March 6, 2013 • 30 mins
Pole dancing originated in China and India, and took off in strip clubs in the 1980s in Canada. Should it be considered as an Olympic sport? Join Cristen and Caroline as they explore the rising popularity of strippercizing and pole dancing for fitness.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to stuff Mom Never told you. From how Stop
works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Caroline and I'm Kristin Christen. There's this this form of
exercise that I'm a little skeptical about a lot of
people are saying that it's it's liberating and fun. Is
(00:25):
it Tibo? But no, no, not yet, although I do
have Tybo on video cassette. I've done Tybo before, back
in the day. I used to do it in my
parents basement. Billy Blanks. Yeah, yeah, like it's tough. I
worked up a sweat. No it's not. It's not Tybo. No, No,
we're talking about stripper sizing a k a. Cardios stripped
(00:45):
tease or strip aerobics. And you know, I am skeptical
still even after reading all the stuff we've read. But
the people who do it seriously are freaking ripped. Yeah,
well this is with this is with strippers. I saying, Yeah,
the cardio strip tease, which is basically a combination of
yoga moves plus some step aerobics. Put, well, this is different. Well,
(01:10):
this is different from pole fitness. Stripper sizing is where
it's more focused on taking your clothes off while burning calories,
as opposed to pole dancing, in which you leave your
clothes on while burning calories. There may or may not
be a pole involved. And this became pretty popular. Um yeah,
(01:33):
it offered at Crunch fitness gyms, for instance, because Carmen
Electra put out Aerobic Strip Tease, and of course, you know,
the Internet media being what it is, I was like,
oh wow, that's right. A million articles about it. And
then Sheila Kelly published a book called The s Factor
Strip Workouts for every Woman, and she went on this
(01:56):
whole media circuit and was always talking about how it
revolutionized not only her fitness, but also reinvigorated her marriage.
She's a mother of two, and that it's not this
super sexual thing, it's just a liberating, fun workout. But
in reading and I totally, yes, I totally buy into that.
I yes, okay, but when I read quotes like this,
(02:19):
it makes me go seriously. So, Sheila Kelly was interviewed
by web MD in their article about super sizing and
pull dancing classes and things like that, because Kelly does
teach some pole dancing classes and the quote that I
I pulled was I began moving and in that instant
something switched on in me. I was moving without a
moment's forethought or self consciousness. My body became like a
(02:42):
river of sinew and muscle and raw energy. I allowed
the music to curve and shape me with its wave.
But Caroline, that's how I felt the first time I
did Tibo. Should we be so skeptical? Uh No? Yeah?
That that is one one common thing when when you
(03:03):
hear interviews with people who are very much into either
strip cardio fitness or what we're gonna talk focus more
on in the podcast, which is pole dancing as exercise
and yes, as sports. That a lot of the women
who and men who practice this feel very strongly about
these moves and how it makes their their body feel well.
(03:26):
For sure, because you have to put so much strength
and flexibility into hoisting yourself up on these poles. And
a lot of people who do the flag, which is
using their arm muscles to shoot their body straight out
to the side. I mean they had serious stuff. Yeah.
Moving on from the cardio strip fitness to something more intense,
which is a straight up pole dancing fitness. It does
(03:49):
require a lot of athleticism and it has become pretty popular.
According to American Fitness magazine from their May June issue.
Is Showfeld, who's a studio owner and founder of the
Pole Fitness Association, says that the industry has grown three
over the past couple of years, and she says that
(04:10):
there are over twelve hundred pole fitness studios around the world.
This is not just an American centric fitness trend. This
is something going on everywhere. And again, this is distinct
from quote unquote stripper sizing to to pull fitness. Think
about pole dancing that you might witness that, Yes, a
(04:31):
strip club taken to the gym, right, it's all tough.
It's like stripping on steroids. But there's a there's a
stripping involved. Okay, it's like it's like the strip club.
It's not. Now, I don't know, I'm losing my metaphors here, um,
but it it has a very interesting history if we
(04:52):
want to get into a little bit of that. H
It's not necessarily a modern invention swinging around a pole. No, no,
this is actually the pole dancing that we think of
now is a fusion of Chinese and Indian pole and
this was coming from like circus culture, traveling fairs and
also in more recent history exotic dance, of course, and
(05:16):
the International Pole Dance Fitness Association offered a pretty comprehensive
history of it, and they talk about how with the
Chinese pole tradition it dates back to around the twelfth
century with circus performers who would move around the pole
and they would uh the poles we wrapped in rubber
(05:36):
for grip. But also as you can imagine, going around
poles and moving around it, it would cause burn marks
on their on their skin, but the burn marks are
actually signs of respect, like of toughness. Interesting. Yeah, I
wonder if people would ever try to get those burn
marks in other ways to be like, no, I'm I'm
totally a pole guy. I'm on the pole all the time. Um.
(05:57):
A lot of their tricks, a lot of the traditional
Chinese these pole tricks are actually still used in things
like circusla, which I actually just saw recently with my
parents and it is crazy. Yeah, yeah, all the things
they do. They get up on the pole and the
whole audience is like, oh, I don't want to have
to catch you. Yeah. I want to know if the
average circus performer's spine is somehow like different genetically different
(06:20):
from other people I just just made of rubber. Yeah,
it's amazing. There's also Indian pole a k a. Someone
correct me if I'm mispronouncing this Mala CaMLA cam okay. Well,
that also dates backed around the twelfth century, but it
didn't really become common until the nineteenth century, and it
was intended not you know, on its own merit to
(06:41):
just get on the pole and have a good time.
It was intended as a way for wrestlers to train.
It was a competitive sport at the time, using a
smooth wooden pole, and it was used to develop speed, reflexes, concentration,
and coordination, all things of course that you would have
to develop if you're trying to keep your body up
on a pole during those crazy poses. But today they
(07:02):
have national in India, they have national championships involving fourteen states.
