Asses and Activism includes interviews, opinion pieces and news about people who are breaking taboos, fighting stigma and living their best lives, because activism is more fun when it’s sexy. The idea for Asses and Activism was born from one of my Instagram posts. I had posted a picture about a less politically oriented post, saying: “Can’t always cover Asses and Activism!” and my followers pointed out how great a format that could be. So when I realised the community I’m part of would love to hear from and support sexy activists, this category of posts came to life. So without further ado, all these posts are for them, featuring everything from pole dancing to podcasting, from sex workers to bloggers, these posts are about discussing everything that matters, but that hasn’t yet received the right attention. Expect: the odd sociological / criminological spin, sass and a whole lot of ass. Submit ideas to bloggeronpole@gmail.com if you’d like to be featured.
In October I was a guest speaker and performer at Exotic Hell, Elvira Langdon’s brand-new pole dance competition which promised to be the first openly transfeminist pole competition in Italy, platforming and centring sex workers and the erotic. In case…
“Get you a girl who can do both – pole dance and academia” (and who gets, like, really anxious about it). “Doing both” was, for a while, my brand, something I lived and breathed, without too much thought. But as…
Dr Zahra Stardust is my academic idol and an all-around legend: a socio-legal scholar working at the intersections of sexuality, technology, law and social justice, Zahra is also a stripper from the early days of Australian pole, a former pole…
Following recent safety concerns at competitions, mentions of a governing body for the pole dance industry have been floating around again. My name has been made a few times as someone who may be interested in taking part in it,…
Content dominates our social media feeds, while the process of making, sharing and critiquing it is central to many people’s work and personal lives. As a platform governance scholar specialising in the creator economy, a content creator and a culture…
Cancel culture is a divisive term in itself: is it a long-awaited form of accountability or is it digilantism? Is it popular justice in the face of the authorities’ failure, or just an emotionally taxing social media pile-on? And what…
Following some quite enraging comments on my Freeda interview (embedded below), I wanted to debunk a few assumption some people made via a non-exhaustive list of reading recommendations. Those who made those comments won’t see them, but since lots of…
A report I wrote as part of my postdoc in collaboration with The World Wide Web Foundation and Superbloom, featuring social media policy recommendations I co-designed with marginalised and/or impacted users, is coming out today. About the report What would…
This post reflects on a whirlwind year because today, April 12, is my first postdoc anniversary. Some of you may wonder why something as mundane or boring as a job would get a space on a blog largely about pole…
In January, when getting a haircut, I found out that a patch of my hair was missing. I was truly devastated, and feared I was on a downward trajectory towards irreversible change. This made me reflect on how important towards…
