Now the pole — think ballet barre turned vertical — is the new star at racier versions of Tupperware parties in well-heeled (if high-heeled) areas like this one in the northwest hills of Morris County, about 33 miles from Manhattan. Billed as “femme empowerment,” such at-home pole dancing lessons are taking place in the realm of book clubs, with mothers — and grandmothers — learning slinky moves for girls’ nights in, bachelorette send-offs, even the occasional 60th birthday celebration.
“I want the women to feel strong within themselves,” explained Ms. Cottam, 29, who teaches pole dancing at a local gym as well as at home parties. Noting that some middle-aged suburban women lose themselves and their sense of sexuality as they are consumed by the responsibilities of motherhood, she added: “When you come to my class you are beautiful, you are. I want to show them that strength inside, and unleash that sexual kitten.”
How pathetic is that? It's just so comical -- unleashing the sexual kitten inside flabby, overpermed suburban matrons -- that you (well, I) can barely work up the outrage. Then again, if Viagra can turn Homer Simpson into Fabio, at least in his own mind, this is to be expected? You can apparently convince women to accept anything as long as you shellack it with a feminist gloss and call it empowering. Why are people so eager to cast off their personal dignity? This has mystified me for a few years, as readers of my 2002 "Rampant Rabbit, Licking Lizard" piece in NRO will remember (the piece was about the phenomenon of suburban and small-town sex toy and lubrication parties). I'm not particularly interested in whether or not lovers slather their stiffened giblets with fragrant unguents, poke each other with blenders, or gad about their bedchambers like pole dancers. Fine, knock yourself out, just don't frighten the horses.
What does interest me is the willingness to take what was more or less outlaw behavior and domesticate it. When middle class women are willing to ape strippers in their living rooms, and pass around dildos and lubricant as they once did Tupperware, something very strange is up. Tom Wolfe wrote about this kind of thing a generation ago, so it's really not new. Still, morality aside, I find the whole business exceptionally trashy, and wish these people would rediscover their inhibitions, because they're embarrassing themselves. Weyrich and Lind caught a lot of guff for briefly valorizing the 1950s in their AmCon essay, but one thing that we could stand to recover about the Fifties -- aside from the great jazz -- was the expectation that grown-ups would act like grown-ups.
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Interesting Rod, perhaps a regional linguistic difference. Growing up in the 70's and 80's in the NYC metro region it seems "trashy behavior" was something that only women engaged in. "White trash" were people, but only women were "trashy", I think. "Louts" or "Losers" or "Creeps" were present. There were men who were "piggish". But still, doesn't seem linguistically that there are universal male-directed equivalents to "trashy" or "slutty". "Sleazy" maybe? But it still seems like "trashy" is something a woman can be without realizing it, whereas "sleazy" is something much more conscious. Bless, Doug
Opera and ballet, now considered high culture, were long considered trashy by high-minded folk. The Constitutional Congress passed a regulation in 1774 disapproving of various forms of entertainment. [The Congress] charged that theater and opera were immoral, wasted one's time, and took one's mind off of more important issues, therefore they would regulate it. The issue of immorality was a real one for the colonists. Women on the stage were often considered prostitutes and extremely licentious (from the website of Opera America, http://www.operaamerica.org/audiences/learningcenter/special/theatrical.shtml) Nevertheless, George Washington was quite fond of attending plays. Here's a quote from "An Old-Fashioned Girl," written by Louisa May Alcott in 1870: That night she saw one of the new spectacles which have lately become the rage and run for hundreds of nights, dazzling, exciting, and demoralizing the spectator by every allurement French ingenuity can invent and American prodigality execute. Never mind what its name was, it was very gorgeous, very vulgar, and very fashionable, so, of course, it was very much admired and everyone went to see it. At first Polly thought she had got into fairyland, and saw only the sparkling creatures who danced and sang in a world of light and beauty, but presently she began to listen to the songs and conversation, and then the illusion vanished, for the lovely phantoms sang Negro melodies, talked slang, and were a disgrace to the good old-fashioned elves whom she knew and loved so well. Gracious mercy me. "A disgrace to the elves!" Severe censure, indeed. I guess some things never change.
Well, yes, jazz was once low-down, and now it's a high-bourgeois taste, pretty much.
Douglas Cramer, in which combox did you write your commentary, I'd like to read it. anona
Words escape me....
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