I freely admit I was just looking for an excuse to use this image
It’s the meme that won’t die.
Stay-at-home mom Susan Christie says she’s inhibited, but on a recent Friday night she took the stage name Jasmine and spun around a silver pole to Britney Spears’ I’m A Slave 4 U.
That’s right, it’s pole parties!
Pole-dancing parties showing up in South Florida homes are prompting questions about whether the women dancing around the pole are taking up a demeaning activity or empowering their sexuality. While a handful of South Florida fitness and dance studios sometimes throw pole parties, EPM EmpowerNet, a Canadian company that is to pole dancing what Tupperware is to in-home kitchenware parties, is bringing the poles into the home.
Pole parties - of the just-the-girls type described here, anyway - are very circular arguments, it seems to me. If you’ll forgive my assumption of heteronormativity*, how is it possible that pole dancing with a group of women is empowering sexuality? In fact, it seems to me that “empowering sexuality” in what is inherently a non-sexual situation is really a major aspect of the patriarchal double standard. “Breaking down inhibitions”, while in theory something of which I approve, seems in this case to consist of “learning to be a sex object even when you’re not turned on.”
And this view of sexuality - that men are allowed to get horny, then act on it, while women have to act on “it” regardless of their actual feelings - is what leads to the kind of sex-negativity we see from the right. Underlying every disapproving article about the “hook-up culture” is a kind of nascent feminism which is strangled in its crib by the cultural indoctrination of the writer. Sure, a culture in which women feel pressured to have stringless sex because “that’s how it’s done” is no more feminist than a culture in which women feel pressured to have NO sex because “that’s how it’s done.” Which is handy, since feminists aren’t advocating either one, despite what anti-feminist moralizers would have you believe.
Get horny - have sex - have a cookie. It’s not a difficult process to understand, and it’s valid for any choice of lifestyle, whether it’s monogamy, nonmonogamy, or autogamy. And it’s a process that both “objectification as empowerment” and “you’re a precious flower” denies to women.
Pole parties or purity balls are two sides of the same coin: Sexuality-free sex or sex-free sexuality. One of these days, the cultural coin flip will land on its edge and we’ll finally realize that sexuality is sexy. And then we’ll be in business.
————-
* For a post on a very similar subject, but without the assumption of heteronormativity, read this. H/T Amanda.
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Not to mention that, y’know, putting on a show for other women who can critique you at how well you’re practicing/performing your role has got to be about the most restrictive and least empowering ‘girl bonding’ situation I can think of.
Get horny - have sex - have a cookie.
Well, the problem is the whole “have sex” part and how you personally define it. I’m not going to open up that particular can of worms, but I should say that there are alternate perspectives on this.
If there weren’t, I wouldn’t have had anything to be counterarguing in this post.
I don’t know… I’d be curious to see how this pole-dancing thing goes over in lesbian circles. Sounds like it could be a blast and fun foreplay!
Also, even in the heteronormative world of women’s relationships, I’ve seen a number of straight married women get a little randy at the local strip club when in the presence of other women while watchcing female strippers onstage. There’s a certain liberation and maybe even an erotic charge that comes from watching sexually charged activity while in the safety of a group. “Take it off, honey!” “I’m going to buy a lap dance!” I’ve heard female friends of mine say these things during girls-nights-out. Strippers are fun!
Straight women are not blind; like straight men and lesbians, I think they can appreciate a hottie when they see one. Straight women can also appreciate sexy dancing as much as the next bloke. So why not play out the fantasy and do it in your own home with people you trust and like?
What an empowering choice of music. /snark
I meant from feminist bloggers, people who can respond.
Get horny - have sex - have a cookie.
I like cookies. I like sex. Feminism is awesome.
On a serious note, great post.
I’m not too sure what to make of the pole parties myself — like Foucault, I can see how they would be a cool, fun experience amongst friends. I can also see how it’s sort of the flip side of the purity ball. I suppose it all depends on context (which plays into the original post). If you’re putting up a pole in your house because you have fun using it, more power to you. But if you’re putting it up because “that’s how it’s done” in middle-class female circles, or because your male significant other has pushed you into doing it to make his arousal better, well… not so empowering.
How can/do/will women who are sexually repressed or insecure get more in touch with a vibrant fabulous part of life — if they want to that is?
I’m asking in all honesty — how do you get turned on/happy and open about horniness, if you’ve been socialized to repress?
What an empowering choice of music.
And hey, I loves me some Portishead.
I can’t see doing a “pole party” but I don’t see that it has anything to do with sex or sexuality and I can quite see that it might have a lot to do with having fun with friends. My SIL has a swimming pool and she said to me once that the swimming pool has enabled her to socialize with a lot of people, neighbors, who she otherwise wouldn’t have been able to stand getting to know or interacting with–why? because its something to *do.* She said she could have people over and just hang with them by tghe pool without structuring the conversation or having to entertain them in a social sense which seemed like a lot of work to her. My point is this: men have traditionally bonded over non verbal activities and sports–bowling? tennis? watching games? watching strippers? Fishing? Some of these are activities and some of these are spectator sports but the thing they all have in common is an activity that is more or less wordless and devoid of intellectual stress but that enables them to be in close physical proximity to other men, to talk to them about things casually, to get to know them, to feel close to them. Why is this any different? I bet if you looked at the women who are doing this it is substituting for some other activity that they used to do together in a gendered fashion–shopping, book club, dinner parties, church social, you name it.
I also think that women of a certain generation *are* inhibited about their bodies and sexuality and that for some women this may be as therapeuti as learning any new bodily skill whether that is jazzexcercise or swimming.
aimai
NO U CANT HAS FEMINIZM. NOT YOURS.
Foucault, assuming these women aren’t putting on a show for the appreciative male audience, what you’re seeing is not Pussy Magic but some repressed bisexuality or lesbianism.
I am so not surprised these women are from South Florida. So not surprised at all.
i am so tired of this idea that anything a woman chooses to do is somehow “empowering” and therefore actively feminist.
right now, i am sitting on my couch drinking a blueberry B complex smoothie, floating around the interwebs, and occasionally taking a break to fill in a little of the sudoku i currently have going on my dashboard (OSX in the hizzouse!). i am a woman, i am a feminist, and i am freely choosing to partake in these activities of my own free will, because that’s what i feel like doing at quarter to 8pm on this fine wednesday night.
however, and stay with me here, none of the above activities are “feminist” or expressions of my “empowerment” simply because i am excercizing my agency in doing them, as a woman and a feminist. even if some dickface Patriarch ™ stormed into the room and said, “Woman, give me that smoothie! Put down that laptop and go get me a beer!” and i refused to, and continued, and had to kick him in the nuts to do so, none of what i am doing right now would be specifically “feminist” or “empowering”.
so why is it that a few women decide to install a pole in the living room and throw a party and do a bit of pole dancing for their female friends, all in good fun and of their own free will of course, and this is somehow inherently “empowering” and “a feminist choice”? can somebody explain this to me. if this is what these women genuinely enjoy doing, more power to them. but it’s not feminist!!!!!!! it’s not empowering!!!!!!! it’s. just. not.
I think it’s quite possible to see these parties in the light of the promotion of woman vs. woman competition for male attention that has always been a staple of the gynephobic. If women realize they have more in common with each other than with the men for whom they are told they must compete, they might, you know, REARRANGE EVERYTHING TO BE MORE FAIR. If you tell them it is ‘empowering’ to go to a pole party with girlfriends so that they can secretly feel either smug or inferior as compared to the other women on the pole, well, you’ve diverted them from thinking about how Plan B should be given out free on street corners, you know?
So I’m not sure it’s not about sexual liberation (at least, in a heteronormative context.) I think the closest thing it comes to in that regard is being about body-freedom — feeling good about taking up space and moving in it - but body doesn’t have to equal sex, either. Plenty of dance or martial arts or other movement forms can achevie the same thing without promoting the competitive overtones. If ya wanna pole dance for your partner becasue it gets you going, great. If ya wanna pole dance for a group because you are an exhibitionist, it seems polite to tell your audience that they’re engaging in an inherently sexual dynamic. Thanks to heteronormativity, I doubt this last is brought up very often.
So much for cross-stitch and wine.
Gots to get me a pole!
this is somehow inherently “empowering� and “a feminist choice�
I believe it is more in how it is used and in what context. I don’t think anyone is arguing that it is inherently feminist or empowering. Actions carry different meanings given subtexts and how the person doing them perceives it, though it is all done within patriarchal norms and society. I’m not sure how I see it, since I’m naturally drawn to the idea that if it’s supposed to be some type of standard operating procedure under the auspices of Patriarchy, that it can’t be empowering for women, since said patriarchal norms do not wish to empower women.
But making something your own and creating your own understanding of it within boundaries that you define can be empowering if taken in the right context, at least as I can wrap my head around other people’s experiences. As I said, I’m not sure how I feel about it, but highly intelligent people do find it worth their while.
