During a high-profile pole dance competition in Spain last week, a group performed a routine holding signs saying that pole dance was “not stripping,” and pretended to strangle a stripper on stage. A social media backlash ensued, and my two cents about yet another abysmal episode of discrimination in our industry went viral. As someone who has been, for better or for worse, somewhat known in the pole world for almost ten years, I have seen my share of social media shitstorms, and I have highlighted quite a few episodes of wrongdoing, discrimination, or straight up bad practice through this blog. Yet, too little seems to change once the pole drama on social media ends. So through this blog post I thought I’d put my digital criminology researcher activist hat on to explore what happens after the shitstorm, to ask: given that social media are clearly not a change-making space, how can we ensure that true accountability follows the drama, and that history doesn’t repeat itself?
What’s the pole drama this time?
At Exotic Generation Spain, the Spanish edition of a well-know Russian-born global pole dance competition franchise, a group performance featured dancers in a balaclava strangling and killing a woman who most people watching understood to represent a stripper. This is because the group had previously shown signs that wrote: “Exotic ? Stripping,” playing off a tired trope from certain sides of the pole dance industry, who wish to distance our art and sport from its stripping origins.
The origins of pole are, by now, clear and proven, but they often become a culture war topic in our industry, with people going as far as saying that the reason we all dance in tiny outfits and chunky heels is because of Mallakhamb, a strength practice performed by men in India in the Fifth Century.
Yes, really.
Many pole dancers and strippers will tell you that we’ve been rehashing this conversation about crediting the history of pole and uplifting instead of stigmatising strippers for literal years. And while our industry is hearteningly moving towards sex worker inclusion and away from the whorephobic pole fitness competitions of the 2000s, where you’d get marked down for showing too much ass, it is clear that way too many pole dancers still want nothing to do with strippers.
These people should clearly stay off the pole, but they are still very vocal in the industry and are, in my opinion, beyond help. If you like to discriminate against the marginalised community that enabled you to pole dance in the first place for the sake of shielding yourself from potential criticism, yet another social media shitstorm won’t change your mind. And ironically, as I have said in many a talk, if someone wants to judge you for pole dancing, they will, whether you distance yourself from strippers or not.
And yet, people still insist on being dicks. But that’s not the point.
There are enough resources out there for people to educate themselves about where pole comes from, and if they choose to ignore them all we can do is not give them a platform.
The drama arising from the incident in question was that these people were not just given a platform: they were awarded first place for a disgustingly violent routine, at a time of an epidemic of violence against women and girls, in the age of the manosphere, and when our rights are being reversed as the patriarchy fights back. In a community that is meant to reclaim the body and sexuality against stigma, this group of dancers upheld that stigma in the most violent and harmful of ways, continuing to harm our founding mothers by advocating for violence against them. Check the post below for the video.
It was, in short, one of the lowest points of pole’s history if you ask me. And as someone that has tried to stay away from pole drama in the most recent years because I have a life and a job that I prefer to do offline, I still shared my two cents.
I did it because I am tired. As someone who’s been in this industry for quite a while, I’ve been having these conversations and arguments for literal years. This trite argument showing up yet again, and in the most harmful of ways, felt like a shared failure.
And if I, someone without lived experience of sex work, am tired, I can only imagine how tired, hurt and outraged sex workers must be. I thought it was time we all showed up to prevent them from having to repeat themselves, and luckily the industry did show up. A dancer stage a protest at the event, @badmvjer condemned the performance in her stories, and suddenly we all started doing so.
It wasn’t just my post that went viral. Several takes, explainers and outcries were posted following the drama, namely by brand Lapiri Club, who tagged me because so many people were asking about what happened under my viral post. The competition published several half-baked statements that were then deleted, until finally they announced that as result of the public outcry, the group was (pun intended) rightly stripped of its gold medal.
Privately, the franchise is apparently not-so-gently asking competitors not to share their (negative) opinions publicly. The comp itself and the gold medal winners said people had “misunderstood” the routine, which was meant to denounce social stereotypes – although the use of the “Exotic ? Stripping” signs makes it quite difficult to belive them, as does the knowledge that, apparently, they went ahead with the performance despite someone telling them it looked problematic in rehearsals.