But it is an exclusively male sport. And I gotta
say go on the internet and check out videos of
this because it is pretty impressive, especially when you see
these young boys like literally just dancing around the pole,
hopping all around and doing all sorts of tricks. It
(07:24):
is very impressive. But if we move from circus sport
into strip tease, there's still a pretty rich history. We
go back to ancient mythology. There is a Sumerian goddess
of love named a Nana who would dance and remove
one item of clothing or jewelry at each of the
seven gates on the way to find her lover, and
(07:45):
thus we have the dance of the Seven Veils. Yeah,
there's also an Assyrian Babylonian myth that's very similar to
that Sumerian myth and the goddess I think her name
starts with an I too. It's very interesting how all
of this mythology ties them together. Moving forward to combining
the whole, you know, seductive dance. There we have the
Mulan rouge belly dancers, Latin dancing and Depression era traveling
(08:09):
fairs are cited as sort of a beginning for the
modern pole dance, where you know, they'd set up a
tent and the pole that holds the tent up. That's dancers.
Would you know, dance around that? Yeah, speaking of dancing
around the pole, there have been some sources we ran
across that we're trying to link it to the may
pole tradition, you know of kids grabbing the ribbons and
(08:31):
going around the may pole. I believe that's separate from
this kind of pole of sport and then moving to
strip tease because it's you know, obviously a um, a
mix of all of these different elements. UM. But the
hoochie COOCHI dancers first originated at the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition
(08:53):
in eighteen seventies six. And you combine the hoochie coochie
dancers with that travel ling fair pole dancing, and we have,
you know, the more erotic kind of pole dancing that
we might think of immediately today before we think of
fitness classes. And in nineteen sixty eight, Oregonian listeners, here's
(09:16):
one for you. One of the earliest recorded pole dances
at a strip club I believe was happened in Oregon
of that year. And then the pole dance craze really
kicked off in Canada in the nineteen eighties. Canadians, what's up?
Who knew? Well? Speaking of crazes, Kristen sent me a
(09:37):
link to a very interesting trend, which is pole dancing.
For Jesus, Yeah, this is uh. It was a New
York Times story about this woman who used to be
a stripper and she would dance on the pole and
all this. But then she converted to Christianity, but she
wanted to teach women in her church these pole moves
(10:02):
that she knew, because I mean, obviously it requires a
lot of muscular strength and all of that, and so
she would she would teach classes at the church and
of course poll dancing for Jesus. That's that's a funny
little phrase to say, because how how could you possibly
meld the two? Um? But uh, it didn't take that
(10:23):
long from the pole dance craze to supposedly starting Canada
in the nineteen eighties, to translate into the fitness realm.
In fact, Fania Dietrich is the first person at least
known to teach a pole fitness class. So we have
now moved from the hoochie coochie to the strip club
(10:47):
poll dancing to pole dancing outside the strip club in
fitness clubs and or for Jesus, and or for Jesus. Um, well,
you know, we we did mention that we're going to
get to how this is a serious sport people, pole
pole dancing, the pole being on the pole. You have
(11:08):
to have a lot of fitness to be able to
do this. Uh. BuzzFeed in July had an article about
this and about how pole dancing associations and groups really
want to go to the next Olympics. One of the dancers,
Katie Coats, started a petition to get pole dancing in
the Olympics, which caught the attention of software analyst Timothy Troutman,
(11:29):
who then went on to found the International Poll Sports Federation.
He said that he's watched it become very popular. He says,
first it was housewives, think hey guys and straight guys,
and now even kids do it. Yeah, there was some
internet hubbub that was sparked about a class for pole
dancing that was geared towards kids, called the Little Spinners.
(11:53):
But I mean, you could still argue though all these
women who are and yes there are some men as
well who were doing the pole fitness say no, it's
seriously a very good workout. And if you watch these
videos of the women doing these pole dances. For instance,
Katie Coates had a video of her doing a Swan
Lake performance on the Poll that went viral online and
(12:14):
helped raise the profile of it as a sport aside
outside of a stripping. And it's incredible just the fact
that they can The upper body strength required is phenomenal
and Troutman, the guy who started the International Poll Sports Federation,
says that the interest has doubled over the past six
(12:34):
or so years, and they also organized the first World
Poll Sport Championship, which took place days before the London
Olympics UH in hopes of getting the io c's attention
with it, and dancers from twenty six countries competed in
that so you could there there's a decent argument out
(12:55):
there that pole dancing should be recognized as a sport,
but in order for the IOC to really give it
a serious look, it has to be something internationally recognized.
And as you can imagine, when we think of pole
dancing even still, fitness is probably not the first thing
that comes to mind. Well, proponents argue that like, okay,
(13:16):
well you have a gymnast who's up on a balance beam,
why can't you just take the pole from being horizontal
to vertical, right and and do you know acrobatics or
gymnastics on it that way and miss pole dance. Felix
Crane was one of those people who was making an
argument for Olympic inclusion. In a column on ESPN in August,
(13:38):
she said that, you know, pole dancing can be performed
too extremely high athletic standards. You need extreme strength, flexibility
and control to be able to do this stuff. So
you know, we're athletes to let us compete. And plus
you do have to sort of go back to that
history of the poll I think to remember, like, Okay,
this was like an ancient athletic pre actus that people did,
(14:01):
and they were really respected for it. It just became
a very sexual thing, right, I mean, and I'll go
ahead and say that I could still have respect for
the athleticism of strippers who are getting on those poles
and spinning around and doing some pretty incredible feats that
my body in its condition right now would not be
(14:22):
able to do. I don't know. I'm day three of
couch to five K. Baby, Just let me loose. You're
ready to go? Yeah? And Crane also speaking of the athleticism,
though just as an example, she's also a circus delay performer.
You know, so when you get to that level of
the sport, these women are doing much more than just
you know, spinning around a pole haphazardly. As I would be.