Even if you do disagree with their mix tape. ;-P
“Foucault, assuming these women aren’t putting on a show for the appreciative male audience, what you’re seeing is not Pussy Magic but some repressed bisexuality or lesbianism.”
I don’t follow you, mythago. Pussy Magic? What is that? And why do you assume that straight women who get temporarily turned on by other women (albeit under the influence of alcohol on the occasions I witnessed) are “repressing” their bisexuality or lesbianism? Why can’t they just be accepted as straight chicks who display their pleasure at seeing other women dance in the semi-nude?
If we extend your logic, then straight men who comment favorably on the physique of other men (in the contexts of sports or celebrity culture, or simple teasing) must secretly be repressing their homosexuality rather than merely expressing their homosocial appreciation of other men. All the guys on this list who have ever said fond or admiring things about Professor Berube’s “floating head” had better come out of the closet!!
Also, I think that for most women, the “spectrum” of acceptable desires is far braoder than it is for men. Maybe we are simply more flexible and intelligent about desire? However, there is no need to assume that a straight woman is “repressing” something when she jumps onstage and joins a stripper in a dance! I think it’s pretty much out in the open at that point. It may be partly exhibitionism, but I do think there’s something to be said for that Cyndi Lauper song, “Girls just wanna have fun.”
Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, as Freud would say.
If they’re having fun, I ain’t gonna hate.
I agree that mixing it all up with the language of “empowerment” or feminism is problematic at best though.
Yeah, you’re right about the sex-free sexuality. But… I’m embarrassed to say it, but this actually sounds like a lot of fun to me. Getting dressed up with your friends is pretty much always fun, but I’ve just realised that knowing I’m going to be exposed to the Gaze and… evaluated as soon as I go out adds this edge of anxiety and insecurity to the pleasure and makes it at least 50% less fun. When I read this piece the first image that flashed into my head was the dressing-up box I had when I was five or six. Now that was pure fun, and unlike six year old girls today, I didn’t think about or know whether I was pretty or not. I think it was another year before I started to worry about that.
anyway.. yeah. I just realised aimai more or less said this. It sounds like a chance to be goofy and ridiculous and uninhibited and still feel safe. Just fun, rather than an attempt to embody the sex-free sexuality. And clearly I am hopelessly immature. I want my dressing up box back!
And also, about the sex-free sexuality. Because there is, of course still this notion floating around as patriarchal background noise that we’ve all internalised that a woman’s power lies in her sex appeal. So dressing up in the costumes of sex appeal is fun because you temporarily feel more powerful. Of course it isn’t real power and it doesn’t take much to break the spell of feeling that way. I can, however, see a group of women sustaining the fantasy together quite well. Much more easily than when men or potential sexual partners enter the equation.
(also, on erotic interaction between heterosexual women, I have one word for you: fanfic. Of course lots of slashers are not heterosexual, but still, such interactions do happen. I can imagine the pole dance parties could count as a toned down version of that kind of interaction, if it’s a case of women sharing a kind of joint fantasy. Maybe? Then I’m not really heterosexual, and I am always coming up with goofy theories after even a tiny amount of alcohol, so what do I know.)
Kali,
I agree with what you’ve posted. I think its odd that our notions of sexuality are so restrictive that anything that women do together is seen as hypersexed rather than playful. I didn’t read the article because I’m turned off thinking about South Florida but I think there is a place, a definite place, in women’s lives for getting together with other women and singing and dancing. That is something that is very much a part of women’s lives in other even more repressive patriarchal societies than our own. In fact one of the worst things about modern life is that many, if not all, of the occasions that women used to get together and experience solidarity with each other as women–not as sexual partners but as friends and sisters–have simply been taken away. Most of the women I know are either in a nuclear family, or just kicked out of one through divorce. None of them have time to be with other women on a regular basis without children or spouses present. Natal Families themselves are so small or so dispersed that women can’t rely on them for companionship. This stupid pole dancing event is just another form of celebration and interaction of the kind that both men and women in this very inhibited, culturally waspy society tend to lack. TAking your clothes or or dressing up is an act of liberation even if it isn’t a feminist one. To my mind its playful and possibly constructive–depends on the women. But its not inherently sexy, sexual, bisexual, or even erotic. In fact, I doubt very much if it is at all. Americans are very inexperienced at performance of any kind, I think the whole experience might be very challenging for these women on a number of levels and they themselves might not be sure what is the most important aspect:
body experience?
dancing?
display?
companionship?
the forbidden?
self expression?
dress up?
competition?
who knows? I doubt if each woman is having the same experience as every other.
aimai
PS: I think pole-dancing is no more and no less “feminist” or “empowering” than taking a Feminist Film Theory course at your local college.
In both contexts, it’s the perception of the *participants* that makes the activity “feminist” (or not) and “empowering” (or disempowering, or banal, etc…).
If I decide that watching films made by women empowers me to analyze other modes of cultural production, then power to me. Similarly, if I decide that pole-dancing in sexy panties in front of my girlfriends makes me feel like a super-model or a more powerful woman, then hats off to that activity for helping me find a part of myself that I don’t often show.
There are things to be learned from all sorts of activities. I don’t think there’s any logical reason for concluding that it is somehow “problematic” to view pole-dancing as a feminist and empowering activity–it is, like so many other things, in the eye of the beholder and the practitioner.
So is the gist of the argument “pole dancing is never empowering” or just “pole dancing sold as empowerment probably isn’t”? Because I think I’d have to take issue with the former.
Thank you, opoponax–I always get annoyed at articles (or anything) that set up such a false dichotomy between playing into the patriarchy and being empowering (at least in certain segments of society in the U.S. or similar cultures, where there are more options than “good, non-aggressive housewife” or other “traditional” female roles to choose from).
Well, I wouldn’t really feel qualified to make the former argument even if I felt that way, so no worries there. It’s not up to me to decide what’s empowering to a woman, or to women. I can argue that I see problems with, as you say, “pole dancing sold as empowerment” as it is woven into the overall sex-negative fabric of our society, which is what I’m doing, but I’d be on shaky ground if I tried to take it further than that.
“I don’t think there’s any logical reason for concluding that it is somehow “problematicâ€? to view pole-dancing as a feminist and empowering activity–it is, like so many other things, in the eye of the beholder and the practitioner.”
the problem with regarding pole dancing as feminist/woman-empowering activity is the same one that exists with regarding sitting on one’s couch as a feminist/woman-empowering activity. obviously one can have enlightening “click” moments that enable one to see themselves in a new way, learn about one’s body, discover a new ability, feel stronger, etc. etc. all the time, anywhere, doing anything. but that doesn’t make the activity itself any better or more “feminist” than any other.
about a month ago, i got a tattoo. this was something i’d always wanted to do, and actually going through with it was an incredibly powerful experience that taught me a lot about myself and what i’m capable of. but is getting a tattoo a feminist experience? is it empowering (r) ? no, it’s just something i wanted to do, and did, and learned from. and that’s ok. we don’t have to grade everything on a scale from “lame and stupid” to “Gloria Steinem approved ™ “.
in fact, part of the reason i find all this “feminist choices” language to be so crappy and counterproductive is that men don’t have to worry about it. if a guy wants to shlub on the couch playing video games for 3 days straight, that’s ok. if he wants to score a perfect 180 on the LSAT, that’s ok too. same if he wants to take up karate, learn to knit, etc. etc. if he learns something about himself from any of that, fantastic. but men don’t have to go through life always worrying about having “empowerful experiences”, and they especially don’t have to worry that they’re not having them, or not choosing the right ones, or whatever.
the other thing that bugs me about all this “empowering” bullshit is that at this point, it seems to be reserved directly for things that would traditionally not be considered especially feminist or gender boundary-breaking. suddenly it’s “empowering” to be a stripper, or stay home with the kids, or wear pantyhose, or knit a sweater. but we’ve stopped calling activities that are still pretty earth-shattering for women “empowering”. you don’t see a whole lot of articles in Marie Claire or Jane or whatever about how “empowering” it is to fix your own car, or take up martial arts, or get an engineering degree. now of course neither of those two extremes are preferable to the other. but that’s the danger of “empowering” — it creates this weird dichotomy where some activities are better than others, and value judgements are made as to which thing you enjoyed more or got more out of. when it might just be better to let each individual woman decide what sorts of things empower her based on individual experience and not some article about pole dancing parties she saw in some magazine somewhere.
Hey Pandagon Men! Come to my place for an guys night out pole dancing! No gurlz allowed!
A friend had a pole-dancing party (at a dance studio) for her bachelorette party. We’re a natural fibers, low/no maintenance beauty, and organic food crowd, and it was a hoot! Definitely more dress-up than erotic. It was fun to “try on” the Britney/Lindsey/MTV attitude, and to realize what a pain in the ass (and mind) it would be to try to keep it up full time. I did pick up a few moves that crack my husband up to no end.