One of the dancers from the group (who appear in the livestream, and who shared their performance to make a statement) even got in touch with people who shared and critiqued the routine through viral posts claiming they wanted to sue for non-consensual use of images that affected their reputation. This is despite the fact that we often sign waivers agreeing to be photographed and filmed at these events, and that critiquing an appalling performance constitutes fair comment.
In short, it’s all kicking off and RIP my Insta DMs and notifications.
But what went wrong with this particular drama? And what should be done about it in the future?
Previous drama and change
This is not the first time that drama takes over a pole dance competition, perhaps because these are community events involving lots of people when so many parts of our industry with different cultures, beliefs and expectations come together.
There’s a lot at stake at pole comps. In many countries, there are not many performance opportunities for elaborate routines for amateur and semi-professional pole dancers. Competitors pay hundreds of pounds in entry fees, photography and videography charges, costumes, travel, and so on – and they expect good service and a smooth running of an event, which isn’t always a given. This is largely why I’ve stopped competing: I prefer to get paid to perform, and I’m too old for all the drama, which I often experienced first-hand.
This was the case when I competed in what I then dubbed the “Fyre Festival of pole,” aka the first Exotic Generation UK (another cursed episode of the franchise), where we were made to dance on an unsafe pole and 90% of the competitors dropped out, while the organiser fled and we only got our refunds through raising PayPal disputes.
Other pole competition drama dates back to the late 2010s, where a competitor in an Italian pole dance competition performed a Sister Act number in Blackface. Later on, post 2020, a backlash followed virtual and offline events in the UK when a well-known competition organiser chose a very white, thin, and straight line-up despite lockdown conversations focusing on making the industry more inclusive. Or yet again, in 2024 a well-know competition organiser bashed a teenage trans sex working performer for the competition she organised through whorephobic and transphobic abuse.
In short, our industry is always fired up by drama, and while we’re all very exhausted, important conversations are often raised, such as those about paying performers fairly, about centring the origins of pole, or about removing racist terminology from our events, classes and marketing. Conversations started by dancers like Nadia Sharif, Nova Caine and Kitty Velour in the past argued that using “exotic” to define heels pole dancing is racist, as it dates back to times when white dancers were hired to copy Romani and Middle Eastern following World Faire circuses, and the term was used to separate white performers from those of other ethnicities.
This is why a lot of people (me included) have already chosen to divest from the Exotic Generation franchise, although as I argued in previous posts it’s quite hard to park this term when so many people prefer it given its different meaning in different languages, and its function as a euphemism for ‘sexy’ or ‘heels’ for a practice that some still frown upon. Marketing, it seems, still trumps ethics.
So this brings me to the crux of this post: how do you govern an ungovernable practice and industry, born out of struggle and oral history, where money and reputation are at stake, where governance is decentralised and often relying on a cult of personality following individual dancers, performers or activists?
How do you get accountability and change a system that has no written constitution or code, no sporting association or governing and ethics body, but that largely relies on word of mouth and on social media shitstorms following industry drama and malpractice?
How do we stop relying on tools like social media, which reward negative engagement and backlash and that de-platform and censor so many industry leaders and sex workers, to get justice and promote change?
Values and accountability, or divesting?
We really need to move away from social media as tools to get justice or promote change in the pole dance industry.
Don’t get me wrong, platforms sometimes still deliver their original promise of connecting dancers, providing a portfolio and raising awareness for certain issues. But in an age of increased censorship, when sex workers are de-platformed and pole dancers are increasingly shadowbanned, and when only accusations and anger drive engagement, is Instagram really the place that should lay the groundwork for change in our industry?
As we’ve seen multiple times, after the drama ends, after the shitstorm dies down, people forget who misbehaved and ignore all the resources about industry best practices. Like powerful individuals who swiftly return after being “cancelled,” business in the pole dance industry goes on as usual.
Meanwhile, those at the centre of shitstorms are targeted with online abuse by those who view personal attacks as the only way to change things, and disconnect from the conversations we really need to have because they’re overwhelmed.
