I can only second the points made by both Carter Ann and Anita Roddick. Pimp chic is a dangerous and distressing phenomenon. I recently watched a documentary (on VH1 of all places) called “Hip-Hop Videos: Sexploitation on the Set” that touched on the exploitation of video vixens (the scantily clad, often Hispanic or African-American women who dance in hip-hop videos) as well as the significant contribution these images make to the further degradation of black women and other potentially related issues such as domestic violence. I cannot comment on this issue more eloquently than Carter-Ann already has, but only wish to offer a brief rebuttal on the addition of “pole-dancing” classes to the rhetoric of pimp-chic. As a weekly frequenter of Crunch’s “Cardio Striptease” class, I beg to differ.
I have many issues with stripping as a profession and strip clubs as sexual spaces. To be frank, they disgust me (note, not strippers themselves, but strip clubs and the institutional inequalities that allow stripping to exist as a profitable career). I don’t frequent them. I request that Carlos does not (and he complies). Nothing about being a stripper is empowering, and arguments of that nature are shallow, misplaced and poorly thought out. In my experience however, cardio striptease is exactly the opposite. Thus far I’ve found it, empowering, and an interesting way to explore one’s sexuality through dance and movement in a safe space.
The most important thing about my cardio striptease class is that it is populated by all women. When the occasional male deigns to show up, he is the exception – generally those brave souls are trying so hard to keep up with the routines they hardly have time to ogle. In an all female safe-space, I generally feel like women lose their inhibitions. You see more voluptuous or older women, normally covered up at the gym under bulky sweatpants and sweaters, showing skin and loving it. Whether one can dance or has rhythm is not important. “See how sexy you look,” our teacher, Christie, instructs. It is not about how others see you, but how you see yourself. In a world where women are bombarded by unattainable images of what it means to be sexy, the class offers, for an hour a week, the ability to ignore those and find something sexually enticing in yourself, for your own pleasure.
My cardio striptease class is about feeling sexy or sexual outside the constraints of the male gaze. Clearly there are socioeconomic issues involved– a bunch of wealthy young professionals or middle aged women dancing like strippers is a lot different from young women of lower-socioeconomic status who have little choice but to strip for men as a source of income. But these aside, I find the class a glorious release from my daily grind. Perhaps Dame Roddick might like to join me sometime.