For a real recommendation - I also (with female friends again) took a series of belly-dancing classes that were explicitly woman-centered, feminist, and empowering. Gained some serious mojo in that one.
I’m totally there, togolosh! I could probably go upside down, even! 8^D
i’ve been considering on and off taking my neighborhood yoga studio’s bellydance class. not so much because i think it would be a feminist ™ experience, but just because it sounds fun and interesting, and i like the music.
The problem with this sort of thing is why do people dream up a Pole Party in the first place? Why not a fucking Boggle party or Monopoly night, or Wii Sports, or Hellraiser 1 and 2 back-to-back?
These people have internalized the message that everything you do has to be related to sex and yourself as a sexual object in some way. They literally can’t conceptualize themselves as anything other than sex conduits.
This strikes me as very similar to Victorian times where girls would kiss each other and practice for their eventual man. That activity did not in itself involve men but was still male-centric.
It is pretty sad that women, when they get together without any men, still have to perform male-centric activities. Is it because their entire self-worth is tied to sex? Is it because they know men like pole-dancing? Is it because they admire strippers in some sense because men are attracted to them?
Turn this around. Imagine men getting together and practicing sensual massage on each other. Either incredibly gay or incredibly whipped. When my male friends and I get together it is in part to escape the constant drag of significant others, not to be reminded of it and to practice pleasing them.
“…That activity did not in itself involve men but was still male-centric.”
except, that is, for the girls who were just initiating the whole exercize in order to have an excuse to kiss girls, because they were lesbians.
see also everything ever written by Lillian Faderman.
To the opoponax:
I don’t think we disagree. I was simply trying to address the general vibe that I initially got from this thread, which is that it’s a *problem* to view pole-dancing as “empowering” because of some pre-set *expectation* that empowerment and taking one’s clothes off around a pole do not go hand in hand.
I was just trying to suggest that, for *some* women, this sort of activity *can* be feminist and empowering. As you point out, getting tattooed can also be perceived as feminist and empowering if one chooses to see it that way. Why not? My ex-girlfriend did that the very first day she arrived in New York, and I think she viewed it as a hybrid expression of her lesbianism and her Celtic culture. I initially viewed it as a little shocking (my parents drilled it into my head never to get tatooed because it was crass), but gradually found it kind of hot (especially if she wore a see-through black blouse).
I agree that it is wearisome and odious to have to be perceived as “powerful” or full of “agency” whenever we decide to do some screw-ball thing or another.
And I agree that men have to think much less about whether or not their “innocent” interest in wrestling is really a latent expression of their homosexuality, or perhaps a sign of their passive aggression, or perhaps a testament to their blue-collar roots, or perhaps a radical expression of their all-embracing liberal outlook on life.
Anyhow, pole-dancing personally sounds WAY more cool than bellydancing to me. But I am a pervert.
The opoponax post above mine (the longer one) is exactly right. “Empowering” is used for anything and everything these days.
I don’t doubt that some raging feminists do pole dancing as a laugh and it is all in good fun, but for most people there is no “reclaiming” going on. It isn’t subversive or daring, it is the status quo gussied up in new terminology.
Empowering has gone from meaning lending real power to meaning “feeling good about yourself” - often by pleasing men. Women are trained to believe that their worth is directly tied to how desireable they are, so being more desireable makes them feel good and is therefore empowering.
Real power means others obsess about pleasing you, not the other way around.
omg, foucault. get this through your head.
there is no such thing as an activity being “feminist’, unless we’re talking about doing clinic defense, or attending a Take Back The Night rally, or joining a feminist group, or writing feminist theory, or something like that. all other activities, from walking over to Blockbuster to rent Bend it Like Beckham to pole dancing to car repair to getting a tattoo to drinking a green apple martini to putting on mascara to whatever else you can come up with that is not, like, directly pursuing feminist political activism or scholarship, are not in any way “feminist”. it doesn’t matter how you feel when you do them, or what feminists you know would think of them, or any of that.
there.
is.
no.
such.
thing.
as.
a.
‘feminist’.
choice.
or.
activity*.
*(except actual feminist activism/scholarship).
“the general vibe that I initially got from this thread, which is that it’s a *problem* to view pole-dancing as “empoweringâ€? because of some pre-set *expectation* that empowerment and taking one’s clothes off around a pole do not go hand in hand.”
i’m not really sure why you’re getting that vibe. everyone in the whole thread is either saying that they think pole parties sound pretty damn cool, or that the whole concept of an activity being “empowering” or not is dumb. multiple people making the latter point have even added the disclaimer that if these women like pole dancing and are doing it of their own free will, more power to them. like 2 people have said that they think it’s sad that every activity women pursue nowadays has to somehow be sexual, but even that isn’t necessarily condemning pole parties as a perfectly acceptable thing to do if it makes you happy.
there.
is.
no.
such.
thing.
as.
a.
‘feminist’.
choice.
or.
activity*.
*(except actual feminist activism/scholarship).
This is possibly the most elitist and nauseating thing I have read on this thread, with the possible expection of BizzaroSuperman’s assumptions about why women would opt to pole-dance.
There are plenty of “feminist” choices and activities that fall out of the purview of “actual feminist activism/scholarship.” Try the choice/decision to take birth control. Try the choice/decision to leave your shitty marriage. Try being the only girl to wear jeans in a school that has a dress code for girls.
Get your head out of the ivory tower (or wherever it might be buried) and look around at the “choices” women make on a day to day basis. I’ll bet you will see some “feminist empowerment” in your local supermarket if you put your mind to it. Your statements are stupifying, especially if you consider yourself to be a feminist activist/scholar.
Oh I almost forgot: you’re the same person who thinks there are no black people north of Westchester county. Narrow-mindedness and stereotyping seems to be your mode of feminist scholarship….
Wow, pole dancing.
Just what I always wanted to do:
dress up like someone who has very little choice in her life, and for survival, has to dance around a gigantic penis-in-effigy in order to arouse men sufficiently so that they will give her money.
I wonder if the next fad will be drug addict/prostitute parties. Where I can have some good clean sexeh girl-bonding with fake crystal meth and perfume that smells like ejaculate and unwshed bodies.
Oh, sign me up for the empowerment!
Wow, pole dancing.
Just what I always wanted to do:
dress up like someone who has very little choice in her life, and for survival, has to dance around a gigantic penis-in-effigy in order to arouse men sufficiently so that they will give her money.
I wonder if the next fad will be drug addict/prostitute parties. Where I can have some good clean sexeh girl-bonding with fake crystal meth and perfume that smells like ejaculate and unwashed bodies.
Oh, sign me up for the empowerment!
aimai - the word “homosociality” is usually used to refer to male non- or quasi-sexual same-sex relationships; it’s a helpful way of looking at, say, the various medieval knightly orders. (I first encountered the idea in a paper analyzing Robin Hood.)
It always strikes me as strange that female homosociality hasn’t really been examined; heck, throw out the term “homosociality” in a conversation with no disclaimer, and there’s an unspoken “male” preceding it. But female homosociality is exactly what you’re talking about.
Sorry for the tangent…
Okay, thanks for clarifyingA while ago I was invited by a co-worker to her friends’ women-only “sex toy party”. To two of my friends, I said I wasn’t really interested in going because I didn’t want to hang out with a bunch of “repressed straight women” (most of my friends are lesbian, and I’m not quite sure how that happened because I am not one). As soon as I said it, I thought “repressed can’t be the right word- I mean, they’re sitting around talking about and looking at sex toys”, but my friends completely understood what I meant, and in hindsight I think it was the right word. Of course women are entitled to have sex toy parties- party away- but I think things like that and pole dancing aren’t really empowering your sexuality more than any other display of sexuality is. It’s just a display of sexuality, and in the case of pole dancing, it’s a display of a socially accepted, heteronormative decorative please-the-man sexuality.
I mean, go for it, but it’s not empowering.
Is this a case of certain terms outliving their usefulness? The sexuality of women is becoming more and more accepted as something that actually exists beyond a function to serve men, does it need “empowerment” the way other facets of women’s life do? I mean we’re not completely there yet, but pole dancing for fun instead of out of poverty isn’t exactly the end of the line for us.
I hope that all made sense…
Foucault, assuming these women aren’t putting on a show for the appreciative male audience, what you’re seeing is not Pussy Magic but some repressed bisexuality or lesbianism.
Could it be possible some of it is that internalized bi-for-pay mentality some people have? I mean, if it’s common knowledge that guys think two chicks making out are hot, when at least some women would adopt a superficial appreciation of other chicks as a way to attract men, or make their boyfriend/husband feel better. Does that sound totally ridiculous? I’ve seen a lot of it in my peer group. If it really was just people appreciating other people’s beauty regardless of gender, wouldn’t we see straight guys at male strip joints with their wives and girlfriends enjoying themselves?
I’m not saying straight women *can’t* enjoy other women’s bodies on some level, I just don’t think it’s as common as it may seem. I think a lot of what we see is that sort of hip faux-bisexuality that people think is interesting.
