Second Coren disappointment of the weekend

[hipsterfun]

Victoria reinforces sexist ideas to undermine female athletes

and this is no different from asymmetric bars.

TheSmallClangerWhistlesAgain
You can get poles in different material.

Silicone ones are great for climbing and inverting and you can (should) wear more layers like you would with hoop. Hiwever will shred your hands if you attempt to spin on it and I don't think thry have the spin function (which is really fun, but leaves you a littlw dizzy after a while).

Most of the ones in studios are chrome bit again they come in different widths. I quite like the 50mm ones fir certain moves when I'm learning them but when it comes to stringing them in combos then I like the 45mm ones. For chrome and brass you still get some blisters now and then but skin to pole contact is needed to get the grip. Crop top and shorts is what most people wear but obviously people can opt for smaller outfits for performances if that's their thing

Isn't it funny when people who know nothing about a subject charge in and try and explain how it should be changed to make it more acceptable to them?

"Isn't it funny when people who know nothing about a subject charge in and try and explain how it should be changed to make it more acceptable to them?"

Yes. Feminists find this happens all the time.......

So why are you intent on doing it to other women? You seem very invested in telling other women what they should and shouldn't do with an air of "i know best" about you. That's not very feminist is it?

I'm not. Pole dance away to your heart's content. Just don't be suckered into thinking that it is empowering, or good for other women and how we are viewed in society.

Maisy, thanks for that information.

DD also said that the pole made her hands smell of metal, which she didn't like!

These grippy silicone poles sound interesting. I think that might be what gymnastic bars are made of. Gymnasts wear hand guards on the bars and manage to spin very well.

I haven't pole danced (apart from twirling about a pole in a student bar from time to time, not so long ago). I don't need to experience a modern, nonsexual, acro or lyrical flow pole fitness class to question "the feminism of pole dancing'. I wouldn't expect an oncologist to have had cancer in order to do the job they do.

Feminism isn't interested in dictating what you can individually or what you find empowering. Feminism can be used to explore why women seek out sexual/bodily empowerment in the first place, how that's achieved and where it's placed in society. You can shut down any discussion on any topic to "well I enjoy it so live and let live". Mays well just post an affirmation statement somewhere on how much you love pole dancing and turn the comments off.

TheSmallClangerWhistlesAgain
Smell of metal? That's a new one on me.
I'll end uo smelling my hands after my next class now because I'm curious.

Silicone ones aren't like gymastics bars. I can't quite explain them. Gymnastics ones are fibreglass (or when I did it as a kid we had wood still for one of our sets).
Here's an example of a silicone one x-pole.co.uk/shop/x-pole-sets-extensions/x-pole-xpert-nx/xpert-nx-45mm-set-silicone-pink-detail.html

Where people want a pole with a bit more grip than metal but don't want silicone you can get these ones x-pole.co.uk/index.php?option=com_virtuemart&view=productdetails&virtuemart_product_id=573&virtuemart_category_id=18&Itemid=115

I considered getting one for home to train on but I actually really like spin and they don't do this one with the spin function.

You mention gloves, you can get gloves. People get sweaty palms tend to use them but generally dry hands is prefered. The thing with gloves (no expert here at all) is thay gloves for spinning and gloves for climbing might need to eb different. Not sure on that. Someone who knows more mighy come along.

I didn't find any of this out until I started looking into buying one though. I'll be honest when I started pole training I started with the view you'd never see me wearinf crop top and shorts. How times change

TheSmallClanger; the poles become grippy as the dancer warms them up. The slick surface is to allow for maximum expression of movement including static spins, slides, drops, flowing from poses by rolling the pole across the skin without tearing or burning the flesh..when the pole is silicone or rubber coated the dancer cannot perform certain moves (whilst others are easier). Circus and Chinese pole styles are different to the type of flow/training performed on chrome poles. Lass linked to a cool video of dancers using rubber coated flying poles.

Maisy, you can get powder or silicone coated X Pole X Perts which have both spin and static functionality

Is it different when a man does it?
These are all the exact same moves women do as well.
Do you feel different watching them performed by a man?
m.youtube.com/watch?v=-i-QK2KlYPg

Thee is no history in this country of sexual exploitation/ sexualization of men. Men are not defined by their appearance or their sexiness. There is not a massive industry devoted to presenting men as sex objects.

You have not answered my question.
This is a dance on a pole.
I do many of the same moves when I dance.
Same moves same pole same clothes: why is he free to dance without judgement and I am not? Double standards.

It's a dance. It's a pole. The prurience, the secualisarion is in the gaze of the viewer. I am sorry to hear you cannot look at it without your make patriarchal gaze glasses on. The audience watching Magnus, as you can hear, are women. He is performing at a pole art completion aongside his pole peers, men and women, for his pole peers.

