Why is pole "dancing" a strip thing?

General Questions
#1

Yes, I put dancing in scare quotes, because it doesn’t seem anymore like dancing than, say, working on the balance beam seems like dancing. There are a couple of things in common, like extension, balance, and athleticism, and a couple of things not much in common, like going with the music.

Also, why just women? (I mean as pole artists, not as strippers.) These guys seem quite masculine, and to them it’s apparently just another gymnastics thing. Also they’re really good.

I can see why pole dancers=strippers if they take their clothes off. But the guys in the aforementioned video aren’t wearing much either, and nobody calls them strippers.

#2

Who would want to watch it unless someone is getting naked? Like you said it barely counts as “dancing” so not like there is a lot of artistic merit to enjoy. The enjoyment is seeing someone get naked.

Notice in the cite you linked the guy is nearly naked but at least in his case there is some athleticism/gymnastics/acrobatics which can be appreciated for its own sake.

#3
#4

Dancing is about evoking a theme, emotion, story, or feeling. Gymnastics is about impressing the audience with your skill and daring.

Stripping is a form of dancing, pole or not. Pole gymnastics are pole gymnastics.

#5

In many jurisdictions, nude exhibitionism is protected if it is artistic expression. Dancing is art, therefore anything called dancing is protected. The law does not define dancing, and the law doesn’t really care about differing opinions. Yes, the law is an ass.

#6

The question, surely, is why is stripping particularly associated with pole dancing? That is, why do strippers (but few other dancers or gymnasts) feel the need to use a pole?

I do not know. It sort of makes sense to me that stripping is done to music, and that it is done more or less rhythmically, in time to the music (watching women simply take their clothes off, in silence, as if getting ready for a bath, would soon become more boring than erotic), but why have a pole?

Actually, it occurs to me that I have never actually seen a real live striptease act that did use a pole. However, that may be because I have not seen striptease all that many times in my life (maybe about 10), and all those times were quite long ago. Still, it makes me wonder if perhaps poles are a relatively recent innovation, or perhaps the use of them is not really so widespread as the popular mythology would have us believe.

#7

Because the dancer can spread her legs wide apart without lying on the floor, resulting in much easier viewing of the naughty bits by the audience.

#8

And I hear the law is a ass, also. :wink:

#9

Not that I have an extensive experience with strip clubs or pole dancing, but I figure the pole is just up there to be a prop, depending on the girl. She can climb on it, spin around on it, lean up against it, use it as a suggestive phallic symbol, whatever. Why every strip club has it? Thanks for asking that question, it’s gonna bug me all week.

That said, I would say that pole dancing doesn’t necessarily REQUIRE the woman get naked. It’s just kind of expected to be part of the package since you mostly only see it in strip clubs (again: Why?!)

And now that I’ve said that, I will say that most girls I’ve seen in those clubs were not very good at pole dancing. At best, some of them could do the trick where they wrap their legs around it and slide down like a very under-dressed firefighter.

And I have seen a few good dances. The best pole dance I’ve ever seen was in a club in Arizona, and I honest to goodness can’t remember if the girl ever got naked. It was just an amazing, sexy dance.

#10

Because it gives them something to do instead of just standing there naked flailing their junk around in time to the music. Apparently that time-honored routine was not enough for the male audience any more and the ante had to be upped, just as in any other kind of porn, to hold their interest.

#11

Why? My guess would be an evolutionary process. Some strip joint somewhere in the world had a pole sticking out of the stage for some reason. One of the girls started to use it in her act and found that the customers liked it. Once the owner realized that he was making more money with her than with other girls, he asked them to start doing it as well. Once they were all making more money as well, and the owner started to get rich, all of the other owners noticed and copied it.

Why does it “work”? Who knows. As a prop, it doesn’t block much view (unlike a chair), it’s a good phallic standin, and it’s stable enough to be used for gravity-defying, contortionist movements, as example possibilities. But perhaps there’s something better that just hasn’t been found yet.

#12

Apparently, there remains a nontrivial number of strip joints that still either do not use the pole, or at least do not have it “front and center” as it were. But as Sage Rat mentions, once one joint has one, others follow suit if it looks like it helps make money (and probably more of the dancers are by now accustomed to using it than not).

But yes, I guess, as actual strip-tease itself became a smaller and smaller part of the show over time, and more of it now was “just standing there naked flailing their junk around in time to the music”, the pole allows for bringing in more acrobatic/gymnastic/contortionist types of routines.

#13

Maybe this is for another thread, but what is the point of strip clubs? I don’t understand why they’re so popular. I’ve never been to one in my life and would never voluntarily go to one. Here’s what I don’t get: viewing naked women doing erotic things seems to me like it should directly accompany orgasm. Whether it’s with a real life partner or just with porn. What the hell is the point of watching a sexually inticing display without being able to get off? It’s not like the guys at strip clubs are all beating off while watching the performance. They can’t even do it during lap dances. What in the bloody hell is the point?

#14

If you haven’t been to one, maybe you should, just to check it out. But it makes sense to me. I don’t see why guys (and girls) wouldn’t want to go look at pretty/sexy things, just for the hell of it.

#15

mmmmm pole dancer …

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbB2hiqn3sA&feature=player_embedded

#16

Pretty things, yes. Things that are designed to give you a penile erection (which, by nature’s design, is supposed to be stimulated until semen comes out of it)? No. Not “just for the hell of it.”

#17

As I mentioned earlier, I have seen a few stripteases in my time, and actually I agree with Argent. They are not nearly as much fun as they are made out to be (and actually, I am not sure that ever got much of an erection from watching one, even though I was a young, horny guy at the time. I have never experienced a lap-dance, but, although it probably would give me an erection, I think I would almost certainly hate the experience.

Some of the times I saw strippers whilst drinking with a group of male friends were quite good fun, but not so much for the eroticism of the performance, but because it helped to provide a focus for the male bonding that was going on. The few times (I think only about 3) that I saw a stripper when by myself, the experience was more mildly depressing than fun.

#18

Ever made out with a girl intensely for 10 minutes, thinking that it was going to progress into sex, then have her stop abruptly, walk away and leave you with blue balls? That’s what a lap dance is, and you’re paying for it. Who on God’s earth would want to pay for such a thing?

#19

Delayed gratification, d00d, delayed gratification. Get yourself good and worked up so that when you do make it home you can have a good roarin’ go at it, by yourself or in company. Have a fine very scantily clad lass half your age sit on your lap and bracket your face with her, eh, talents, over drinks without actual transfer of dangerous pathogens. And last I checked nature’s design doesn’t seem to compel that every instance of wood must lead to felicitous conclusion, else we’d have a much higher rate of spontaneous combustion (or at the least, skyrocketing dry-cleaning bills) among young males.

Spending $500 in the Champagne Room just to get that same unrequited arousal, now THAT is a bit harder (sorry) to justify. Yet they stay in business so what do I know…

#20

Faugh! For jacking off, porn, that you can actually see while you are doing it, is 1,000 times better than a strip show seen half an hour ago. Heck, even plain old imagination is better. As for “company”, by which I take it you mean an actual woman actually willing to do it with you, then what can the stripper show you that your actual woman can not only let you see, but let you feel too?