Mythago- of course, that’s probably what you meant by “putting on a show for the appreciative male audience”. And you said it so much more succinctly than me! My mistake.
Not in all 50 states, including Texas.
And the Supreme Court is perfectly ok with that.
Not in Texas or several other states, that is.
(Totally running with another tangent here; feel free to ignore me…)
I’m not saying straight women *can’t* enjoy other women’s bodies on some level, I just don’t think it’s as common as it may seem. I think a lot of what we see is that sort of hip faux-bisexuality that people think is interesting.
This made me think of something. (Uh-oh…)
Maybe what we’re seeing with these pole parties, or some of them, is a different level/layer of sexuality at work.
I mean, we usually think of sexuality as some deep, core thing that is largely defined by who you are sexually attracted to and who you have sex with. But what if there’s a more … superficial layer of sexuality that is closer to the aesthetic/silly/dress-up-and-make-believe end of things? A layer of sexuality defined not by who you’d have sex with, but who you find pleasing to the eye, and perhaps not even in an entirely sexual way, a layer where the interactions are sexual but not having-sex-with interactions?
(This sounds like a tangent, but bear with me:) One of the hardest things to get people to understand about asexuality is that I don’t find other people ugly. I find many people very beautiful, even attractive - but not sexually so. I feel zero desire to have sex with any of them.
I wonder if a similar split between the (hm) aesthetic and the action of sex and desire, for lack of better terms, might account for some of what we see here. The pole-dancing is definitely sexually-charged, but it’s not necessarily a sexual prelude or exchange like we usually think of it.
…This is frustrating. I can see what I’m trying to say, but I don’t think I’m making a lick of sense.
Well, you know, a lot of the criticisms center around the fact that there are women who are forced to do this for monetary gain, not because they want to, and by that fact, people assume the act itself is inherently wrong. However, applying the same criticism to other professions would probably not have the same merit, i.e. comparing those who pursue something as a hobby with those who do so as part of economic necessity. Then again, I am not speaking from experience and I am not speaing from a desire to see more women pole dancing. I find no merit in the endeavor myself, but, apparently, there are women who do, so implying that they are deluded freaks who want to play-pretend at being powerless is more than disingenuous, it’s erasing.
“I’m not saying straight women *can’t* enjoy other women’s bodies on some level, I just don’t think it’s as common as it may seem. I think a lot of what we see is that sort of hip faux-bisexuality that people think is interesting.”
Well, I must be gayer than I thought, then. I find women’s bodies exponentially more aesthetically pleasing and sexually arousing than men’s bodies. I’m surprised that so many people seem to think there must be a hidden agenda (pleasing non-present boyfriends, titilating absent husbands, playing into the hands of the patriarchy, etc…) behind these activities.
Perhaps *you* are the ones who have been socialized to understand women’s sexual expression as always inevitably linked to what men might find attractive. Personally, men’s arousal is a periphery thought in my mind when I interact with other women on a flirtatious level, though I am conscious that men who are in the proximity might view my interactions as designed for them. Fuck that, I say.
Oh, and my male partner would absolutely freak out if he thought I was running around romancing other women (which I may or may not have done without his blessing, can you keep a secret)? So I am not exactly sure that this bi-for-pay mentality is as prevalent as people make it out to be. It might be fun for men in fantasy, but if their girlfriend went off to bed another woman, I think it would be as crushing for many men as if she’s boinked a dude.
Actually Alix, your remarks make total sense to me.
I, too, find myself operating on the “superficial” level of sexuality most of the time. Business suits attract me; biker chicks attract me; strippers are attractive because of their scanty outfits; firemen are attractive because of their not-so-scanty outfits; young people are attractive because they are young; old people are attractive (sometimes) because they are distinguished-looking or they emanate power, etc… I think a lot of our attractions may be culturally prescriptive on some level: we’re trained from an early age to find certain images more attractive than others.
I also find it deeply interesting that you are asexual. I don’t think I’ve ever known anyone who is a self-described asexual before. When did you realize this… please ignore if this is too personal. Do you have an asexual partner or anything (as weird as that question must sound).
That’s interesting to me–I’ve heard it used in regards to both male and female communities. …Although now that I say that, I realize I’ve mostly heard it in regards to organized communities of some kind, not “ordinary” friendship circles–so you’d have more trouble the further back in history you went. Um, specifically right now I’m thinking homosociality in papers on slash fandom, but I know I’ve heard it elsewhere…I should go looking for what it was.
As to straight women calling other women hot–I have no idea what’s going on there, except for the way it’s seriously confusing to those of us queer women with awful gaydar.
“Try the choice/decision to take birth control. Try the choice/decision to leave your shitty marriage. Try being the only girl to wear jeans in a school that has a dress code for girls.”
um. those are all great things, don’t get me wrong. and they may be done for feminist reasons. and they’re definitely things feminists will all get behind. and i’d assume they probably make the women who do them feel the power of their human agency in ways that they may not have, before. not to mention that, ironically enough, except for one small detail, they’re all things i myself, up here “in my little ivory tower” have done (i wasn’t married to my abuser, but i might as well have been).
but they’re just choices. choices women make. and while as a feminist i obviously think women getting to make choices totally rocks, that doesn’t mean that all choices women make out of their own agency are necessarily “feminist” choices. and to assert otherwise massively waters down what feminism means and what this movement is all about.
especially, but not limited to, the choice of what frivolous social activity to undertake with one’s girlfriends. which is why it’s especially silly to me that you’re calling me an elitist in an ivory tower because i refuse to acknowledge that this silly activity that silly bougeois people in silly South Florida enjoy is somehow some grand Feminist Choice ™ worthy of being put on some special pedestal, any more than, say, if these women had decided to go to Karaoke or Yoga or a nice dinner out or a few pints down at the pub.
oh, and i never said there were no black people north of Westchester. i said i’ve never seen any. big difference.
“One of the hardest things to get people to understand about asexuality is that I don’t find other people ugly. I find many people very beautiful, even attractive - but not sexually so. I feel zero desire to have sex with any of them.”
“Aesthetically attractive” is what you want to say to them. At the least, it might shut them up.
Aesthetics and sexual attraction don’t have to go together. Otherwise I’d get horny looking at Escher’s works.
“As to straight women calling other women hot-I have no idea what’s going on there, except for the way it’s seriously confusing to those of us queer women with awful gaydar.
”
I think it’s down to the level of lust in the voice when they say it. That’s how I get outed when I talk about certain actresses.
I also find it deeply interesting that you are asexual. I don’t think I’ve ever known anyone who is a self-described asexual before. When did you realize this… please ignore if this is too personal. Do you have an asexual partner or anything (as weird as that question must sound).
You know, I actually realized it when I was just out of high school and I was talking with my younger sister about her latest crushes. (Or rather, she was raving about them to me…) It occurred to me rather suddenly that I’d only ever had rather … intellectual crushes on people, and that while I found a lot of people beautiful, I just plain wasn’t sexually attracted to any of them. It took a while for me to stumble across the term “asexual”, but that was when I knew it, even if I didn’t have the name yet.
As for partners, no, none yet. I kind of hold out hope, but I’m also a loner whose greatest desire is to be a hermit, so it’s not really a big issue for me.
If there’s anything else you want to ask, feel free, though I’m not sure I should derail this thread any further…
I’ve mostly heard it in regards to organized communities of some kind, not “ordinary� friendship circles–so you’d have more trouble the further back in history you went. Um, specifically right now I’m thinking homosociality in papers on slash fandom, but I know I’ve heard it elsewhere…I should go looking for what it was.
The second place I ran across the term “homosociality” was in a paper on male bonding that talked specifically about the group-of-friends stuff men do, so I’ve always kind of associated homosociality with that (and Robin Hood…). I have never, to my knowledge, come across any female-bonding papers that used the term. Heck, the only stuff I’ve seen on female-bonding has been kind of weird, why-do-women-go-to-the-bathroom-in-groups stuff, but then I haven’t looked recently.
But I think that’s what we’re seeing here, to a large extent. Many people have noted that homosociality borders right up on homosexuality; it can be impossible to distinguish the two sometimes, because homosocial activities can be based or centered on sexual activity. In this case, how much of the pole-dancing is based on a sexual desire for the other women, and how much is based on a desire to bond with the other women, but using a sexual form of expression? (I think I screwed up the grammar in that sentence.)
And, of course, the line can grow so thin as to not be present. It’s yet another continuum for human relations to be plotted along.
“Aesthetically attractive� is what you want to say to them. At the least, it might shut them up.
Aesthetics and sexual attraction don’t have to go together. Otherwise I’d get horny looking at Escher’s works.
Heh.
I tried that, actually, and got this whole “but how can you find someone attractive if you’re not sexually attracted to them?” bit. I promptly told the person in question that people are like paintings to me; I like them, I might even want a few to decorate my house, but I have never wanted to have sex with one.
