Pole Dancing, Empowerment and Embodiment

This book, the first of its kind, examines pole dancing classes which are held in more than 50 countries worldwide. This study draws on original qualitative data collected in the UK, Australia and the US and participants who attended pole dancing classes and their instructors. Using pole dancing classes as a starting point for a wider discussion about gendered physicality, body image and embodiment, leisure, empowerment and pleasure, the voices of the participants are placed alongside current discourses, drawing on leisure, gender studies, cultural studies and sociology to reveal a phenomenon with many contradictions; for example, the recurring theme of participants disliking physical exercise, but of feeling liberated, and even empowered, by pole classes. Such findings challenge the image of pole classes as sexualized and objectifying. The book also examines such topics as men and pole, and the worldwide pole community.