by Amara Otero Salgado
Illustrated by Charlie To
The idea of pole fitness has caused a significant amount of controversy over the past couple of decades. One example, which some may recall, is the debate sparked on ‘This Morning’ over whether or not children should be allowed to partake in the sport. From this, we enter into a spider web of gender politics, body-image, sexualisation of women and repression of them and their bodies. LSE’s pole fitness instructor, Alexandra Grimshaw, maintains that pole fitness is so much more than what people assume.
When Alex first started pole dancing, “it was very different to how it is now”, she says. As she describes her experience with her first class, it’s clear that the stigma surrounding the sport was much worse: “I did the trial class because I was like, ‘Oh, it’s related to dance! It’ll be a really nice, you know, just a different way of moving’ … I remember I went home and I talked to my partner at the time and he was like, ‘Never do that again or I’m going to dump you; it’s slutty, it’s vile – never do it’.”
While the associations of pole dancing with strippers and erotic dance have vastly diminished, this attitude is still held by some. Stigmas attached to female-dominated activities feed into the socialisation of women to feel ashamed of their bodies. In an article entitled ‘ Joy, Fear, and Twerking: The Glory of Amber Rose’, Olivia Cole describes this effect: “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…”
If you find yourself unconvinced of this systemic repression of women, you need only search ‘pole fitness’ in the Bing search engine to clear any doubts. Anyone with SafeSearch enabled will be presented with the following statement: “Your current Bing SafeSearch setting filters out results that might return adult content.” Now try searching ‘men’s swimming’; you will find yourself confronted with numerous images of men wearing far fewer clothes than women usually do when attending a pole fitness class, yet this is not restricted nor deemed as ‘adult content’. As Alex points out, “Yes there’s the sexy stuff, yes there’s the lingerie,” but there’s actually so much more to pole.
There have been many studies analysing the empowering effect of pole fitness on women. For example, ‘Pole Dancing, Empowerment and Embodiment’ by Smantha Holland found that “women initiate agency and espouse liberation and empowerment through something as seemingly problematic as pole classes.” It can be seen as a way of reclaiming the negative stigma attached to pole dancing and femininity, as well as an avenue for women to connect more closely with their own bodies and sexuality – something which is vastly and systemically discouraged in society.
Having danced from a young age, Alex experienced coming to terms with her body relatively early in life: “I guess I went through that transformation when I was dancing more than pole dancing … I’d get a lot of, ‘you’re not quite small enough to be in this, not quite thin enough maybe, tall enough? Not quite’, but that’s because that’s what that industry is like.” She explains that, as a result, her experience with starting pole was likely very different to most, as she started already in a place of acceptance of her body: “I noticed that I only cared about what I could do, not what I looked like… If I can do this thing I’ve been working on, then that’s, for me, at this point, all I care about.”
Alex talks about accepting and embracing the unique capabilities of your own body, rather than wishing for it to be different: “By having bigger shoulders and smaller hips it means that I can get my body upside down much easier. The other way around is much harder!”
With 61% of adults in the UK feeling negative or very negative about their bodies “most of the time,” according to the UK Parliament Body Image Survey, learning to embrace our bodies is perhaps something that we, as a society, should be working on. While many studies show that negative body image affects women more than men, it still applies to all genders, and pole fitness could be a way to help everyone feel better about their bodies. While talking about the biggest benefits of pole fitness, Alex believes that “the ability to look past what you look like would be the biggest thing.”
Generally, Alex has noticed a difference between how men and women initially approach the pole. She explains how women are far more hesitant, saying things like: “Oh, maybe I don’t have the upper body strength for this.” She notes that, “Especially the very first time, you see people, you know, biting their nails and they’re trying to make themselves as small as possible like, ‘don’t look at me, don’t look at me’.” For men, on the other hand, she says that this kind of self-doubt just “doesn’t exist in their brain.” Typically, men are more likely to just jump straight on the pole, without any consideration that they may not be able to perform the move.
This thought pattern is not just unique to pole fitness. Journalist Katty Kay calls this phenomenon, ‘The Confidence Gap’. This is where, more often than not, women strive to achieve perfection whereas men are more likely to be happy with ‘good enough’. This affects women in many aspects of life, not just in sports. Women feel they must be 100% sure they can do a job before applying to it, whereas men settle for only 60% certainty.
This is one reason why pole fitness is seen as particularly beneficial for women: this aspect of pole fitness, combined with the reclaiming of their own femininity, could aid women in the advancement of their careers, as well as boost their confidence in everyday life. In addition, Alex emphasises that pole fitness provides “a community of women supporting each other… women who have the same body type, same sexuality, or completely opposite body type to you, completely opposite gender,” creating an environment in which women can flourish.
Alex has also noticed a difference when teaching university students, as opposed to those in a later phase of life: “You don’t know yourself yet. If you’re in university, yeah, okay, you might know you’re definitely female; you might know that you’re a lesbian, or whatever. But actually the reality is your body changes and you as a human being changes so much, and you have the most amount of change to go when you’re in your early twenties – I’m in my thirties and I still have change to go [through].”
In this regard, pole fitness can be about embracing your body in its current state, and how it meets your needs now, bearing in mind that it will change as you do. For university students like those attending the LSE pole fitness classes, this could be a very healthy habit to get into.