(14:45):
I'm sure I wouldn't be spinning around, and I'd be
on the floor crying because I would have fallen hurt myself. Well, Caroline, though,
what about men who are involved in pole dancing? Because
this is not just for women, even though it is
dominated not surprisingly by women. Yeah, there's a there's a
big effort by a lot of men to break into
this sport that is seen as as female dominated. There
(15:07):
was an article in the Wall Street Journal and back
in October there were seven male performers at the World
pole Dance Finals in Budapest that year compared to thirty
nine women, and a quote from Frenchman Cheme Martinez I
think sums that. He says, people say it's hard for
women in a man's world, Well, it's hard to be
(15:29):
a man in this woman's world. And I'm not going
to roll my eyes. Well, I mean it is a
couple of them were talking about how if they're out
at a bar, say and there is a poll there, say,
and if one of their female friends who's into pole dancing,
hops up and it everyone's like yeah. But as soon
(15:50):
as a guy hops up on the pole and starts
spinning around, people are like whoa, yeah, what whoa? You
are really you're I don't. I don't know about that
and um poll. Dancing for Dudes actually saw an uptick
in popularity after Jude Law told in British tabloid that
he and Clive Owen took pole dancing fitness classes to
(16:12):
get in shape for the movie Closer. Yeah, which does
feature scenes in a strip club. Yeah, that's funny. Yeah.
Everbody's like, oh, well, I guess I don't know why
Jude Law is the impetus for all of that. Well,
because it gives some kind of validation of saying, oh, well,
you know, you can still be this masculine, handsome man
that women are sexually attracted to and get on the pole.
(16:34):
Here you go. Well, some, you know, some men who
participate in this say that women are not very welcoming.
Timber Brown, who's the son of a marine who had
gone to the police academy and quit to be a
professional dancer, said subconsciously they don't want men because it's
something that of theirs that they can hold on too,
literally literally and figuratively. Yeah. Australian Maddie Shields said it's
(16:56):
been a fight for equality and tonight we struck a blow.
You go, men, I mean that Instagram. I mean, I can,
I can understand like you can. You can play the
you know, both sides and say, well, what would we
say are e title nine? You know, shouldn't the old
men deserve to get on the pole as much as
they as women do. Although I could see how having
(17:17):
mixed competitions would be difficult to judge because of like
biological discrepancies and upper body strength between men and women,
it seems like women might be at a slight disadvantage.
But the women still beat those seven male performers at
the World Pole Dance Finals. Yeah. Well. One one dude
(17:38):
who had a similar experience to what I believe I
would have if I tried to get on the pole
was a BBC reporter, Sharag Trivetti, who tried it out
in March two thousand five, and he said that it
felt like a total role reversal of the times that
he's been to strip clubs, because he said, you know,
women are watching him do it and fail, and they're
taking pictures, and he realized just how physically demand ending
(18:00):
it is to get up on that pole and spin
around and do all these dances. And his teacher said
that it's not only a new way of exercising, but
a new way of thinking, because you really have to
train your body to do some pretty crazy things that
you don't think you'll be able to do. Yeah, I
mean the idea of getting up on the pole and
then like releasing my upper body while just my legs
(18:21):
are holding on. I I can't imagine that I'm too
too nervous to do a headstand in my yoga class.
I don't know that I could. I don't know that
I could brave the pole. Um. But speaking of braving
the poll, uh, there is the whole question of well,
is this not just some kind of you know, erotic
(18:43):
thing that we're doing that eventually just feeds back into
this whole like portification of the culturest Some might and
have said, of course, there is a feminist spin to this.
And we did find a pay paper analyzing pole dancing
as fitness and the paper was Empowerment in the Poll,
(19:06):
a Discursive Investigation of the reinvention of pole Dancing as
a Recreational activity, published in the Journal Feminism and Psychology
in two thousand nine. And what the researchers did was
talked to some pole fitness instructors, some pole fitness class
attendees who went all the time, some who just did
a drop in class, and then uh, male observers and
(19:30):
other women who hadn't taken any classes to compare how
the level of experience jived with whether they thought that
it was a good or bad thing for women, Right, Yeah,
just the whole argument of like, are you doing it
because it's part of the patriarchy and for the male gaze,
or are you doing it because it's okay in the culture.
(19:52):
Are you doing it because it's personally liberating? And they
argue that there's a certain framework that because of pornografication
there I said, it of our culture, that it's more
acceptable in this period in history to be able to
do things like that. And then you know, maybe if
this were a different time in history, all these women
(20:13):
would be called sluts. And one of the conversations that
that comes up a lot in this paper is the
idea of the quote unquote raunch culture. And you can
read more about this in Ariel Levies book Female Chauvinist
Pigs if you're curious about that um And it's this
whole idea that women must now also be considered sexy
and comfortable with an open, exhibitionist sexuality that by like
(20:38):
pretty much anything is game. You know, you wear your
crop top Playboy brand T shirt and that is your
form of sexual liberation. Or Girls Gone Wild is just
a form of sexual liberation because we can just be open.
But at the same time they would argue that that's
not empowerment, that's just portification and insolved, feeding into this
(21:01):
nasty kind of hyper sexual culture. It's not really doing
anybody any good. Yeah, And they asked all those participants, um,
you know, how how it was framed in their minds,
what they thought of it. Um. So there there are
three three areas here where it's number one, it's framed
as fun and our fitness, And in this regard it
can be empowering based on context. So as in fitness
(21:25):
it's empowering. You're doing it to get in shape, So
that's empowering, not stripping. That's not empowering to these people
who participated, same same token. If it's fun, then it
can't be degrading. I I'm choosing to do it because
it's fun and I can get in shape. Therefore I'm
not being degraded. There's also the whole issue of money exchange.
So they said that monetary exchange delineates between empowering and
(21:46):
disempowering positions, So you're in control when you're the one
paying to take the class to learn to be a
poll d answer. And there's also the issue of the
mail gaze. It depends on whether you're performing for a
partner or a stranger. And as you can expect, they
said that performing it willingly for a loving partner was
(22:08):
empowering and fun versus what they considered to be not
as empowering if you're a stripper doing it for strangers.
And I think that says so much about how we
view uh, the you could say sex to work as
a whole, but in this instance stripping and that whole
(22:28):
issue of the money exchange, because I'll tell you right now,
there are plenty of strippers who will say that the
opposite is true, that the fact that they are receiving
money for getting up on that poll and dancing for
the mail gays is a form of empowerment. That they
know exactly what they're doing, that they're making a living
off of that, and whether or not you are okay
(22:49):
with the way that they're making that money, it doesn't matter.
