Second Coren disappointment of the weekend

[hipsterfun]

Victoria reinforces sexist ideas to undermine female athletes

and this is no different from asymmetric bars.

• when i say be open to it moving away I don't mean people have to love pole and decide it's amazing. More that if lots of people are saying 'here are different styles and experiences' then it helps to consider this if a productive debate is going to happen.

Men are not defined by their appearance or their sexiness. There is not a massive industry devoted to presenting men as sex objects.
It's like reading the thoughts of a High Court Judge. 'Who is Harry Styles?'

I guess it depends which wave you're surfing. I'm a third wave surfer.

I agree with you, Maisy. I hope men stop paying for sexual gratification via women pole dancing and pole fitness continues to evolve away from it's origins. I don't think that every pole fitness class is a mini strip club; but there is still a present element of validating your body and reclaiming sexuality.

If pole fitness existed outside of patriarchy, where there is currently pressure on women to be sexual and seductive beings, then things would be different. I don't think it's a feminist imperative to help improve the public perception of pole dancing as an act of female liberation. I know that you for you that's different.

Magnus Labbe’s performance in that video is no more or less ‘sexualised’ than Karo Swen’s in the video in my OP; I see human bodies moving with strength and grace. That’s all. It was actually very interesting to think about how men and women can be quite equal in pole because it isn’t reliant on pure strength. A bit like rock climbing, where being bulky at the expense of agility won’t cut it.

Anyway, neither of them are poling with strip club intent so receiving the performance in that way would be inappropriate.

Pervs gonna perv, one way or another. It’s unreasonable and regressive to place an expectation on women to preempt it.

I’ve read the thread with interest and appreciated the clarity and persistence of Maisy, who has articulated my own thoughts way better than I would have and then some

One thought I’d like to add is that if we allow ‘problematic origins’ and the prevailing climate of misogyny to dictate women’s choices, then we’ll be living very limited lives.

Oh, and also, other people’s judgment aside, I’d be happy for DD (7) to pole but there’s no way she’s having junior make-up (as one of her friends does).

A question: Why is loose hair such a problem for people? This whole thing about loose, moving hair (sexy, bad) versus scraped, tight buns (unsexy, good) is a bit weird, frankly.

hipsterfun
I'm glad you see it. I felt like i was losing the plot a little saying the same few things.
Interestingly, my pole instructors have said on facebook they've been havinge exactly the same discussions and a numver of pole facebook groups have been saying the same..

On the hair front, personally I find hair up for training much easier e.g. having hair in my face makes going from a D to ayeesha squillions more difficult for me because any move of my head means I lose balance.
But if I'm doing a shoot then i love my hair down as I think it looks really graceful.

Whether I have hair up/down depends on the moves I'm putting in a routine.

I do see where people are coming from with hair down and lots of hair flicks and whipping hair all the time is more of yhe sexy side rather than athletic.

@MaisyPops are you suggesting there's some kind of anti-poledancing concerted campaign towards poledancing Facebook pages?

AssassinatedBeauty
No. Sorry if it read like that.
On pole dancing pages this announcement has prompted quite a lot of debate within the pole community. Not everyone agrees on whether it should/shouldn't be in the olympics.
And a lot of the pole community have said they've ended up in similar discussions to this thread.
Some discussions were interesting and I've seen merit in arguments for both sides.
Others that people have spoken about just show other women bitching and judging other women and being quite nasty.
Some discussions haven't bothered to engage with the discipline because people were too busy standing on their soap box trying to inform people who pole why it's immoral etc.

General consensus from what I've read in the pole community is that it's neither here nor there if we get/don't get to be in thr olympics, what matters is more people being made aware that ut isn't just strip club dancing and is a challenging fitness discipline in its own right. More people seem to be excited by thay (and irritated by determined haters with closed minds) than the prospect of it being in the olympics.

Oh, I do, Maisy. I can’t understand the inability or unwillingness to separate out pole disciplines from strip clubs and the sex industry.

It’s a similar inflexibility of thought that leads to the inability to see a partially exposed breast as sexual where the intent is sexual and non-sexual where it’s not (I’m thinking of breastfeeding in public, amongst other things). I would’ve expected feminists to be particularly adept at making such distinctions, so it’s been dismaying to read so many posts placing the responsibility on women not to choose potentially ‘titillating’ activities, rather than men to have appropriate responses.

