Pole is Powerful and was built by sex workers, POC and trans women

Indigo, Inclusivity Officer of Falmouth Pole Society

Read about the history and people who have made modern pole dancing what it is today. Huge thanks to our Pole Society for the contribution to SHAG week and this blog.

SHAGwellbeing

A blonde woman dressed in red lingerie and high heels kneels on the floor with her back to the camer

What do you think of when someone tells you they do pole dance? Maybe you’d feel a bit shocked and uncomfortable. Maybe you’d be intrigued or impressed. Maybe you would even feel some judgment bubbling up. All these responses are ones I’ve had when sharing I do pole dance. They are all valid and understandable but some of them are rooted in misunderstanding and whoreaphobia rather than truth – experiences far too often felt by pole dancers and sex workers.

So, I’m here to give you a quick little history lesson and hopefully open your mind a little to the wonderfulness of Pole Dance and its deep historic link with sex workers, POC and trans women. Pole has a long and silenced history. I won’t be able to cover all of it in this short article but here is some of the information you might not have known and that within our current political climate I think is relevant and important to highlight.

Modern pole dance

Modern pole was created by strippers and sex workers in strip clubs, despite their contributions being erased by suggestions of its origins being sports like Mallakhamb and Chinese pole acrobatics, which were done mostly by men as a feat of strength and definitely not done in glittery heels and pasties! It is thought to actually be descended from Middle-Eastern circus performers and showgirls, where the metal pole was more of a safety measure for balancing on small stages before becoming a core instrument in the performances.

It is also sometimes lumped together with terms like ‘hoochi coochi’ dance or ‘exotic dance’ within history and popular culture. But these terms have icky racist histories as they were popularised by Europeans when they brought the more provocative and sexy dance styles such as bellydancing over from Middle-eastern, Romani and Black communities. Thes names were likely a way to distance the POC from their white, modest and therefore deemed more respectable counterparts. This separation is still seen today where thin white dancers are favoured over black/indigenous/east and south asian, queer or fat performers.

These fetishising and dehumanising views on pole pushed by the western world are still pervasive, despite it being an incredible feat of skill, strength, training and artistic ability – trust me I have the bruises to prove it. As well as offering a space to safely explore your sexuality through the sensual movements. But it is more often in popular culture reduced to a ‘trashy performance of explicit sexuality purely for the male gaze’. This isn’t completely wrong and is sometimes a part of modern pole dance but how we speak about it is crucial to keeping the people that have dedicated their lives to the skilled artform safe and free to express themselves through their work.

Despite the popular image of a modern pole dancer being a thin white cis woman pole was pioneered by sex workers, POC and trans women, especially from low-income communities. Black trans activists and sex workers like Marsha P. Johnson, Aileem Hernandez and Alberta Jones shaped the view of sex work as legitimate labour as well as the need for care of black, trans sex workers through fighting for social and institutional change. These women’s efforts enable our access to fun pole classes and performances because without their care for the sex workers and strippers that helped form the artform it would not exist for us to enjoy. Our celebration of their impact is powerful and important, especially when it is so often erased.

We all have unconscious stereotypes around bodies and sex work; I had many before learning about the rich history of pole. But they become harmful when we don’t question them. Even within the pole industry, it happens far too often that studios hire strippers as guest instructors but do not uphold the supportive beliefs behind closed doors and treat these workers poorly. This performative allyship can be just as harmful as no allyship because they create unsafe working environments yet reap the financial and social benefits of publicising their support.

Dictionary lessons in sex work and whorephobia

Now, I’ve mentioned whorephobia in relation to strippers and sex workers but unless you’re part of the sex worker or pole world you might have no clue what it means. What is whorephobia and sex work? Whorephobia is defined as the hatred or stigmatisation of sex workers. It’s basically really extreme slut-shaming. And sex work encompasses more than we think. If you listen to audio erotica, read spicy romance books, watch porn or erotic art, have attended a burlesque or strip show then you are consuming sexual work designed to excite you. It might not be the stereotypical ‘Pretty Woman young lady on a street corner’ but it is legitimate work that happens to centre around sexual content and there is nothing inherently wrong with that, as long as it is consensual and done safely for everyone involved. Sexuality is part of the human experience and in the same way you would pay someone for their skills in making you a table, you might pay someone for their skills in making you cum. This is especially crucial when it comes to access to safe pleasurable sexual experiences for disabled people. It ensures a safe and consensual space that might be hard to find through regular dating.

Now, I know that was a lot of information so well done for getting to the end with me! I hope you feel a little bit more educated on pole’s intersectional history. Maybe your views have changed or maybe they haven’t but either way I’m grateful that you listened because access to education enables freedom and joy! So please explore all the resources I used to inform this article if you want to learn even more (from sex workers, strippers and pole performers) and some other info I couldn’t fit into the word count. We protect people by trying to understand them and spreading their voices when they can’t do that themselves!

All my love,

Indigo (Inclusivity Officer, Falmouth Pole Society)

Blogger on Pole, A History of Modern Pole:

https://bloggeronpole.com/2021/07/a-history-of-modern-pole-dance/

Highlighting (a small collection of) Black and Trans Sex workers Impact:

https://www.instagram.com/p/DFu_9-qsqgX/?igsh=dngwcjk0azk1ejNr&img_index=1

Kitty Velour, The History of the word ‘Exotic’ in relation to Pole:

https://www.instagram.com/p/CLmHEf6AzQc/?igsh=MWw1N3Rqcm9hazQ1Yg%3D%3D&img_index=1

Yes, a Stripper podcast episode on the history of pole:

https://open.spotify.com/episode/630uEs7Pi4VYcwaBVo9NYc?si=a0451cb81b964817

Kitty Velour, The Pussy Parlour Podcast:

https://open.spotify.com/episode/6nVhOFxgulbcvMj4n1EoNw?si=2368f7a6681e43fb