Um so it's uh, it's interesting that we aren't so
scared of getting up been doing the exact same moves
on the pole as long as our clothes are on,
even though with a pole fitness stancing you can't wear
many clothes at all because of fiction and right, Uh so,
(23:12):
as long as your your breasts and your vagina are
covered up and no one's throwing dollar bills in your face,
then it's empowering. So why why is that you know
a difference if it's outside of the strip cluver inside
and I I'm not arguing one way or the other.
I just think it's I think it says a lot
(23:33):
about our culture to where maybe we aren't as sexually
liberated as we would like to be, and maybe there
is a bit of a double standard there. But I
think what we can both agree on, though, Caroline, is
that well, cardio stripped strip tease, and there I've even
seen there was the newest thing which was stripping cardio
(23:54):
strip teas in high heels. I would I would kill myself,
I would trip and break my neck. I would. It's
just not good for you. Working on stilettos is not
is not very good for you. Um that I I
also raised a skeptical eyebrow at because it's like, at
that point, it's like, just you can just do yoga
or just do aerobics. But I think you and I
(24:15):
can both agree that poll dancing absolutely is an athletic endeavor. Yeah,
if you want proof, google it. Look at pictures of
those people. They have like seven teen pack ads. I
don't know where that extra one came from, but they
have a lot. Yeah, and that goes for whether or
not it's in the context of a strip club or
a fitness club. But obviously the level of respect for
(24:39):
it does shift. So I'm wondering if there are any
poll fitness instructors or pull fitness enthusiasts who are listening
to this, because I'm sure that if you and I
were to start taking pole fitness classes and you know,
we casually dropped that in conversation Shan, people would look askance.
(25:03):
I think it would also be like, especially if it
were in mixed company. I think dudes would be like hey, ladies, well,
or people would immediately question your motivation for it, saying well,
why why do you need to why do you need
to work out all sexy like that. Why don't you
just come to zoom ba with me? I'm sexy all
the time, even at yoga, in my private yoga class,
I'm like, sorry, just let me take me feel of
(25:25):
off still, let o yoga. That's the next trend that
we will start. Surprisingly doesn't help you touch you tose.
I want to start like a like bathroom bathrobe trends
like bathrobe yoga, bathrobe jogging. Let's integrate more bathroobes into
our our leisure activities. That's all I have to say. Um,
(25:47):
So we want to know from you, though it does?
Does the context matter? Is it? Is it double standard
that we can respect it outside the strip club inside
the script strip club women are just victims to everything
terrible about gendered culture. Let us know all of your
thoughts about pole dancing and and especially yeah if you
(26:09):
if you do it in any context, we want to
hear from you. Mom. Stuff at Discovery dot com is
where you can send your letters. Well, I've got a
couple of letters here in response to our episode on
p d A Public Displays of Affection, and these were
specifically from our LGBT listeners because we dedicated that episode
(26:34):
two to those fine folks, and so Gretchen Rights. I'm
twenty two in a lesbian engaged to my twenty four
year old bisexual female fight fiance. We're in law school.
I'm in Minneapolis, and she's an Indian and near Chicago
and works in the city. P d A really depends
on the situation. I'm more confident and don't even notice
(26:56):
the stairs, but she came out to be with me
in her areas more conserved except for where when we're
in Chicago for trips or her work, so it's more
difficult for her. So she goes on to talk about
how there are are differences in the kinds of PDA
that they're um okay showing depending on where they are.
For instance, she writes, when she'd seen me in Minneapolis,
(27:19):
we were freer. The best thing was going to a
cocktail party my school's l g PT organization put on.
I've also felt that fall that p d A was political,
since Minnesota had a marriage amendment on our ballot that election.
We should be able to feel comfortable in any situation,
and the amendments defeat helped that. Being in different situations
(27:39):
like this has shown me the differences and attitudes seem
mainly geographic, urban versus suburban slash rural, age based younger
people are more likely to smile than stare or comment,
and politically based liberal versus conservative. Things have really been
going our way lately with marriage, Obama statements, and other protections.
I hope they keep changing so day we don't have
(28:00):
to think about how we show affection. So thanks, Gretchen,
and I have one from Ray, She says. Firstly, I
want to thank you so much for doing an episode
with significant research data for the LGBT community. I'm a
huge fan of your podcast and of any and all
discussion about gender in the world today, but I am
frequently disappointed, as I know you are, by the lack
of research regarding queer individuals. Secondly, I just wanted to
(28:23):
respond personally to the PDA episode. I'm a lady married
to a lady, and we were married in California right
before Prop eight swooped in and ruined everybody's fun. My
wife and I made a resolution very early on in
our marriage to never hide our relationship with one another
and to treat each other the same way, regardless of location, company,
or surroundings. We had met at a conservative religious university
(28:43):
and had been forced to hide our relationship while there.
It had been terrible for us and we resolved to
never go back. That being said, while we are certainly
never sucking face or going to town in public, we
do often hold hands and will exchange a quick kiss
on occasion. We have definitely had a variety of response
and sometimes it can be very scary in certain environments.
