Being Sexy AND an Athlete – Is That A Bad Thing?
Sexuality
There is something interesting about American culture (I can’t really speak for other cultures, maybe it’s in other places too). Women have such a strong pressure in society to be a woman, to be appealing to men, but not tooooo much! To be sexy, but not toooo sexy. Slightly neurotic – yes?
The pole fitness community is a great example of this. The women wear 6 inch stiletto heels. Wear almost no clothes while performing (because to do so makes tricks on the pole much easier/ less slippery and it’s a lot of work – so you get kind of hot), hair done, makeup full out. Eyelashes often stripper length and style. Posing quite suggestively in print, in e-zines and in Facebook photos. And yet, a good number of people in this community complain that people think they are sexy. That pole dancing isn’t sexual, it’s sensual.
I was looking at an pole fitness industry e-zine yesterday. The opening editorial complained about how people thought that pole fitness was sexy. How they weren’t sexy, they were athletes. And then these same people, who were complaining about being thought of as sexy, were suggestively posing in tiny little outfits, bought at the same shop strippers go to, wearing 6 inch stilettos and nothing else on the following pages!
This is seriously neurotic.
I will admit – I use to be one of the people who use to say, “No. When I’m on the pole its sensual, not sexual.” But I was kidding myself. It’s a pole. The uniform is sexy. The movements are sexy. It’s a sexy sport. And it’s an empowering sport for women, in part BECAUSE it lets us reach inside ourselves and find that inner sexy diva we’ve been hiding all these years.
Just because Pole Fitness can be sexy shouldn’t mean that it’s taken less seriously. Sexy shouldn’t mean it’s not valid. Or that pole dancing is “wrong.” Women ARE sexy. Women ARE sexual. There is power in owning that reality. And as long as we keep denying it among ourselves, it will only get worse not better. Because as long as we – as a community, as athletes, as supporters of this sport, as women on this planet, buy into the belief that to acknowledge something as sexy discounts it’s value, no one outside the sport will think differently.
So STOP – it’s OK. WE AS WOMEN ARE SEXY. That’s OK … That’s a good thing. … Go with it. And see how much better your performances are. See how much better sex can become. See how much easier life can be when one stops stamping out the sexy, and instead embraces all aspects of being a woman.
Life is so much more free and fun when we stop allowing other people to make us “wrong” and learn to just go with what is naturally inside us.
So ladies, please – stop complaining that men look at the pole and think “sexy.” You are a woman, you are sexy! Get over it. Get empowered by it. And have fun.
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