This post was featured on Something to Wine About. Check out the full article there! I have taken some paragraphs from my article about pole dancing and placed them below with other editorial comments.

“I have been doing pole dance for about a year now and absolutely fell in love with what it has given me- more confidence, more muscle, and a lovely welcoming community. I came across pole dancing when I was looking for a fun sport to try that was indoors and didn’t want to pay for a normal gym membership- to me, essentially pay to run on a treadmill. I wanted to do something different! I found my acrobatic studio and the rest is history.”

In order to write this article for Something to Wine About, I talked with one of my pole instructors at my studio who has become a professional pole dancer. You can check out her Instagram here.

I also read an article about it on HuffPost and wanted to add my own thoughts to it.

I didn’t realize how passionate I was about it until I started typing, and typing and typing.

My Passion for Pole Dancing

I guess it is because “I have followed more and more pole dancer accounts on Instagram- some I have never met in person and others that I know through my studio. These pole dancers might also strip on the side, but their main goal of the sport is just improving their tricks, learning new tricks, and overall, just having fun. They are doing it in their own studios or at their home. Not at bars or clubs. There is actually quite a big community of pole dancers just like there are for running or tennis.”

I do recognize that social media has been a great tool for connecting people and there are some crazy people out there using it for terrible things. We do need to contain these crazy people- I agree, but when it comes to showing what one is passionate in…I think those in charge sometimes take it too far…like the scandal about Facebook controlling posts.

“And, lately, Instagram has been using it’s authority to curtail and discriminate against passionate innocent users.”

“However, Instagram has decided that many of these [Pole Dancer] accounts are inappropriate and have banned images and hashtags associated with pole and pole tricks. This is called shadow banning.”

“It has led to many women turning their account into “male” accounts and it appears whatever algorithm Instagram has, it doesn’t include these “male” accounts. For some, it is still early to tell if this is the reason they are getting more followers and likes, but others have said it works.”

“What is wrong with seeing a woman dead-lift herself up on the pole or drop from the ceiling and slide down the pole before stopping herself with just her thighs right before she hits the bottom?”

“Again, there are terrible things that need censoring, but are women showing their passion for a looked-down-upon-sport really that outrageous for public consumption? There are a lot of great individuals who have battled against society norms for their passions throughout the 20th century and today it is accepted practice such as integrated schools or women wearing pants. What was once looked-down-upon is now how life is.”

Please be sure to read the full article– there is much more I discuss!

Some of my own pole tricks (on Instagram)

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