Interesting how you view a difference of opinion as being inflexible/unwilling/inability etc.

You are more than welcome to choose to whatever activities you want to do. If you want to do absolutely erotic and sexualised pole dancing for fun and exercise then go for it. Or if you want to do non-sexual pole dancing for fun and exercise then go for it. But that doesn't prevent other people from discussing whether or not it's an activity that should be promoted and encouraged.

There was a mention of cheerleading earlier on in the thread and I think that's similar. It's great exercise no doubt, you have to be extremely fit and agile to perform cheer leading routines. Yet it's not an activity I'd be keen on promoting and encouraging amongst girls/women because of its origins as an entertainment for a (mainly) male audience in between the "proper" sport.

I was up very early because of the clocks, so I thought I'd have another go at explaining my feelings on this. I'm obviously not doing it properly because people are taking things that I t think or feel from my posts. This might turn into an essay, so be warned.

First of all, I absolutely get how amazing it must be to be able to do those routines. The strength, agility and athleticism is extraordinary. Someone said it was like flying-which is a universal human fantasy. I ride horses and just sometimes it feel like flying too.

I also don't think for a second that the studios people are talking about are about sex, or titillation.

However, we live in a world where women's rights and freedoms remain fragile. Where porn is ever more widely available, where the objectification of women is mainstream, and where sex clubs are a routine part of many high streets. Where our daughters are routinely cat called, brushed up against in public transport and (as happened to my own dUghter recently) told that her "niceness" to a male senior to her might be to her advantage where a woman expressing feminist views on a feminist forum can be called a twat by another women. And where men (and women) can dismiss all of this by saying"What are you complaining about, the Prime Minister's a woman!"

So we're in a far from ideal world. And anything anything that gives the impression that women go along with any of this is just more ammunition. It's all part of the "Oh, you like it really" culture. We should be flattered by wolf whistles. Prostitutes do it because they love sex. Burlesque is empowering. Yes means yes and no means maybe. Just grab them by the pussy. Senior politicians making jokes about Harvey Weinstein on the Today Programme.
And look, women love pole dancing- it's just another fitness routine.

On it's own, pole is of course an insignificant bit of the picture. But It's just another tiny piece of ammunition handed to the people who think women should be objectified and defined by sex, and that men have a right to define them that way.

It's not right. And it's not fair. But it's happening. And we have to fight
It at every turn. Not collude with it

Oops, sorry. An unproofread read essay there!

Reclaiming the breast for public breastfeeding is a bit different. I'm very keen to promote and encourage it.

First, there are really good reasons, to do with the health and well-being of women and infants, for doing so.

Secondly, you can tell it's a radical act (in a way pole fitness isn't) because it annoys and disgusts people like Jeremy Clarkson & Nigel Farage

YY Bertrand

'Oh, you like it really' (and so do prepubescent girls) sums up everything I've been trying to say.

I hear where you're coming from, but I don't see how a woman choosing to do a fitness discipline enables a group of men to justify pussy grabbing and assaulting women because 'you like it really'.

A woman chosing to so a fitness discipline is something she is doing by choice and has consented to.
A man deciding to be a misogynistic asshole cat calling or bum slapping has no consent.

You say anything thay gives the impression of women going a long with it is ammunition. I disagree. Why should women modify their actions to avoid giving a potential impression to a bunch of sexist dickheads? They need to grow a pair and realise tje world doesn't revolve around them and their world. I would rather continue to challenge the MEN who hold those views and behave awfully than focus on women modifying their actions just in case some man can't gey his silly little brain around the idea that it doesn't matter whether a woman is pole dancing, cooking, filling in a mortgage application etc, her actions do not give any weight to his views.

I feel a little uncomfortable about the onus being on women to avoid giving an 'impression'. I went out last weekend in town. I dressed in a way that, whilst nit massively sexy, I'm sure a man might have the impression that I'd made an effort to pull (because obviouslu some men think that women dress for their benefit). I wouldn't change how I dress though, or make sure women are aware that a low cut top or short skirt are problematic because it might give an impression to men.

Modifying women's actions to place limits or caution around their attractiveness or potential sex appeal in order to avoid giving men any impressions risks (to me at least) straying towards a branch of feminism that I feel uncomfortable with
.

Damn. I'm obviously expressing myself badly again. It's not about individual men and women. It's about societal perceptions.

