A British gym that offers pole-dancing classes for girls has provoked outrage from some of the British press for posting photos of their students to Facebook.
Blah blah, online safety and privacy concerns. The sexualization of girls in today’s world. Pole dancing is for strippers. You can imagine what they’re saying.
Here’s the rub, though. Much as I hate to side with the alarmist conservatives on this one, they kind of have a point. The pole dancing class your 9-year-old takes might feature a roomful of fully-clothed girls doing a gymnastics workout. But where are they going to have a chance to show off those moves? In a strip club.
It’s not that I think pole dancing classes are some kind of gateway drug that will lead your little darling to skip lunch and start offering lapdances to her classmates behind the gym. But seriously, the only place I have ever seen a pole for dancing on was in a strip club. What is the purpose in teaching kids that skill? So they’ll be prepared when they have to put themselves through college working an exotic floor show?
I don’t know that I’d say they should never be used in dance routines, but really do wonder what is the point of offering pole dancing classes to young kids. Adult friends of mine who’ve taken these classes have done it *because* they wanted to learn tantalizing stripper moves to impress their boyfriends with. What’s the motivation for a parent signing her 7-year-old daughter up?
Personally, I think we’d give this one a pass. I’m not totally feeling the moral outrage of the press on this one. If you want your daughter to take pole dancing classes, you know, that’s your problem. But for myself, I think we’ll stick with gymnastics and swimming lessons.