would send their children to a pole dancing class.....

It's tacky and they should not have lied to the doctor.

The toddler could have bumped into anything: so I don’t think they’re bad parents.

Nothing against pole dancing but a pole in the living room is a bit tacky tbh.

And the “parties” are a bit yuck (but I’m a wee fat ugly woman who no one would want to see pole dancing)

Odd to put an item of exercise equipment right in the middle of a living room. Odd that they have parties where men watch women 'exercising'.