Offensive/degrading to women, or all in good fun?

[Earlybird]

At the hairdresser yesterday, a woman was telling her stylist (in a very loud voice) about her company (she obviously wanted everyone to hear as clients were/are her 'target' market). She teaches classes, and does 'many private parties for hen nights, birthdays' etc.

At the end of her appointment, she gave the salon owner (who was doing my hair), a large stack of business cards and asked if he would put them in the reception area. When the woman had gone, the owner asked what I thought of her company, and whether it would be 'good fun' to place her cards up front.

The woman's business? Female only classes where students are taught to pole dance, lap dance and do 'aerobic' striptease (though she hastened to add, no one strips off completely in class).

Your opinion?

It's great exercise (apparently). Very trendy way of getting fit at the moment.. also is supposed to be great for self confidence etc.

I'd certainly give it a go.

It's a free country. The women going to these classes are presumably just doing it for fun / exercise / make themselves feel sexy. It's not like they are not going into sex working because they are penniless and desperate or being manipulated or coerced.

That said, you have the right to think it's tacky. I also think it's tacky and it wouldn't be for me, but horses for courses.

I'm trying to picture what an aerobic strip tease would be like. I'd imagine it to be very fast and sweaty, I'm picturing Jane Fonda, leg warmers, head band, feeling the burn.

oh god I don't know
I feel completely adrift about this sort of thing at the moment.
I think on an individual level it might well be fun and feel great.
but I think on a cultural and political level it os part of a culture which sees women as sexual commodities and objects, which I can only see as a very bad and corrosive thing for all women and all society.
in the 70s and 80s we woul dhave been appalled at such a thing. I think that the fact it is now mainstream and acceptable is not progress tbh.

but then again I have already been told to lighten up once this week

Agree with Harpsi.

Sure, it's all in good fun. Men do it, too, right, they get together for social activities that are all about making themselves more attractive to us, through seductive dances, "pampering" (being poked, prodded, and scrubbed for us), etc etc. Right?

me too. (agree with harpsi and mi).

I think this trend is hideous and would definitely have a private sneer at anyone that took part in such a class. Not sure about the offensive/degrading angle though - just tacky.

oh look a North American being ironic!

thanks MI I feel like Milly Tant more and more these days, it is rather nice to have someone sensible agree with me

Wait, don't men do that?

Shit, obviously there's a big hole in the market, they must be crying out to be exfoliated, or to learn new special sexy dances for us in their spare time.

Quick quick, let's set up a company, before someone else does it.

Not my cup of tea but if that's what women want to do, fair enough.

If I were the salon owner though I wouldn't display the cards, in the first place it would look like you support the business which may put some of your own customers off. In any case advertising doesn't come free so whatever the business I wouldn't have their cards in my shop.

Do you reckon we would have been appalled in the 70's 80's? Considering women were flinging off their bras at Woodstock in the 60's I doubt it.

Not my cup of tea but if that's what women want to do, fair enough.

If I were the salon owner though I wouldn't display the cards, in the first place it would look like you support the business which may put some of your own customers off. In any case advertising doesn't come free so whatever the business I wouldn't have their cards in my shop.

Do you reckon we would have been appalled in the 70's 80's? Considering women were flinging off their bras at Woodstock in the 60's I doubt it.

Agree with harpsi too. There is nothing dodgy in itself about writhing around a pole or stripping off for your partner, if that's what you like doing. But it makes me feel uncomfortable because of the bigger context of pornification in our society and the pervading atmosphere of women being seen as objects and the endless pressure on them to be "sexy". So imagine that these classes would make me very depressed.

Anway if I was the salon owner I wouldn't do it. He could be fairly sure that it would make some of his clients uncomfortable.

NQC - I was thinking just the same thing. I was about to say it will be ok when men do it too. but I changed my mind - I was wrong - men doing it might be indicative of a more equal world, but not a better one.

well the hippies weren't necessarily feminists and the free love thing got a little hijacked I think
but yes we would have been shocked by women acting as strippers and sex workers "for fun". we would have thought it was degrading.
(by "we" I mean mainstream liberated women in case you are wondering )

does it come with age...milly tant tendencies, using phrases like pornification of society, hating the front cover of FHM?

Having a loud voice in a hairdressers it definitely offensive.

I'm not sure about the pole-dancing/stripping. I keep wavering and seen lots of different points of view. It wouldn't be for me, but I would think nothing of someone learning to bellydance which has been used for centuries to titillate men.

The business owner told all of us (in her loud voice) how she'd just done a pole-dancing lesson for a 50 year old woman's birthday party, and it was 'such fun' and 'everyone loved it'.