It can be very surreal to be holding your lover's
(29:05):
hand in one hand and have your other hand on
emergency speed dial. The uproar and ugly controversy surrounding Prop
eight is at the beginning of our life together certainly
had a deep and irreversible impact on our relationship and
how we view ourselves in the world. However, has it
has been our experience that things are getting better and better,
and we know that LGBT people before us made incredible
(29:25):
sacrifices to help us get to this point, despite possible
discomfort or even danger. My wife and I hope that
we can further help society accept people like us to
the next generation doesn't have to worry about it. It
is personal and it is political. So thank you, Ray,
and thanks to everyone who has written into us mom
Stuff at Discovery dot com keep your letters coming. You
(29:45):
can also find us on Facebook and send us a
message there or leave a comment. You can also follow
us on Twitter, tweeters at Mom's Stuff podcast, and we're
on Tumblr as well. It's stuff Mom Never Told You
dot com And if you want to get smarter this week,
you should head over to our website It's how Stuff
Works dot com for more on this and thousands of
(30:10):
other topics. Is it how stuff works dot com
Welcome to stuff Mom Never told you. From how Stop
works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Caroline and I'm Kristin Christen. There's this this form of
exercise that I'm a little skeptical about a lot of
people are saying that it's it's liberating and fun. Is
(00:25):
it Tibo? But no, no, not yet, although I do
have Tybo on video cassette. I've done Tybo before, back
in the day. I used to do it in my
parents basement. Billy Blanks. Yeah, yeah, like it's tough. I
worked up a sweat. No it's not. It's not Tybo. No, No,
we're talking about stripper sizing a k a. Cardios stripped
(00:45):
tease or strip aerobics. And you know, I am skeptical
still even after reading all the stuff we've read. But
the people who do it seriously are freaking ripped. Yeah,
well this is with this is with strippers. I saying, Yeah,
the cardio strip tease, which is basically a combination of
yoga moves plus some step aerobics. Put, well, this is different. Well,
(01:10):
this is different from pole fitness. Stripper sizing is where
it's more focused on taking your clothes off while burning calories,
as opposed to pole dancing, in which you leave your
clothes on while burning calories. There may or may not
be a pole involved. And this became pretty popular. Um yeah,
(01:33):
it offered at Crunch fitness gyms, for instance, because Carmen
Electra put out Aerobic Strip Tease, and of course, you know,
the Internet media being what it is, I was like,
oh wow, that's right. A million articles about it. And
then Sheila Kelly published a book called The s Factor
Strip Workouts for every Woman, and she went on this
(01:56):
whole media circuit and was always talking about how it
revolutionized not only her fitness, but also reinvigorated her marriage.
She's a mother of two, and that it's not this
super sexual thing, it's just a liberating, fun workout. But
in reading and I totally, yes, I totally buy into that.
I yes, okay, but when I read quotes like this,
(02:19):
it makes me go seriously. So, Sheila Kelly was interviewed
by web MD in their article about super sizing and
pull dancing classes and things like that, because Kelly does
teach some pole dancing classes and the quote that I
I pulled was I began moving and in that instant
something switched on in me. I was moving without a
moment's forethought or self consciousness. My body became like a
(02:42):
river of sinew and muscle and raw energy. I allowed
the music to curve and shape me with its wave.
But Caroline, that's how I felt the first time I
did Tibo. Should we be so skeptical? Uh No? Yeah?
That that is one one common thing when when you
(03:03):
hear interviews with people who are very much into either
strip cardio fitness or what we're gonna talk focus more
on in the podcast, which is pole dancing as exercise
and yes, as sports. That a lot of the women
who and men who practice this feel very strongly about
these moves and how it makes their their body feel well.
(03:26):
For sure, because you have to put so much strength
and flexibility into hoisting yourself up on these poles. And
a lot of people who do the flag, which is
using their arm muscles to shoot their body straight out
to the side. I mean they had serious stuff. Yeah.
Moving on from the cardio strip fitness to something more intense,
which is a straight up pole dancing fitness. It does
(03:49):
require a lot of athleticism and it has become pretty popular.
According to American Fitness magazine from their May June issue.
Is Showfeld, who's a studio owner and founder of the
Pole Fitness Association, says that the industry has grown three
over the past couple of years, and she says that
(04:10):
there are over twelve hundred pole fitness studios around the world.
This is not just an American centric fitness trend. This
is something going on everywhere. And again, this is distinct
from quote unquote stripper sizing to to pull fitness. Think
about pole dancing that you might witness that, Yes, a
(04:31):
strip club taken to the gym, right, it's all tough.
It's like stripping on steroids. But there's a there's a
stripping involved. Okay, it's like it's like the strip club.
It's not. Now, I don't know, I'm losing my metaphors here, um,
but it it has a very interesting history if we
(04:52):
want to get into a little bit of that. H
It's not necessarily a modern invention swinging around a pole. No, no,
this is actually the pole dancing that we think of
now is a fusion of Chinese and Indian pole and
this was coming from like circus culture, traveling fairs and
also in more recent history exotic dance, of course, and
(05:16):
the International Pole Dance Fitness Association offered a pretty comprehensive
history of it, and they talk about how with the
Chinese pole tradition it dates back to around the twelfth
century with circus performers who would move around the pole
and they would uh the poles we wrapped in rubber
(05:36):
for grip. But also as you can imagine, going around
poles and moving around it, it would cause burn marks
on their on their skin, but the burn marks are
actually signs of respect, like of toughness. Interesting. Yeah, I
wonder if people would ever try to get those burn
marks in other ways to be like, no, I'm I'm
totally a pole guy. I'm on the pole all the time. Um.
(05:57):
A lot of their tricks, a lot of the traditional
Chinese these pole tricks are actually still used in things
like circusla, which I actually just saw recently with my
parents and it is crazy. Yeah, yeah, all the things
they do. They get up on the pole and the
whole audience is like, oh, I don't want to have
to catch you. Yeah. I want to know if the
average circus performer's spine is somehow like different genetically different
(06:20):
from other people I just just made of rubber. Yeah,
it's amazing. There's also Indian pole a k a. Someone
correct me if I'm mispronouncing this Mala CaMLA cam okay. Well,
that also dates backed around the twelfth century, but it
didn't really become common until the nineteenth century, and it
was intended not you know, on its own merit to
(06:41):
just get on the pole and have a good time.
It was intended as a way for wrestlers to train.
It was a competitive sport at the time, using a
smooth wooden pole, and it was used to develop speed, reflexes, concentration,
and coordination, all things of course that you would have
to develop if you're trying to keep your body up
on a pole during those crazy poses. But today they
(07:02):
have national in India, they have national championships involving fourteen states.