…She then asked me what kinds of paintings I was talking about. That’s about when I awkwardly bowed out of that conversation.
(Okay, this was long. Sorry!)
“As to straight women calling other women hot-I have no idea what’s going on there, except for the way it’s seriously confusing to those of us queer women with awful gaydar.
�
Look at pics in say this months Elle, to which I subscribed accidentally, and am finding even more horrifying than I used to. Gorgeous 14-yr-olds in lucious clothes, eyeing the camera flirtatiously or laciviously or haughtily, as if it were a man, possibly… or the photos catch them unaware, not knowing they are being watched.
These images with the camera as surrogate for the male gaze are damn near ubiquitous. And I think that after long years of training, our own gaze turns into the male gaze when we look at other women.
Or something.
Looking through an Elle or a Vogue now and then is okay, but when they start showing up every month the sheer mass of this stuff can get kind of creepy. I don’t know if I’ll make it through the whole year, and I’ve only gotten three so far. Maybe they’ll swap me for Elle Decor…
I also find it deeply interesting that you are asexual.
And just speaking up here, as I seem to have missed this horseshit, I have a few self-identified asexual friends, and it’s pretty offensive to attempt to parse them into some form of stereotypical box of personhood you seem to have created. Branch out, listen to other people, find new avenues that break you out of stagnation. Just because you’ve never heard of a group that a person identifies with does not give you the excuse to create your own summary judgment and laundry list of inquisitions. Let’s be human, shall we?
This is possibly the most elitist and nauseating thing I have read on this thread, with the possible expection of BizzaroSuperman’s assumptions about why women would opt to pole-dance.
My assumptions don’t apply to all women, but they certainly apply to many of them.
Taking a mainstream concept and co-opting it can be a sly subversion, a game, a wink and nod joke. Fine. But that is not how these things are marketed.
The message behind almost all sexual empowerment products is that being “comfortable with your body” means shamelessly pleasing men, boosting your own self-esteem by making yourself more attractive.
Isn’t that the line of every Playmate and Pet? “I have no problem posing - I’m comfortable with my body and my sexuality.” See, the problem with normal gals who don’t get naked for magazines is that they are embarrassed prudes! Of course most Pets and Playmates are anything but strong feminist women.
The message here is the the way to “empower yourself” is to raise your self-esteem, and the way to raise your self-esteem is to get men to like you more. It is really a perverse message that has nothing to do with real power or even real confidence.
Again, truly powerful people don’t cater to others; others cater to them. I would suggest that catering to others to improve your own self-esteem, which is entirely contingent on how other people view you, is extemely de-powering.
That feeling sexy and attractive have been conflated with real self-esteem and further with actual power is fairly sick.
Allow me to inject actual facts into the conversation (I’m daring like that) and quote from some pole party literature:
But we understand many women are shy about allowing their �inner diva� coming out to play; much less stepping into a gym or dance studio to try pole dancing for the first time.
…
We circle you and your friends in a “circle of friendship� or “empowerment� and do a toast to the goddess within all of you!
…
We have discovered that many women have a secret longing to be more seductive, more sensual, more empowered and confident at a deep, personal level that translates into every area of their life.
Note first the familiar guilt trip - if you don’t want to pole dance it is because you are shy.
Then note how “empowered” is essentially interchangable with “seductive” and how being seductive and sensual is somehow something deep and personal.
The message here is clear - your sexual attractiveness is the most fundamental part of your character. It is deep, it is personal, and it translates into every part of your life. If you are seductive you should be confident - if you are not seductive then you are a worthless piece of shit I suppose.
Because real confidence doesn’t come from being smart, or competent, or highly skilled, or successful in business - it comes from being able to spin around on a stripper pole.
And I think that after long years of training, our own gaze turns into the male gaze when we look at other women.
Or something.
Oops, another weird thought here.
Is it possible that we, or the women who do the pole-dancing, or whoever, are conflating sensuality and sexuality? Again, the line between ‘em’s thin to nonexistent.
I dunno. There’s so many little things here with the pole-dancing. If someone does something because it makes them feel good, or excites their senses, or whatever, but that thing has a sexual connotation, does it mean that they’re automatically doing it to be sexy/sexual? If someone is doing or enjoying it because of its sexual aspect, does that necessarily mean that she’s expressing any kind of sexual desire at all?
Another thing: I’m not sure we have just been trained to see women with “the male gaze”. I mean, yes, somewhat; it’s part of our socialization. But I think a lot of time people equate “looking at someone like a stereotypical man looks at a stereotypical hot woman” with “the male gaze”, and I’m not sure that’s a fair equation to make. It seems to deny not only that women can be turned on visually in the same way men can, but it also seems to deny that women can appreciate the beauty of another woman, sexually or not.
I think it’s safer to say that our ideas of beauty are socialized into us (in large part).
I dunno. I’m rambling again, sorry.
It seems to me that, aside from the fact that getting together and dancing with your girlfriends sounds like a fun thing to in the general sense, pole dancing can be seen as on par with the reclamation of certain words.
It’s not catering to the make gaze that’s the problem, it’s the pressure for every woman to do so 24/7 and to care about it above and beyond everything else that’s the problem. Wanting to look sexy is ok in the abstract. Wanting to look sexy for a sex partner is normal and healthy in the abstract. It’s just not healthy to do so to the degree that we do it, especially in the absence of equal reciprocation.
Literally taking men of the equation partly turns it back into something that you do because you enjoy doing it and because you feel proud of what your body does and looks like.
That said, pole dancing w/ the gals in not reclamation by definition, no more than the pervasive use of “bitch” and “ho” among even women.
After reading Alix’s comment, I’d insert “and feels” in between “does” and “looks like.”
Eh, it doesn’t have to mean anything other than what the woman in question wants it to mean. Sometimes it’s fun to try on a persona.
When I was in college, I was in dance club. One girl who did a lot of the choreography was…interesting. Her main artistic influence was not Martha Graham or Twyla Tharp, but the Solid Gold Dancers.
Her dances were horrible, but I found the whole thing hilarious. It was fun to get on stage and act like a hoochie mama for 5 minutes.
To JackGoff: I really don’t care what you find offensive. I didn’t create the category “asexual” as a “box of personhood,” you dipshit.
to the opoponax: the reason I said I found your post elitist (and nauseating, don’t forget!) is not because you refuse to acknowledging pole-dancing as a feminist gesture, but because you assume that only feminist scholarship or activism count as “feminist” projects. I don’t think you live in a literal ivory tower: sounds like you never even took a Feminism 101 course in college, if you went to college.
BizarroSuperman: I can’t believe I am saying this, but for once I sort of see your point when you start to quote all the literature for these pole-dancing things. I guess there is a way in which things are “framed” by those you produce them, and when you put it in those terms, the pole-dancing begins to sound a lot less imaginative and fun than it initially sounded to me.
More to Alix soon!
to the opoponax: My apologies. There was no need to use that tone.
Maybe my comments are a reflection of my own academic background, and all the years I’ve spent taking and teaching classes that have paid lipservice or actual consideration and attention to “women’s work.”
I think leaving an abusive relationship is definitely a “feminist choice.” I think women’s decisions to take their daughters to shows like Judy Chicago’s THE DINNER PARTY are also “feminist choices” and not frivolous fashion statements. I remember my own mother taking me to this show when I was a little kid, not a pre-teen yet, and thinking *at the time* that this was a “feminist” act. It left a huge impression on my scholarship and activism. Maybe that’s why I like the idea of women shaking their booties so much.
Anyhow, I didn’t mean to sound ruder than necessary.
Now I must run, and will reply more later on. I am fascinated by Alix’s thoughts on asexuality, and on the relationship between aesthetic attractions and intellectual crushes: how you are able to feel both of these types of attraction towards people, but not a sexual type of desire.
I appreciated reading your ******* of the people-as-paintings conversation. I imagine that your statements would be interpreted as cold or even shocking by a lot of people, but they sort of make sense. Although in my own experiences, I have found that “intellectual crushes” can sometimes turn into the most flaming kinds of attraction. But maybe that is just initial sublimation on my part?
I think there are still many women who have too many repressed issues around their body and sex in general. Anything that helps them try to get past this should be a good thing, but throwing them from repressed directly into sex object probably isn’t.
The problem is that society seems to have two accepted options. You are either a repressed housewife type or a sex object. It is sort of the old madonna whore complex all over again.
There is a middle ground on sexuality and body acceptance. I think the key is more about owning all of this for yourself rather than doing it for someone else’s approval. I do wish someone would write a good pop culture styled book that points out the middle ground on this because pop culture sees only two options.
I do see body acceptance many times being mistaken for trying to attract men. By simply not hiding behind a flour sack dress and not being ashamed of your body or how it looks can be mistaken as attempting to attract men.