This all happens because of the illusion of activism and empowerment social media provide, when we’re really only fuelling an algorithm that doesn’t centre our needs. Calling someone out viciously isn’t activism. And just because someone has a public persona in the industry, and has sometimes spoken about issues adjacent to activism, they are not activists either.
Which brings me back to the event in question, the issues it raised, and potential next steps.
I have competed in and judged for Exotic Generation in the past.
As a franchise, its marking scheme is quite rigid, and focused on scoring tricks, flow, stage presence. Oddly, this mark scheme is also incredibly generic, and it is often applied to wildly different styles in terms of tricks and sensuality – and I remember being incredibly grateful to Jazzy K who, when we were judging Exotic Generation UK in 2021, sat me and the other judges down to discuss judging standardisation and applying the criteria evenly.
Because of this, I can really see how the judges just scored this group based on the points given by the marking scheme since Exotic Generation, like many competitions, doesn’t have an ethics policy. So of course there was no way to say: +10 on tricks, but -1000 and WTF on concept.
And I think this is where so many competitions and events fall short.
Judges aren’t activists, and while they are brands, not everyone is media trained in a way that will allow them to respond to backlash, although kudos to Roberta Martins, who I believe did so quite effectively. And when organisations don’t have ethics policies, slip ups and drama ensues, and individuals have to pick up the pieces.
I’ve competed in and attended many stripper-run competitions and events, often born out of strippers’ feelings of exclusion from pole dancer run competitions. These events feature policies focused on safety, on avoiding to play music by abusers, on reserving the right to cancel or stop performances or platform individuals that can harm or offend others. I’ve seen this at Gemma Rose‘s PDSM, at Cutie Whippingham‘s Blackstage, and I’ve read similar things in Enya Torres’ Vertex Pole Championships. As a result, these events tend to be a much better experience for everyone involved, and they tend to be better equipped to deal with potential drama.
I think it’s time we start demanding more of the competitions we pay money into, asking to see their ethics policy when we apply, and lobbying them to make one if they don’t have it.
It’s time to put our money into competitions that care for competitors, for viewers and for pole dance’s history, and to divest from those who don’t until they do better.
And while I’ve been in way too many conversations about a potential pole ethics governing organisation that bore no fruits, I do think instructors and performers should begin unionising like strippers have.
So what do we do next?
We have already had so many of these conversations, and memories of the Blackstage Talks panel come to mind, where so many of these topics were discussed and similar opinions were expressed.
We can’t continue fighting with people who don’t care about our values on social media, or bringing each other down in the hope something changes.
Unfortunately, our history and governing practices remain oral and decentralised. And as much as I dislike putting the onus on us as individuals and consumers to change things, we can only do so by demanding accountability and divesting offline, rather than by playing platforms’ toxic engagement game.
Algorithmically and profit-driven spaces are just not the ideal setting for practices like pole dancing and the conversations they raised. Platforms have been very obvious in showing us we are not welcome through their governance, yet they welcome the anger, hurt and division that shitstorms generate. Calling people out without strategies to change their behaviour, or without our own personal commitment to divest from spaces that enable harm, isn’t activism. Platforms as they are are not conducive to change, but just to cycles of anger, disruption and sameness.
So let’s keep the score, and let’s change where and who we put our energies into.
I hope this post can serve as a reminder of the history of pole drama, and as a case study in why platform-manufactured outrage is cyclical, and doesn’t really produce meaningful change if people don’t take it upon themselves to change rules and spaces, or create new spaces to allow us to divest from unhelpful ones.
For now, over and out. Your girl needs a screen break (and I’ve got a whole lot of student project marking to do).
Some more resources to understand last week’s drama
- Sonja Sloane’s critique of the performance from an art PhD standpoint
- OG dancer Annie Norris’ response to “not a stripper” comments after her recent video about ExoGen spain
- More analysis of the recent drama by @soratern_artist
- A very interesting conversation about the geopolitics of the term “Russian Exotic” in times of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine by @flow.alisefox
- For Italians, more info on what happened by @marikawaldorf
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