But it is an exclusively male sport. And I gotta
say go on the internet and check out videos of
this because it is pretty impressive, especially when you see
these young boys like literally just dancing around the pole,
hopping all around and doing all sorts of tricks. It
(07:24):
is very impressive. But if we move from circus sport
into strip tease, there's still a pretty rich history. We
go back to ancient mythology. There is a Sumerian goddess
of love named a Nana who would dance and remove
one item of clothing or jewelry at each of the
seven gates on the way to find her lover, and
(07:45):
thus we have the dance of the Seven Veils. Yeah,
there's also an Assyrian Babylonian myth that's very similar to
that Sumerian myth and the goddess I think her name
starts with an I too. It's very interesting how all
of this mythology ties them together. Moving forward to combining
the whole, you know, seductive dance. There we have the
Mulan rouge belly dancers, Latin dancing and Depression era traveling
(08:09):
fairs are cited as sort of a beginning for the
modern pole dance, where you know, they'd set up a
tent and the pole that holds the tent up. That's dancers.
Would you know, dance around that? Yeah, speaking of dancing
around the pole, there have been some sources we ran
across that we're trying to link it to the may
pole tradition, you know of kids grabbing the ribbons and
(08:31):
going around the may pole. I believe that's separate from
this kind of pole of sport and then moving to
strip tease because it's you know, obviously a um, a
mix of all of these different elements. UM. But the
hoochie COOCHI dancers first originated at the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition
(08:53):
in eighteen seventies six. And you combine the hoochie coochie
dancers with that travel ling fair pole dancing, and we have,
you know, the more erotic kind of pole dancing that
we might think of immediately today before we think of
fitness classes. And in nineteen sixty eight, Oregonian listeners, here's
(09:16):
one for you. One of the earliest recorded pole dances
at a strip club I believe was happened in Oregon
of that year. And then the pole dance craze really
kicked off in Canada in the nineteen eighties. Canadians, what's up?
Who knew? Well? Speaking of crazes, Kristen sent me a
(09:37):
link to a very interesting trend, which is pole dancing.
For Jesus, Yeah, this is uh. It was a New
York Times story about this woman who used to be
a stripper and she would dance on the pole and
all this. But then she converted to Christianity, but she
wanted to teach women in her church these pole moves
(10:02):
that she knew, because I mean, obviously it requires a
lot of muscular strength and all of that, and so
she would she would teach classes at the church and
of course poll dancing for Jesus. That's that's a funny
little phrase to say, because how how could you possibly
meld the two? Um? But uh, it didn't take that
(10:23):
long from the pole dance craze to supposedly starting Canada
in the nineteen eighties, to translate into the fitness realm.
In fact, Fania Dietrich is the first person at least
known to teach a pole fitness class. So we have
now moved from the hoochie coochie to the strip club
(10:47):
poll dancing to pole dancing outside the strip club in
fitness clubs and or for Jesus, and or for Jesus. Um, well,
you know, we we did mention that we're going to
get to how this is a serious sport people, pole
pole dancing, the pole being on the pole. You have
(11:08):
to have a lot of fitness to be able to
do this. Uh. BuzzFeed in July had an article about
this and about how pole dancing associations and groups really
want to go to the next Olympics. One of the dancers,
Katie Coats, started a petition to get pole dancing in
the Olympics, which caught the attention of software analyst Timothy Troutman,
(11:29):
who then went on to found the International Poll Sports Federation.
He said that he's watched it become very popular. He says,
first it was housewives, think hey guys and straight guys,
and now even kids do it. Yeah, there was some
internet hubbub that was sparked about a class for pole
dancing that was geared towards kids, called the Little Spinners.
(11:53):
But I mean, you could still argue though all these
women who are and yes there are some men as
well who were doing the pole fitness say no, it's
seriously a very good workout. And if you watch these
videos of the women doing these pole dances. For instance,
Katie Coates had a video of her doing a Swan
Lake performance on the Poll that went viral online and
(12:14):
helped raise the profile of it as a sport aside
outside of a stripping. And it's incredible just the fact
that they can The upper body strength required is phenomenal
and Troutman, the guy who started the International Poll Sports Federation,
says that the interest has doubled over the past six
(12:34):
or so years, and they also organized the first World
Poll Sport Championship, which took place days before the London
Olympics UH in hopes of getting the io c's attention
with it, and dancers from twenty six countries competed in
that so you could there there's a decent argument out
(12:55):
there that pole dancing should be recognized as a sport,
but in order for the IOC to really give it
a serious look, it has to be something internationally recognized.
And as you can imagine, when we think of pole
dancing even still, fitness is probably not the first thing
that comes to mind. Well, proponents argue that like, okay,
(13:16):
well you have a gymnast who's up on a balance beam,
why can't you just take the pole from being horizontal
to vertical, right and and do you know acrobatics or
gymnastics on it that way and miss pole dance. Felix
Crane was one of those people who was making an
argument for Olympic inclusion. In a column on ESPN in August,
(13:38):
she said that, you know, pole dancing can be performed
too extremely high athletic standards. You need extreme strength, flexibility
and control to be able to do this stuff. So
you know, we're athletes to let us compete. And plus
you do have to sort of go back to that
history of the poll I think to remember, like, Okay,
this was like an ancient athletic pre actus that people did,
(14:01):
and they were really respected for it. It just became
a very sexual thing, right, I mean, and I'll go
ahead and say that I could still have respect for
the athleticism of strippers who are getting on those poles
and spinning around and doing some pretty incredible feats that
my body in its condition right now would not be
(14:22):
able to do. I don't know. I'm day three of
couch to five K. Baby, Just let me loose. You're
ready to go? Yeah? And Crane also speaking of the athleticism,
though just as an example, she's also a circus delay performer.
You know, so when you get to that level of
the sport, these women are doing much more than just
you know, spinning around a pole haphazardly. As I would be.