I took belly dancing classes years ago. They were not the ones geared at housewives as a way to excite your man. They were more of a real study of the dance and the body awareness requires to do the moves properly. It totally changed my posture, how I move and how I breathe. It can make you more in tune to yourself. I don’t think the implied sexy please your man type classes would have done that.
I have no problem saying that pole dancing is never (yes, never) empowering. It’s also pretty stupid and quite frankly indefensible from a feminist perspective.
When I was in college, I was in dance club. One girl who did a lot of the choreography was…interesting. Her main artistic influence was not Martha Graham or Twyla Tharp, but the Solid Gold Dancers.
Her dances were horrible, but I found the whole thing hilarious. It was fun to get on stage and act like a hoochie mama for 5 minutes.
I don’t want to seem as if I’m calling you out, hamletta; this is less a commentary on you personally (as I don’t know you) and more commentary on some of the underlying racist (as in the structure upon which US society is based, not any individual behavior) influences on this discussion, and your comment stood out to me on this.
Both Martha Graham and Twyla Tharp are white US Citizens born in the US.
At a brief glance, the Solid Gold Dancers appear to be mostly black.
‘Hoochie Mama’ is usually used against poor black and Latino women, with a side helping of being on welfare and having children but no husband (or on the fast track to that situation). The underlying implications are of oversexuality and undercontrol.
Belly dancing, which has come up several times (though not in your post) is East European/Western Asian in origin.
All of these practices occur in a racial context, that of privileged US women (who may or may not be white, but often are) taking on the persona of poor, non-US, non-white women as a form of sexual play. As something “fun”. And as something which, especially if unexamined, simply reinforces non-whites and non-white culture as “other” and as an outlet for the sexuality of women who don’t want to be identified as oversexual or undercontrolled.
And this underlines the problem with referring to it as “empowerment”. Assuming the identity of another person, especially a person routinely and systematically discriminated against, is not, in my opinion, ever EMPOWERING.
There are plenty of “feminist� choices and activities that fall out of the purview of “actual feminist activism/scholarship.� Try the choice/decision to take birth control. Try the choice/decision to leave your shitty marriage. Try being the only girl to wear jeans in a school that has a dress code for girls.
Honestly, I have to say that I agree with the sentiment that an action isn’t inherently feminist just because it’s done by a feminist. People are feminists, but I’ve never been comfortable calling an action feminist. I absolutely agree that the thoughts behind an action can be inspired by a person’s feminism, but does that necessarily make the act feminist? What if someone else does the same thing, but for different reasons?
If a woman makes the choice to take birth control because she doesn’t want to be pregnant because she has a high probability of miscarrying, is that feminist? What if she takes birth control because her husband tells her she has to?
If a man leaves a shitty marriage, is that feminist?
If a woman leaves a shitty marriage for a slightly less shitty but still shitty relationship, is that feminist?
If the girl is wearing jeans because she thinks the dress code is bullshit, is that different from a girl who is wearing jeans because she just wants to create a stir? Is that different from a girl who wears jeans because she wants to impress someone?
Feminist is an attribute- to me- that applies to people, not actions. It’s like vegetarian. A person’s actions might be prompted by their being a vegetarian, but I don’t know that specific actions are “vegetarian actions.” Is the act of eating a vegetable a “vegetarian act”?
*shrug*
Or, as someone else put it:
but they’re just choices. choices women make. and while as a feminist i obviously think women getting to make choices totally rocks, that doesn’t mean that all choices women make out of their own agency are necessarily “feminist� choices. and to assert otherwise massively waters down what feminism means and what this movement is all about.
I have issues with calling things empowering just because they’re challanging for you to do them. I think it’s the conflation of “socially empowering” and “personally empowering.” I can see how overcoming personal inhibitions about your body would be the later, but calling it “empowering” seems to suggest the former.
“feminist choices� and not frivolous fashion statements.
i think you’re creating a false dichotomy here, all on your own, and attributing it to me.
my point of view is not that any kind of activity that isn’t sending a check to Planned Parenthood or writing a women’s studies article is some kind of frivolous fashion statement, but that women can find power and use agency and have all kinds of life-changing moments all the time, anywhere, doing anything.
the reason i say that no activities except activism and scholarship are feminist activities isn’t because i denigrate all other activities, but because i don’t buy into this idea (popular in Women’s Studies 101 classes) that we can, at this point, classify any activity on a scale from “totally crappy” to “awesomely empowering yay!”. i just don’t see the value in doing that, mainly because such a system has so much potential for co-opting. not to mention that it can often become an elitist system that denigrates women and values certain kinds of experiences over others, regardless of what individual women get out of them.
i don’t see attending a show of Judy Chicago’s work as any more a feminist act than attending a show of any other artist’s work — i’ve certainly had “aha” moments in regards to gender issues and my own life when looking at the work of artists who have not been branded Feminist ™ by the media.
also, i find it really hilarious that you first brand me an elitist in an ivory tower, and then hurl the insult “if you ever even went to college!” in my direction. make up your mind, sweetie. oh, and also, i was a Feminist Theory minor in college.
oooh, oooh, i just had a moment of brilliance that will enable me to illustrate to you how i feel on the subject.
i presume, as a feminist scholar, that you’ve read Kate Chopin’s The Awakening. in that book, the protagonist has a feminist awakening which initiates the entire rest of the plot while swimming in the Gulf of Mexico, at Grand Isle, which is a barrier island off the coast of Louisiana. a place i visited often as a child, and where my mother and stepfather have a little house.
so this iconic “feminist” act (in your view) took place there, via a certain activity. i have gone swimming in the gulf at Grand Isle many, many times. was this, inherently, because of Edna Pontellier’s fictional “awakening”, a Feminist ™ act, on my part? even when i was a child and had never heard of this book? even if i undertook said activity simply because i was an active kid who liked swimming at the beach? would it be more feminist of me, after having read Chopin’s work, to swim there in full appreciation of Edna Pontellier’s awakening? do i have to have read the book for it to be feminist?
and what of the people who live on Grand Isle full-time, today? not much feminist activity in that neck of the woods; you’d be lucky to come across anyone who’d ever heard of Judy Chicago or pole parties.
also, do the feminist associations that come from The Awakening extend to swimming in any open body of water? is swimming in an ocean or a lake an innately feminist act? what’s more feminist, swimming in Lake Michigan or attending a performance of The Vagina Monologues?
Like I said so much earlier in this thread, I don’t think we disagree on the major issues. Although I opt to entertain the idea that pole-dancing *is* feminist and empowering to certain women, I don’t need you to agree with me.
No, I have not read The Awakening. Sorry. Sounds like an interesting book, though. I don’t think it matters whether you read the book before or after your own act of swimming at that beach. You might not have known the material at the time of your childhood swims, but surely you can look back now on that activity and see it as both literal, and (if you chose to) as “layered” with feminist associations. Or you can divorce your childhood swimming from your knowledge of the book: “bracket” it, so to speak.
I don’t know: I generally think it’s up to individuals to decide what how to interpret their past experiences. On that note, gotta go do some empowering bike-riding now; maybe I will look for some empowered pole-dancers in midtown as I go along?
BizarroSuperman: I can’t believe I am saying this, but for once I sort of see your point when you start to quote all the literature for these pole-dancing things. I guess there is a way in which things are “framed� by those you produce them, and when you put it in those terms, the pole-dancing begins to sound a lot less imaginative and fun than it initially sounded to me.
(Wrings hands and laughs maniacally) How come every time someone agrees with me they have to preface it with “I can’t believe I’m saying this”?
It’s funny what a couple of facts can do for the conversation no? I googled “Pole Party” and they all have almost the exact same literature. (To the point where they are either all the same company or just copy/paste each other’s websites)
A lot of products, especially products geared towards women, are sold by making people feel inferior. You aren’t sexy and seductive enough, plus you are too much of a pussy to go pole dancing at a gym. That message really isn’t any different from your teeth are too yellow and you’re too fat. There is something wrong with you so buy our remedy.
Again, sure I can see how fucking around with a stripper pole could be harmless fun, or even subversive. I’m not going to say that everyone who goes to a Pole Party is some mindless man-pleasing zombie. But the phenomenon as a whole is just another example of the widespread faux empowerment crap that is all the rage.
You know what is really empowering? Going to night school and getting a law degree. Dancing around a pole? Not so much.
What the argument about feminist acts seems to me to be missing is that no act is inherently feminist for all women. Yes, Mary Sue’s choice to take birth control as part of owning her sexuality is a feminist act. No, Joellen’s taking birth control because her boyfriend is pressuring her into it so that they can have sex baby-fear-free is not. Jamie goes to night school and gets a law degree because she wants to be a lawyer; Molly goes to night school and gets a law degree because her parents expect it. I think the way an act becomes a feminist act is in the choice and reason and thought behind it, not inherent in the class itself.
