Why Pole Dancers Don’t Wear Many Clothes
What's the main reason pole dancers don't wear a lot of clothes?
It's because of pole dancing's stripping origins! Mostly naked dancers created the stuff we do on the pole, that's why we mostly don't wear clothes performing these tricks that require grip.
There has been this reel trend going round where civilian polers cite the reason for lack of clothing being due to grip, and it is highly problematic. You can watch an example at the end of this blog. This is because it once again leaves the stigmatised workers who gifted civilians this art/sport out of the conversation. It continues to erase us and therefore reinforces the stigma around pole's inherent connection to sex work.
It may not come from a whorephobic place. However, in continuously contributing to stripper erasure, it continues to increase the separation between the pole community and the stripper community. The divide becomes greater, as does the hostility. False narratives around modern pole dancing coming from Chinese pole or Mallakamb are still a part of the battle. Meanwhile strippers are pushed out of the community they created and aren’t welcome. Meanwhile, we are highly stigmatised and marginalised in society. Meanwhile, many of us are struggling with the precarious nature of our jobs despite the illusion of glamour.
If you are a sex worker ally, listen to us and act. If you're a pole dancer, you should automatically be supporting strippers and you need to speak out about that. It is an utter privilege to get to dance around a pole half naked when those doing it for a living are at risk.
P.s. other than grip, pole dancers dance half naked around the pole BECAUSE IT'S FUN. DRESSING SKIMPY IS FUN. SOME OF US LIKE TO FEEL SEXY WHEN WE POLE! There are so many ways to dance with pole that doesn’t require grip or grip in tricks. All the more reason I feel the narrative of this trend is coming from a 'pole is sport' standpoint. It reads 'we don't wear many clothes because we can't do this sport without skin, not because we are sluts'!