(14:45):
I'm sure I wouldn't be spinning around, and I'd be
on the floor crying because I would have fallen hurt myself. Well, Caroline, though,
what about men who are involved in pole dancing? Because
this is not just for women, even though it is
dominated not surprisingly by women. Yeah, there's a there's a
big effort by a lot of men to break into
this sport that is seen as as female dominated. There
(15:07):
was an article in the Wall Street Journal and back
in October there were seven male performers at the World
pole Dance Finals in Budapest that year compared to thirty
nine women, and a quote from Frenchman Cheme Martinez I
think sums that. He says, people say it's hard for
women in a man's world, Well, it's hard to be
(15:29):
a man in this woman's world. And I'm not going
to roll my eyes. Well, I mean it is a
couple of them were talking about how if they're out
at a bar, say and there is a poll there, say,
and if one of their female friends who's into pole dancing,
hops up and it everyone's like yeah. But as soon
(15:50):
as a guy hops up on the pole and starts
spinning around, people are like whoa, yeah, what whoa? You
are really you're I don't. I don't know about that
and um poll. Dancing for Dudes actually saw an uptick
in popularity after Jude Law told in British tabloid that
he and Clive Owen took pole dancing fitness classes to
(16:12):
get in shape for the movie Closer. Yeah, which does
feature scenes in a strip club. Yeah, that's funny. Yeah.
Everbody's like, oh, well, I guess I don't know why
Jude Law is the impetus for all of that. Well,
because it gives some kind of validation of saying, oh, well,
you know, you can still be this masculine, handsome man
that women are sexually attracted to and get on the pole.
(16:34):
Here you go. Well, some, you know, some men who
participate in this say that women are not very welcoming.
Timber Brown, who's the son of a marine who had
gone to the police academy and quit to be a
professional dancer, said subconsciously they don't want men because it's
something that of theirs that they can hold on too,
literally literally and figuratively. Yeah. Australian Maddie Shields said it's
(16:56):
been a fight for equality and tonight we struck a blow.
You go, men, I mean that Instagram. I mean, I can,
I can understand like you can. You can play the
you know, both sides and say, well, what would we
say are e title nine? You know, shouldn't the old
men deserve to get on the pole as much as
they as women do. Although I could see how having
(17:17):
mixed competitions would be difficult to judge because of like
biological discrepancies and upper body strength between men and women,
it seems like women might be at a slight disadvantage.
But the women still beat those seven male performers at
the World Pole Dance Finals. Yeah. Well. One one dude
(17:38):
who had a similar experience to what I believe I
would have if I tried to get on the pole
was a BBC reporter, Sharag Trivetti, who tried it out
in March two thousand five, and he said that it
felt like a total role reversal of the times that
he's been to strip clubs, because he said, you know,
women are watching him do it and fail, and they're
taking pictures, and he realized just how physically demand ending
(18:00):
it is to get up on that pole and spin
around and do all these dances. And his teacher said
that it's not only a new way of exercising, but
a new way of thinking, because you really have to
train your body to do some pretty crazy things that
you don't think you'll be able to do. Yeah, I
mean the idea of getting up on the pole and
then like releasing my upper body while just my legs
(18:21):
are holding on. I I can't imagine that I'm too
too nervous to do a headstand in my yoga class.
I don't know that I could. I don't know that
I could brave the pole. Um. But speaking of braving
the poll, uh, there is the whole question of well,
is this not just some kind of you know, erotic
(18:43):
thing that we're doing that eventually just feeds back into
this whole like portification of the culturest Some might and
have said, of course, there is a feminist spin to this.
And we did find a pay paper analyzing pole dancing
as fitness and the paper was Empowerment in the Poll,
(19:06):
a Discursive Investigation of the reinvention of pole Dancing as
a Recreational activity, published in the Journal Feminism and Psychology
in two thousand nine. And what the researchers did was
talked to some pole fitness instructors, some pole fitness class
attendees who went all the time, some who just did
a drop in class, and then uh, male observers and
(19:30):
other women who hadn't taken any classes to compare how
the level of experience jived with whether they thought that
it was a good or bad thing for women, Right, Yeah,
just the whole argument of like, are you doing it
because it's part of the patriarchy and for the male gaze,
or are you doing it because it's okay in the culture.
(19:52):
Are you doing it because it's personally liberating? And they
argue that there's a certain framework that because of pornografication
there I said, it of our culture, that it's more
acceptable in this period in history to be able to
do things like that. And then you know, maybe if
this were a different time in history, all these women
(20:13):
would be called sluts. And one of the conversations that
that comes up a lot in this paper is the
idea of the quote unquote raunch culture. And you can
read more about this in Ariel Levies book Female Chauvinist
Pigs if you're curious about that um And it's this
whole idea that women must now also be considered sexy
and comfortable with an open, exhibitionist sexuality that by like
(20:38):
pretty much anything is game. You know, you wear your
crop top Playboy brand T shirt and that is your
form of sexual liberation. Or Girls Gone Wild is just
a form of sexual liberation because we can just be open.
But at the same time they would argue that that's
not empowerment, that's just portification and insolved, feeding into this
(21:01):
nasty kind of hyper sexual culture. It's not really doing
anybody any good. Yeah, And they asked all those participants, um,
you know, how how it was framed in their minds,
what they thought of it. Um. So there there are
three three areas here where it's number one, it's framed
as fun and our fitness, And in this regard it
can be empowering based on context. So as in fitness
(21:25):
it's empowering. You're doing it to get in shape, So
that's empowering, not stripping. That's not empowering to these people
who participated, same same token. If it's fun, then it
can't be degrading. I I'm choosing to do it because
it's fun and I can get in shape. Therefore I'm
not being degraded. There's also the whole issue of money exchange.
So they said that monetary exchange delineates between empowering and
(21:46):
disempowering positions, So you're in control when you're the one
paying to take the class to learn to be a
poll d answer. And there's also the issue of the
mail gaze. It depends on whether you're performing for a
partner or a stranger. And as you can expect, they
said that performing it willingly for a loving partner was
(22:08):
empowering and fun versus what they considered to be not
as empowering if you're a stripper doing it for strangers.
And I think that says so much about how we
view uh, the you could say sex to work as
a whole, but in this instance stripping and that whole
(22:28):
issue of the money exchange, because I'll tell you right now,
there are plenty of strippers who will say that the
opposite is true, that the fact that they are receiving
money for getting up on that poll and dancing for
the mail gays is a form of empowerment. That they
know exactly what they're doing, that they're making a living
off of that, and whether or not you are okay
(22:49):
with the way that they're making that money, it doesn't matter.