On a side note, I have actually recently taken a strip/pole/exotic dancing class, and while the literature was not as egregious as that quoted upthread, the teacher’s website still made me want to gouge my eyes out with a stick. She does do bachelorette and birthday parties and so on, because that’s where the money is. The class was heterocentric, which gave the four of us the giggles a few times. There were quite a few times that something the teacher said–about body image, about men, about dancing and why you’d be doing it–threw us completely. Even just as women already mostly comfortable with our bodies, we were obviously not her normal customers.
So, yes, maybe this is a problem, in general. But we were there to have fun, learn how to move better, and maybe our partners would get some benefit later, but that’s not the main reason we were there. (In fact, the original impetus was for the benefit of being able to better play characters in a live-action roleplaying game some of us are in.) So I’m not willing to say that it’s always bad, unempowering, unfeminist and objectifying.
LARPers - run!
What on earth is a LARPer, BizzaroSuperman?
Live-action role player.
Thanks! You rock. I do see your point after all with the other stuff, too. Maybe I do have a tendency to see empowerful in the teapot, or in the eye of the needle, or however that metaphor is supposed to go.
BizzaroSuperman–re: the Victorian kissing thing, it’s funny because I was just commenting on the Cheney thread how the straight male patriarchicals have hyper-sexualized the “omg two hott lesbians kissing,” even though by definition there is no returned interest.
Both Martha Graham and Twyla Tharp are white US Citizens born in the US.
True. They were/are also major innovators in the art of choreography. The Solid Gold Dancers, not so much.
At a brief glance, the Solid Gold Dancers appear to be mostly black.
I never paid attention to the racial makeup of the troupe, because I was too distracted by how much they sucked. Believe me, whippersnapper, if you ever saw that show, you’d realize that race is irrelevant in the face of that degree of suckitude.
Now get off my lawn!
‘Hoochie Mama’ is usually used against poor black and Latino women….
Learn somethin’ new every day.
Learn somethin’ new every day.
You have got to be kidding me.
hey, i used to watch Solid Gold like every day, back in the day. i think it came on just in time for the post-nursery school “i’m supposed to be having my nap but mommy’s got morning sickness again” Hour of Power.
which is either why i’m such a bad dancer, why all those folks who said my family had too many kids too close together were totally right, or why i happen to find silver lame hot-pants and leg warmers strangely comforting.
on a more serious note, Solid Gold, if i remember correctly, was basically the beginning of hip-hop dance. and Twyla Tharp’s been choreographing broadway musicals based on Billy Joel songs lately. so, y’know, be careful who gets tarred with the “high art” brush and who gets tarred with the “middlebrow crap” brush, there. because either it doesn’t matter, or you’re actually wrong.
… and then i googled around and realized i’m thinking of Soul Train, not Solid Gold. so, um. yeah.
True. They were/are also major innovators in the art of choreography. The Solid Gold Dancers, not so much.
Funny how “major innovators in the art of…” seem to so often be white, isn’t it?
[…] I do not need to get angry on a nice Friday morning before a fun-filled 3-day weekend. I really don’t. But goddamn if the blogosphere isn’t making it very difficult for me. […]
True. They were/are also major innovators in the art of choreography. The Solid Gold Dancers, not so much.
I know nothing about the Solid Gold dancers, but most of the (white) major innovators in the art of choreography in the twentieth century pulled a hell of a lot of from the black theatrical community, who promptly got ignored in favor of praising those oh-so-clever white folks. Including, I believe, Martha Graham and Twyla Tharp, but I’d have to check my reference materials to be sure.
Not sure why I am even bothering, but…
Are pole dancing parties or pole dancing at all, in any place or under any circumstances activities which empower the woman tribe and are feminist? Nope, probably not in the least. Can such things be empowering, or yes, even feminist, to individual women? Sure, they can. They can also be good for a person, in a physical health and fitness sense. Doing those tricks on a pole? Not easy. It requires a pretty decent level of strength, coordination, and flexibility. Like many other forms of dance or acrobatics, really.
Also, with all the “use your mind, not your body” cant floating around, I have to ask, what the heck is wrong with using your body, improving your body, liking to display your body, moving your body, and being sexual, really? Most of us are, after all, somewhat sexual creatures in nature, and if one is of the mind to take up an activity that might be pleasing or attractive to the sex in which they are interested, of their own free will, really, what’s the big deal?
The pole dancing stripper thing? I do that for a living. No, it doesn’t put me in touch with the goddess or get me feeling all hot and empowerful on a nightly basis, but you know, sometimes it does. It also pays nicely, pays for that empowerful law school, and allows me to afford parts for fixing my own car. I also have really great abs which I am proud of due to it. After all, one womans pandering to the Pat and sexified activity can be if not another womans empowerment, her key to getting there. And if it is a social/fun/athletic activity, who is to judge really? One woman might find those things at the tennis club…time with friends, and a killer backhand. Others might find it at a pole party. I know women who take pole dancing classes to be very empowering, as it is has made them feel better about everything from their bodies to their coordination and confidence…they do feel empowered and in touch with the goddess or whatever…good for them. I belly dance too, and the dynamic with female only belly dancing and female only pole dancing is not that different in my experience. It can be beautiful, sensual, and bonding all at once. So, who is to say?
And why the hate on for South Florida? I’m there a lot, and there are a lot of great things about South Florida.
“And this view of sexuality - that men are allowed to get horny, then act on it, while women have to act on “itâ€? regardless of their actual feelings - is what leads to the kind of sex-negativity we see from the right.”
Huh? Pole dancing parties do not espouse men being allowed to act on anything without a consenting partner. Or women HAVING to act on ANYTHING. And as for blaming this trend for “the kind of sex-negativity we see from the right”? I don’t think so. The right needs to own its feelings about sex without blaming Janet Jackson or pole dancing.
“If you’ll forgive my assumption of heteronormativity*, how is it possible that pole dancing with a group of women is empowering sexuality?”
It’s not necessarily an “empowering” activity in itself, as Ren said above, but if an individual woman finds it empowering, why not believe that she can be a rational actor or thinker? You seem to believe a woman cannot feel sexy and/or cannot play with her sexual boundaries unless men are around. Well, I’ve felt that way dressing up alone or goofing off with friends. I, and I don’t think any woman, needs a man to tell her what’s empowering of sexuality, or needs him around to sign off on it.
And getting real honest here — in my admittedly not exhaustive, but admittedly fairly extensive, experience with hetero men — I think there are basically two varieties of straight guys. Ones who find women in lingerie pole-dancing somewhat sexy, and ones who find women in lingerie pole-dancing extremely sexy.
The men in either group with average and above IQ can understand that the women doing the pole dancing can feel this way about themselves while doing it. So I suspect that there are not many intelligent men who can, without being disingenous, accurately claim to not get how it could be empowering on an individual level, or at least a lot of fun. And the reason, if I may be so bold as to hazard a guess, that a man would claim a superior kind of disgust for this activity, is to ingratiate himself with women who feel this way.
oh and regarding the Solid Gold Dancers, race, etc:
i googled round a bit last night (upon realizing that my associations with Solid Gold really belonged to Soul Train), and looking at photos of the Solid Gold dancers, they look to mainly be white, or EXTREMELY “white-looking” women of color.
i’m wondering if those of us dissing hamletta’s opinion of the Solid Gold dancers aren’t making the same pop cultural allusion mistake as i was last night.
Or women HAVING to act on ANYTHING.
So is it your position that all sex workers are doing it entirely of their own free will, without coercion of any kind?
WTF?
Thanks for the non-sequitur.
[…] Pole Dancing and Purity Balls May 25, 2007 Filed under: sex — Jender @ 11:14 pm Interesting post by Auguste at Pandagon arguing that pole dancing parties and purity balls amount to almost the same thing: […]
I have to agree with Amber and the RenegadeAvenger: if they find pole-dancing for a living to be a voluntary and fulfilling activity, and if they don’t feel objectified, coerced, or victimized, then I don’t see what the problem is.
I’m sure that many sex-workers are in some way “forced” by socioeconomic forces into their job. But so are many temps, gas station attendants, lawyers, adjuncts, and so forth. There are a lot of people who feel like they’re selling themselves short by staying in the jobs that they perform in order to pay the rent. I seriously dated a patent lawyer once who was so miserable making $200,000 a year that he took up a heroin and alcohol addiction to compensate for not beign able to live his “real” life.
Anyhow, so what are we bloggers supposed to do if women are being forced into sex work? I mean, honestly?? Should we boycott strip clubs and stand on the corners where prostitutes hang out, offering our liberal guidance and “alternatives?” I mean, what do we offer to people who have to do what they do to get by, and who don’t see a way out of it? Just asking…
Amber said it: “So is it your position that all sex workers are doing it entirely of their own free will, without coercion of any kind?” has nothing to do with “Pole dancing parties do not espouse … women HAVING to act on ANYTHING.”
This is just like:
Octo: “A, and also B and C.”
Auguste: “So, I’m too busy to deal with A, B and C, but: is it your position that: D?”