And because pole is something that is inextricably linked in most people's minds (sorry about this, but it is) with the sex industry, women outside the sex industry doing it while it continues to be popular within ir gives it validation

And yes of course challenge people on sexist crap. But it's a bit difficult to say that pole dancing club within the sex industry are unacceptable when 2 doors away other women are doing it in the name of empowerment and fitness!

I agree with you that it is societal.

We just differ on where to go from there.

Society is made up of individuals. If we are going to have social change then individuals have to change.

Hiding or shushing pole fitness out of concern it normalises sex work doesn't make sense to me. I would rather promote pole and then views can change and over time people view it more as a fitness discipline and less associated with strip clubs. As long as the strip element has more airtime and we avoid discussing other forms for fear of 'normalising' it then the dominant association will always be strip clubs.

But it's a bit difficult to say that pole dancing club within the sex industry are unacceptable when 2 doors away other women are doing it in the name of empowerment and fitness!
I don't think it is.

And this is where we disagree. I think people are more than capable of seeing a difference between woman stripping for money and a fitness class and that distinction will grow the more people become aware of it. We just have to balance the exposure of the diciplines so that the more normalised view is the fitness disciplines rather than strip clubs. Without promoting it then we are passivelu accepting that pole is alwyas going to be associated with stripping, in which case why bother doing anything if we are going ti sit around and wait for things to change?

Betrand, the basic gist of your posts is coming across that women should modify their behaviour to avoid giving the wrong impression to men. Is that a feminist viewpoint? Really?

Hello, it's me again!

Reclaiming pole in such a way that reclaimed pole sits happily alongside misogynist and sexually exploitative uses of pole isn't reclamation, it's collusion. Reclaim it properly I.e. in such a way that it disrupts paternalistic assumptions about women on poles (in the same way that public breastfeeding disrupts paternalistic assumptions about the uses of breasts) and I'll be with you in a heartbeat.

Oops *patriarchal

"Betrand, the basic gist of your posts is coming across that women should modify their behaviour to avoid giving the wrong impression to men. Is that a feminist viewpoint? Really?"

I'm sorry, if that's what you're getting from my posts then I am so bad at expressing myself that it's not worth me trying!

There are other posters on this thread who share roughly the same views as me, perhaps their posts are clearer?

Ghengis- absolutely right.

Reclaiming pole in such a way that reclaimed pole sits happily alongside misogynist and sexually exploitative uses of pole isn't reclamation, it's collusion. Reclaim itproperlyI.e. in such a way that it disrupts paternalistic assumptions about women on poles
The thing is you (& others) have zero intention of considering the differneces which is why it is almost pointless discussing it.

If you actually believe that people in a studio in sports wear learning tricks and moves is colluding with the sex industry then there is no way to have a productive discussion because it will keep coming back to the same criticisms:
You reallu should do pole on something else because pole is a phallic symbol
You shouldn't wear crop top and shorts in case it reminds men of strip clubs
You shouldn't do certain moves in case it reminds men of strip clubs
You shouldn't do floor work in case it reminds a man of a gyrating woman he saw in porn when he was 17
You shouldn't wear makeup for performance in case it reminds men of strip clubs
You shouldn't have you hair down in case it reminds men of strip clubs.
You should cover your body because seeing a woman's body reminds men that the female body is for their gaze

These poor heless men clearly have no intellect to manage to understand that strip clubs and pole are different. In fact, they are so fragile we should alter an entite sport around them in case they have certain thoughts.
Wow. This new version of pole is so empowering. I can't wait to cover up, dress and act a certain way because it would be awful if men had to regualte their own thoughts.
This sounds like the bloody duggars, cover your collar bones and knees because it might cause a man to stumble and think sexy thoughts. Just wear with abaya because if a man sees your figure then it might turn him on.

See the problem? Getting women to change to protect the sensitivities of men is not empowering.

Women should be free to do their own sports and dress how they like (pole or not pole, covered or not) without being suggested they change to protect men.

If your solution to pole being sociallu associated with strip clubs (despite there beimg multiple varieties) is to rewrite the entire discipline then I'm afraid that's not liberating to women at all. That's expecting women to tiptoe around a group of misogynists.

Makes me wonder how my male friends and family manage to look at me if my pole pictures are so stripper like.

m.huffingtonpost.co.uk/wendy-saunt/feminism-and-pole-dancing_b_5241421.html

A good article. I wrote a long and thoughtful reply to add to it and my phone crashed and closed.