Um so it's uh, it's interesting that we aren't so
scared of getting up been doing the exact same moves
on the pole as long as our clothes are on,
even though with a pole fitness stancing you can't wear
many clothes at all because of fiction and right, Uh so,
(23:12):
as long as your your breasts and your vagina are
covered up and no one's throwing dollar bills in your face,
then it's empowering. So why why is that you know
a difference if it's outside of the strip cluver inside
and I I'm not arguing one way or the other.
I just think it's I think it says a lot
(23:33):
about our culture to where maybe we aren't as sexually
liberated as we would like to be, and maybe there
is a bit of a double standard there. But I
think what we can both agree on, though, Caroline, is
that well, cardio stripped strip tease, and there I've even
seen there was the newest thing which was stripping cardio
(23:54):
strip teas in high heels. I would I would kill myself,
I would trip and break my neck. I would. It's
just not good for you. Working on stilettos is not
is not very good for you. Um that I I
also raised a skeptical eyebrow at because it's like, at
that point, it's like, just you can just do yoga
or just do aerobics. But I think you and I
(24:15):
can both agree that poll dancing absolutely is an athletic endeavor. Yeah,
if you want proof, google it. Look at pictures of
those people. They have like seven teen pack ads. I
don't know where that extra one came from, but they
have a lot. Yeah, and that goes for whether or
not it's in the context of a strip club or
a fitness club. But obviously the level of respect for
(24:39):
it does shift. So I'm wondering if there are any
poll fitness instructors or pull fitness enthusiasts who are listening
to this, because I'm sure that if you and I
were to start taking pole fitness classes and you know,
we casually dropped that in conversation Shan, people would look askance.
(25:03):
I think it would also be like, especially if it
were in mixed company. I think dudes would be like hey, ladies, well,
or people would immediately question your motivation for it, saying well,
why why do you need to why do you need
to work out all sexy like that. Why don't you
just come to zoom ba with me? I'm sexy all
the time, even at yoga, in my private yoga class,
I'm like, sorry, just let me take me feel of
(25:25):
off still, let o yoga. That's the next trend that
we will start. Surprisingly doesn't help you touch you tose.
I want to start like a like bathroom bathrobe trends
like bathrobe yoga, bathrobe jogging. Let's integrate more bathroobes into
our our leisure activities. That's all I have to say. Um,
(25:47):
So we want to know from you, though it does?
Does the context matter? Is it? Is it double standard
that we can respect it outside the strip club inside
the script strip club women are just victims to everything
terrible about gendered culture. Let us know all of your
thoughts about pole dancing and and especially yeah if you
(26:09):
if you do it in any context, we want to
hear from you. Mom. Stuff at Discovery dot com is
where you can send your letters. Well, I've got a
couple of letters here in response to our episode on
p d A Public Displays of Affection, and these were
specifically from our LGBT listeners because we dedicated that episode
(26:34):
two to those fine folks, and so Gretchen Rights. I'm
twenty two in a lesbian engaged to my twenty four
year old bisexual female fight fiance. We're in law school.
I'm in Minneapolis, and she's an Indian and near Chicago
and works in the city. P d A really depends
on the situation. I'm more confident and don't even notice
(26:56):
the stairs, but she came out to be with me
in her areas more conserved except for where when we're
in Chicago for trips or her work, so it's more
difficult for her. So she goes on to talk about
how there are are differences in the kinds of PDA
that they're um okay showing depending on where they are.
For instance, she writes, when she'd seen me in Minneapolis,
(27:19):
we were freer. The best thing was going to a
cocktail party my school's l g PT organization put on.
I've also felt that fall that p d A was political,
since Minnesota had a marriage amendment on our ballot that election.
We should be able to feel comfortable in any situation,
and the amendments defeat helped that. Being in different situations
(27:39):
like this has shown me the differences and attitudes seem
mainly geographic, urban versus suburban slash rural, age based younger
people are more likely to smile than stare or comment,
and politically based liberal versus conservative. Things have really been
going our way lately with marriage, Obama statements, and other protections.
I hope they keep changing so day we don't have
(28:00):
to think about how we show affection. So thanks, Gretchen,
and I have one from Ray, She says. Firstly, I
want to thank you so much for doing an episode
with significant research data for the LGBT community. I'm a
huge fan of your podcast and of any and all
discussion about gender in the world today, but I am
frequently disappointed, as I know you are, by the lack
of research regarding queer individuals. Secondly, I just wanted to
(28:23):
respond personally to the PDA episode. I'm a lady married
to a lady, and we were married in California right
before Prop eight swooped in and ruined everybody's fun. My
wife and I made a resolution very early on in
our marriage to never hide our relationship with one another
and to treat each other the same way, regardless of location, company,
or surroundings. We had met at a conservative religious university
(28:43):
and had been forced to hide our relationship while there.
It had been terrible for us and we resolved to
never go back. That being said, while we are certainly
never sucking face or going to town in public, we
do often hold hands and will exchange a quick kiss
on occasion. We have definitely had a variety of response
and sometimes it can be very scary in certain environments.
It can be very surreal to be holding your lover's
(29:05):
hand in one hand and have your other hand on
emergency speed dial. The uproar and ugly controversy surrounding Prop
eight is at the beginning of our life together certainly
had a deep and irreversible impact on our relationship and
how we view ourselves in the world. However, has it
has been our experience that things are getting better and better,
and we know that LGBT people before us made incredible
(29:25):
sacrifices to help us get to this point, despite possible
discomfort or even danger. My wife and I hope that
we can further help society accept people like us to
the next generation doesn't have to worry about it. It
is personal and it is political. So thank you, Ray,
and thanks to everyone who has written into us mom
Stuff at Discovery dot com keep your letters coming. You
(29:45):
can also find us on Facebook and send us a
message there or leave a comment. You can also follow
us on Twitter, tweeters at Mom's Stuff podcast, and we're
on Tumblr as well. It's stuff Mom Never Told You
dot com And if you want to get smarter this week,
you should head over to our website It's how Stuff
Works dot com for more on this and thousands of
(30:10):
other topics. Is it how stuff works dot com
Stuff Mom Never Told You News
Hosts And Creators
Anney Reese
Samantha McVey
Popular Podcasts
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.