And yes, Amber summed it up well with “WTF.” That’s really the only correct answer to the bizarro reasoning here. Do you think that pole dancing atrophies ones gray cells, or something? Because: I just checked, and it hasn’t.
But let me spell it out slowly: pole dancing parties aren’t about women doing sex work, they’re about women having fun with sexuality, because — newsflash — pole dancing is sexy and fun.
And next, your odd reasoning is quite insulting to sex workers. I like to do math puzzles at home (yes, geek ex-engineer alert), does that mean I’m a math worker? No, nobody pays me to do it, and nobody should, because my math training is old and tired. Similarly, sex work is actually a skill. Tossing the idea of sex work blindly into any discussion of women or men doing sexy stuff, just to stir shit up, is, frankly, ignorant.
And finally, of course some sex workers are coerced. But nobody’s coerced into recreational pole dancing. The latter activity isn’t going to increase the number of sex workers coerced into the profession.
Next time, please read the actual post.
Also wondering how this got into pole dancing for a living instead of pole dancing as a hobby.
I think a lot of the posters assume implicitly that actual sex work is demeaning to women. Thus, by extension, pole dancing *for a hobby* is presumed to have the same “objectifying” and “demeaning” connotations as pole dancing *for a living.* It’s a subtext that runs through the discussion.
I still don’t understand why people assume that the decision to do either one of these things (actual sex-work or recreational simulation) could not be *both* feminist and empowering to the women involved. I think it is pretty common knowledge that many women fantasize about performing sex-work.
I mean, what’s wrong with being paid to look and act hot? What wrong with being the object of someone’s willingness to part with hundreds of dollars? I’m sure this is not always “the reality” of stripping for a living, but it’s a glamorous fantasy for a lot of women as well as men: to have/to be a stripper… Alas, we are taught that this is “bad.”
Sure. But also, Foucault, I’ll remind you just like I’ve reminded Auguste and countless others: sometimes, it’s actually not about the men.
Exactly. “actual sex work” involves men (mostly) paying women (mostly) for some variety of sex or stripping. Where“objectifyingâ€? and “demeaningâ€? exist, and they don’t in all cases, they stem from this interaction. As this interaction does not exist in recreational pole dancing, the whole comparison is absurd. It involves an assumption that women getting together to do this must necessarily be for men’s benefit. That’s an ignorant assumption, and the gesture of making it is a patriarchal one.
Amber, as I’ve tried to say before: If it’s actually not about the men, then I am wrong. I have no hesitation.
I do have hesitation, however, in believing that the pole-dancing craze is NEVER, under any circumstances, about the men, and that my points are therefore utterly invalid.
It involves an assumption that women getting together to do this must necessarily be for men’s benefit.
Women getting together to practice sexually pleasing men has something to do with men, I’d think. Women getting together to diet or get their hair done to be better sex objects might have fun doing it, but I hardly think they direct absence of men while participating in a behavior that’s all about men somehow makes it feminist.
And to clarify: I have no doubt that FOR YOU, pole-dancing is NEVER, under any circumstances, about the men. And good on you for that.
It’s not bad to spend time making yourself sexier for someone else, but it’s certainly not “empowering” in the sense of getting you power in the real world. Women’s “power” over people with real power, aka men, is all about sex and claiming to be “empowered” by just being really good at the one power you’re sort of allowed to have (though rest assured, it can all be taken away with a rape or some harassment, and everyone will claim it’s your fault for being a slut) is a teensy bit of puffery. Men don’t get together and practice cunnilingus and claim that they’ve empowered themselves that way. It does not compute. Men are permitted to have parts of their lives not be about sex, and the power they get from sex isn’t conflated with real power.
Amanda:
No, not all things related to sex are empowering, but it does depend on how you look at it. If a woman embraces sexuality as a means to power, it can in fact be such for her. Men also work at this, being appealing and sexual to females. This whol arguement comes down to eye of the beholder…pole dance for fun, exercise, and all woman power & sensuality, or to do it to appeal to men, which in its own right can speak to power….point is, once again, empowerment and feminism can be, in some areas, very personal, and really, who gets to judge that?
Oh, please, Amanda….just stop it, for Goddess’s sake.
No one here — not Ren Ev, Amber, or anyone else — is saying that pole dancing is innately feminist; only that some women — even some feminists — might find it fun and empowering, and even a bit sexually arousing.
Does the idea that women deciding to have pole dancing parties for their own pleasure and merely for plain old fun ever enter your brain?? Or is it always about “pleasing men”…even when no men are present to please??
I guess that anything that might cause a man to have an erection is now construed as blocking women’s access to real power, now??
And besides, it’s not as if men can’t do pole dancing, either: Ask Belledame.
Anthony
Then why are you whining? Auguste didn’t dismiss pole-dancing per se, he just questioned its use as a “feminist” empowerment program. He actively encouraged women to engage in behaviors they find sexually arousing at the appropriate times. Pole-dancing in front of your man for your mutual amusement is not the issue here. What’s stupid is trying to make it seem more feminist by excluding men, despite the fact that you’re now spending your own time dedicated to man-pleasing. That’s the opposite of feminism, and making man-pleasing a woman’s full-time occupation that encroaches on her non-man-pleasing time.
I think the point that’s being missed, and which Amber has mentioned…as have others, is that pole dancing does not have to be nor is it always all about the men. Lesbians pole dance for other women in some clubs and for fun. Some women just do it for fun and fitness and the idea of doing it for men never enters the picture. In short, it ain’t always about the men.
And even those who do it professionally, it ain;t often about the men, its about the money.
The so-called “male gaze” theory has its limits, and frankly went out of style in the early or mid 1990s. May I suggest a book to those who believe that women’s sexualized activities/rehearsals/performances are always inherently about pleasing men?
Try reading Jill Dolan’s THE FEMINIST SPECTATOR.
Yes: some women take *pleasure* in looking at other women’s bodies! Some women (straight or bi or lesbian) still find pole-dancing for other women fun and erotic. It’s not always about pleasing men or rehearsing how to be sexy for men. Dare I say it, it’s about pleasing ourselves. .
“It’s not bad to spend time making yourself sexier for someone else”
Is this projection? And, how many assumptions can fit into one sentence? (1) why is pole dancing necessarily about “making yourself sexier” instead of having fun with the sexuality you already have? (2) why is it necessarily for someone else? I think the individual woman’s intent should actually be our guide here, no?
“it’s certainly not “empoweringâ€? in the sense of getting you power in the real world”
Well, and why do female bonding activities need to rise to that standard?
“Women’s ‘power’ over people with real power, aka men, is all about sex and claiming to be ‘empowered’ by just being really good at the one power you’re sort of allowed to have (though rest assured, it can all be taken away with a rape or some harassment, and everyone will claim it’s your fault for being a slut) is a teensy bit of puffery.”
ALL about sex? Sip the RadFem Kool Aid much? Sure, there’s certainly some truth in the fact that women are more frequently advantaged by using sexuality as opposed to another kind of acumen. But let’s not ignore the many nuances and exceptions to this.
How do you define the “real power” men have? Money? Status? How would you explain the existence of female former sex workers who have been “allowed to have” far more of these attributes in their post-sex-work careers?
And as to “claiming to be ‘empowered’ by just being really good at the one power you’re sort of allowed to have … is a teensy bit of puffery.” Let’s assume arguendo that pole dancing is about feeling power of sexuality, among many other things. And that’s wrong, why? So, women culturally have more patriarchal pressure to trade on sexuality. Does that mean we need to accept that it’s a bad thing? We need to walk away from something, a la Firestone’s suggestion that women no longer give birth, just because the patriarchal Venn diagram puts more access to this, and less to other powers, in women’s circle?
What about the notion that it’s empowering to play with this a little, to take from it what we can and then use it to gain, as you put it, “real power”? Or, have fun with it and separately work to attain “real power” in other ways. Why the need for mutual exclusivity here, other than a remarkable lack of imagination?
“Men are permitted to have parts of their lives not be about sex, and the power they get from sex isn’t conflated with real power.”
Again with the ones and zeros. It’s not that straightforward. Both women’s and men’s lives overlap with sexuality, and many women who enjoy theirs are perfectly able to derive power from other aspects of their lives, or from a mixture of attributes. As for men not using sex in conjunction with “real power” — how about the statistic that plastic surgery and tanning booth customers are now about 33% male? How about the fact that certain professions, like president; CEO; trial attorney, etc. reward male attributes like height and strong build?
Power is power. There’s no “real” power. There’s only how we achieve it and how we use it. Whether it stems in part from sexuality, and whether this is more frequently the province of women, for a number of reasons, doesn’t put anyone, “good feminist” or “bad feminist,” in charge of deciding what’s legitimate. Saying the power ANYONE, male or female, gets from sex is “not conflated with real power” is simply inaccurate (forgetting about the fact that I’ve always felt “conflated” is a vague bloggy buzzword thrown in when it’s too confusing to find a more precise one).