In a pole fit class there are only pole peers there, no prurient (or judging, disapproving gaze). The fitness student or dancer is in safe space and in learning that she is strong enough to fly, in finding the joy of what her body can surprise herself by doing after working hard, she experienced not only satisfaction but liberation, pride and self acceptance.

Should read sexualisation not secularisation. 😂

For goodness ale, Pole dancing should not be an Olympic sport

And male patriarchal gaze glasses, ffs this autocorrect function is shit on toast

We’re all wearing male patriarchal gaze glasses for sure. But when Bertrand sees a sexualised pole-dancing woman through them as far as I can tell she just thinks pole dancing is problematic whereas when certain types of men see the same, their misogynistic assumptions about women are reinforced and their behaviour towards women worsens (e.g. evidence of increased local sexual assaults on women following the opening of strip clubs). That’s kind of our point.

Please don’t think I’m judging you Muffster. I’d love to live in a world where you could just get on with it without any of this baggage

Chris Talbot freestyling
m.youtube.com/watch?v=J5cXRA8qw_s
There are LOADS of guys who pole. He is doing pole classique style here, Magnus was doing contemporary pole.

If you think pole classes are all about objectifying and sexualising women and are a specific danger to women's liberation from parriarchal oppression I am rather sad because they really are not. Don't get me started on Teen magazines, and the beauty/fashion/makeup tips therein, the nonstop torrent of porn accessible on mobile phones...the pressure to be thin, hairless, with pert breasts and round bottom.. whereas teaching young and not so young women that whatever their age and size and body type they can fly about upsidedown and lift themselves using their own strength, no man necessary? I see no danger in it. I see much good in it.

"If you think pole classes are all about objectifying and sexualising women"

I don't. But as I have said that many times I honestly don't think it's worth saying again.

Incidentnally, what is it about men's torsos that mean they can pole in a t shirt, while women need bare skin for the grip?

Thank you for not judging me Ghengis.
I agree that opening late night strip bars can lead to a local escalation in incidences of antisocial behaviour much as opening a night club or all-night pool and drinking club will lead to incidences of local antisocial behaviour.

Women (and men) and their sons and daughters going off to pole fitness classes is not going to lead to anything other than people getting stronger and fitter and feeling good about themselves.

Pole dancing is not the main point of strip clubs; the point of strip clubs is to sell private dances and expensive booze in a fantasy environment where men kid themselves that the dancers like them in return for handing over as much money as the dancer can hustle. The poles are there to generate interest in the private dances which is how dancers make their money (they pay a house fee to work in the club). You don't need to do acro flips on club poles and tbf you are usually wasting your time and energy if you do. I write a post earlier about the history of pole but all this contemporary/lyrical/acro stuff developed in dance snd fitness studios once pole had made the leap out of the clubs, where it was taught by club dancers to each other, to the mainstream, when club dancers started teaching non club dancers, and then it snowballed and spread.

Bertrand, I think you think pole is problematical because even though it made the jump from clubs to dance/fitness studios a decade ago and started developing in lots of new directions, to the point that much of it is barely recognizable to the original - to you it is still tainted by its original setting and you can't get past that, is that right?

Re inverts, yes men have an upper body advantage. I can invert in a t shirt too. However I have to keep lifting it up and down to get the skin contact points to move from an invert to a back hold/belly hold/hip hold/armpit hold and it's a giant faff and then the shirt falls over my eyes and it is therefore easier not to wear it

Muffster
That is really useful to know. I'm still undecided which one to buy for training at home. If I go chrome then it's the same as the studio but if there is a powder spinny one then I could be tempted. I don't know enough about anything that isn't chrome to make a decision.
I only want to buy one pole obviously as it's a reasonable chunk of money.

I agree with you, Muffster, about the other pressures on young girls and women, but this isn't about setting a hierarchy of patriarchy topics that are worth discussing against ones that aren't.

No one has argued that you are wrong to think you actually enjoy pole dancing. I can completely understand feeling validated and empowered by women all cheering me on - but why would I want/need that? If you are claiming the individual liberation and freedom that a woman feels pole dancing, as wider female liberation i.e. feminism, then I think people can argue against that.

I think muffster is getting at the right of women to choose without being patronised for their choices (e.g. earlier on this thread someone said that women don't always know how to make the right choices for themselves) and that perhaps the feminist thing to do is to be open to a discipline moving away from strip clubs and becoming more mainstream (rather than keep going on about strip clubs despite people saying things are changing).

That's what i took from Muffster's posts anyway.
I bowed out of the main discussion because I got fed up.