So it has come to this.

[substitute]

A cultural trend in my country follows a particular course, with few variations. A marginalized minority or subculture produces it. It propagates via pop culture, especially music and film. Teenagers adopt and adapt it. A major motion picture blesses the trend. Older people who idolize teenagers take it up. The rougher edges of the trend have been removed at this point and it is a marketable commodity. It is now an ordinary and acceptable part of daily social life.

At this point, if the activity has any physical expression at all, it finally and permanently becomes a method of exercise.

The New Porn Culture of suburban middle-class America is no exception.

Comments

[cataptromancer.livejournal.com]

I'm glad that they're careful to replicate the "safe, nurturing environment" of professional pole-dancing.

STRIP

[torgo-x.livejournal.com]

And no potential for body-image problems at all!

[flipzagging.livejournal.com]

I once overheard a conversation on a bus between a stripper and a rather plain suburban mom, both raving about their pole dancing class.

[mcpino.livejournal.com]

...and so, how long before my sister can buy a "pole-dancing" outfit at Wal-Mart?

[frobisher.livejournal.com]

Unsurprisingly, this was a plot element in the season premiere of CSI

[sixteen-shells.livejournal.com]

Does the sign above the window say "empower?"

[substitute.livejournal.com]

Why yes, it does. And they must be right!

[besskeloid.livejournal.com]

Ow, my face.

[porcinea.livejournal.com]

<headdesk>

[superlaundrette.livejournal.com]

though it is nice to see that stripping has become so mainstreamed that these classes can be found in every suburban gym in america (or CA at least...what do i know), it does mean that since the industry is less taboo -- there's more competition for us girls and less $$.
what actually offends me most about this sort of "strip at home" gimmicks are that they pitch it as a "please your man" thing. ick.

i am actually thinking of signing up for one of these classes around here if they do actually teach advanced pole work...heh...i need some new bruises.

[flipzagging.livejournal.com]

I'm confused. Stripping professionally = good, stripping for a partner = ick?

(Stripping doesn't interest me much either way, though.)

[superlaundrette.livejournal.com]

stripping professionally=good because it puts food in my mouth, a roof over my head, and occasionally, some triple-discounted Marc Jacobs on my feet (hah).

the "strip for your man" thing bothers me, not in practice (obviously not my business), but in the way the idea is "sold": its okay to use your body in a normally societally taboo, sexual, provacative way, but not for yourself or anyone else, for "your man." i don't support the regulation of one's sexuality in this way and the implication that it belongs to somebody else. kind of ironic...but my feminist sensibilities and my job sometimes get in the way of each other...

[substitute.livejournal.com]

That's a perspective I hadn't thought of; thank you for that.

[vegemitelover.livejournal.com]

I have always thought it would make a good R.O.P. course.

[aml.livejournal.com]

look at that beautiful typography

[substitute.livejournal.com]

It empowers me.