The Pole Stigma: How Does It Affect You?

“There are two kinds of women, we are taught: women who are pure and good, wives and mothers on the pedestal of femininity; and there are the other women, the whores, the sluts, the strippers. You are either one or the other, we are taught, and we, women, grow up believing it: setting ourselves up against other women in a desperate effort to delineate between us and them…”
– Olivia Cole in Joy, Fear, and Twerking: The Glory of Amber Rose

I was at a wedding a few months ago, and someone I was meeting for the first time asked that ubiquitous NYC first question, “What do you do?”

“I design websites and teach pole dancing.”

A very simple sentence — but a loaded one, I know, and one that I love dropping on people. I find the different reactions people have to pole dancing as an art form fascinating. However they respond, it always turns into an educational opportunity for me to talk about what it means to me. I love the discussion, these days. This stranger leaned in and asked a very astute question: “Really? How does the stigma around that affect you?”

It was the first time someone had asked me that, and it really made me pause. My gut reaction is that it doesn’t affect me much. But that has not always been the case. I’ve become so much more comfortable in my own skin since I’ve been a part of this community, and really come to believe that the right to be a sexy and sensual woman is an essential one.

When I started pole 4 years ago, I felt very differently. I didn’t even want to try pole dancing because of the stigma around it. I was not ‘that kind of person.’ I took flexibility classes and aerial fabric classes and handstand classes. I wanted to be a circus artist. Pole was different; pole was dirty and not something I wanted associated with my professional person. That was the real issue: I was worried that it would somehow ‘tarnish’ me and hurt my ability to build a career.

Finally, as a sucker for fitness Groupon deals, I decided to try pole classes. Many people try pole looking to enjoy the sexy side of it — I was not that person. I tried it because I figured it would be good cross training for aerial silks. And lo and behold, pole gave me real results. I was finally building upper body muscles for the first time EVER! And very quickly, thanks to the crazy results I saw, I became obsessed with pole and started ditching the other classes I had been taking.

But I was very adamant that I was NOT a ‘sexy’ pole dancer. I did NOT wear heels. This was pole fitness — vertical gymnastics. And so I talked about it and described it to my friends. I wouldn’t tell my family and I wouldn’t tell my co-workers. I was totally in the closet and very much afraid of the slut-shaming stigma that would come if people ‘knew’.

Fast forward a few years. What was it about pole that changed me, to make me the completely different person I am now, who loves dancing in 10″ heels and challenging people to discuss social norms?

1. Powerful role models
Training at Body & Pole starting in 2011 meant I was taking classes from some of the most amazing people in the pole universe. Kyra Johannesen, Lian Tal, Marlo Fisken, Michelle Stanek, Steven Retchless, and Rebecca Starr were unlike anybody I had ever known before. They were gods and goddesses — strong, gorgeous, sexy off the charts, as well as intelligent, eloquent, and confident. Being around people like this showed me a new possibility — a way of living that was entrepreneurial, physical, fun, and self-expressive. I was coming off of a failed business and had just returned to office life for the first time in 4 years. I felt that I needed to button up and be very official, get my life together, be a ‘real adult,’ whatever that terrible phrase means. Thank god I started taking pole classes, otherwise I probably would have become quite a bore 🙂

2. Finding community
In addition to amazing teachers, I found an amazing community in the pole dancing world. A group of incredibly strong, supportive, encouraging, funny, friendly, and often entrepreneurial women. Again, I felt opened up to a new world — the possibility of being an adult without the restrictions of the script I thought I was supposed to live by.

3. Learning to love my body
I was a serious rhythmic gymnast in my younger years, and not someone who easily conformed to the stick-thin ideal body type. So I grew up constantly frustrated with my body. Going to college and no longer training in the gym 20-30 hours a week didn’t help, and neither did the transition to office life, with its dependency on caffeine, sugar, and sitting for endless hours. When I started pole, I wanted to ‘get in shape.’ As I got deeper into the pole world, I realized that ‘in shape’ was equal parts mental and physical. Enjoying your body is a feeling that has nothing to do with how it looks. It is so, so powerful to learn to celebrate your body for what it can do, rather than criticizing yourself for not looking like someone else.

4. Discovering that I have the freedom to do whatever I want with my body
This last one, I’ve really only come in to in the last year — and has only been made possible by all the rest above. I never danced in heels until less than a year ago. But one day, seeing all my friends come out of a sexy heels class with huge smiles on their faces, looking like they’d had so much fun, I decided I had to try it. I absolutely loved it, and started thinking about why on earth it had taken me so long to do this. I realized that I had serious mental restrictions about what I felt able to do, as a woman who is professionally ambitious. Realizing this made me very angry and very interested in how I can help change this for women.

I don’t want to live in a world where I don’t feel free to dress however I want to dress or dance however I want to dance. I don’t want to worry about if my self expression will affect my career, or even my physical safety. I don’t want to have to worry about rape. And so I’ve changed from a woman who wanted nothing to do with the sexy side of femininity to one who is more and more obsessed with it. If for no other reason than, I should be able to do this. I should be able to have the same rights as men, to not feel unsafe and afraid of being a sexual human.

With every woman who finds joy and freedom in her body, we get a little bit closer to an equal society. And only by making this an open discussion will things actually change. And so I will continue to dance, sometimes in crazy tall “stripper” heels. And I will continue to teach, in the hopes that I can inspire others like I’ve been inspired.

How has the stigma of pole dancing affected you?

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Liz Kinnmark

Liz Kinnmark is a pole dancer, aerialist, and yogi who loves teaching movement and transforming lives. At a surface level, she teaches stretching and flexibility, but as any of her students who practice regularly can tell you, the ripple effects of these classes across your entire life will be enormous. Learn more at http://bendybeast.com.

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