Experiencing an Awakening: Exploring Intersectionality through a New Orleans Pole Studio

• In Event: 40820 - Section on Sociology of Sex and Gender Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 15: Sex and Sex Work

Abstract

Pole work, aka pole dancing, has a longer history than most realize and changed through history and colonization. With its origins in Indian culture, known as Mallahkamp over 800 years ago – as a sport using a rope or an oiled wooden pole (Gulia and Rajesh, 2019). It is important to note that the original sport was not tied to the male gaze but a competitive sport that continues through today. However, when thinking of present-day exercise and westernized pole work, no matter what women or women presenting people do, their bodies seem to never escape the complexities of the male gaze. For example, sometimes just existing in public, wearing clothes or being at a gym is enough. However, none of this is new or shocking to the reader so why start here.
In this paper, I will unpack the colonized version of this practice, along with the intersections of body work, health and exercise, sexuality and gender, age, and community through an autoethnographic lens. Often the outside perspective of pole work is one that is sexualized by the male gaze. Namely, the space of the studios are inherently women-centered, however, it doesn’t mean that it’s exclusive to women or one singularly body shape. Additionally, the act of someone who has an advanced degree engaging in pole work is also engaging in various forms of deviance. The male gaze is then adopted by other women through a patriarchal lens. The performer is not engaging in the gaze but learning how their body moves and the studio explores how to best move individual bodies. Using the pole studio as a base for body expression, issues such as work, expression, bodies, and health will be explored through this medium.

Author

• Stephanie Baran, Xavier University of Louisiana