Side Effects Of Being Sexy
Being sexy has side-effects. While folks box sex-appeal in socially, it also can become a self-imposed dysregulation prison too. Bad bitches can’t be squares or hang out with them or stay stuck in them. Bad bitchin’ is an act of living. The sexiest bitches I know have range and they age into deeper iterations as they exist.
May Cause Irritability
Nervous about the potential backlash from removing “pole dance” from the name, the delete button has been pushed. Removing pole dance from 400 Degreez or my associations to the term, isn’t what I’m doing. These 30 days of promoting Wasp’s Nest (which is TOMORROW at 7:30PM EDT) has put my life into perspective about what the side effects of what I’m actually doing.
To be blunt, pole dancing, like marketing, is a front for me to communicate something more complex. I put “pole dance” in the 400 Degreez name, at the time, because when people use google they usually get specific in the search box. Naturally, I want to be discoverable for my personal recognition and to make a living. ‘Pole dance’ has been a niche, breakout keyword for google searches over the last few years. But pole dance isn’t all that I teach. As a person who uses limitations as muse, it’s been irritating to work against the resistance of pole dance and pole dancers to learn and value shit beyond the apparent. However, breaking out of the box, I’m hoping that the keywords removal challenges me to find another term, that will come with its own limitations, to attract. Birthing things out of irritability has rarely had a sexy side effect for me.
May Cause Rebuke
Nostalgic for Club Onyx’s past “Pole-a-thon” event a tweet went viral saying,
“Strippers these days do not work the pole. I’m not throwing money to see you twerk. Bitches at the bar was doing that for free. I WANT A PERFORMANCE!!”1
The more interesting truth this sentiment reveals is an indictment across society of how private businesses (employers), patrons (consumers) and performers (workers) are impacted by the current conditions of living. The patrons are extractive, performers are not giving to get scraps in return and private businesses are greedy(er).
Deeper still, my opinion is there’s a glaring pyschopathy of erotics, experiences and exploitation that is growing amongst society. Crisply, in terms that the character Diamond2 would use: people ain’t making money, but the money is making them.
Sexy isn’t the act of summoning attraction or an experience of approval. Contrary to face value, it’s complicated. So for this person tweeting, twerking wasn’t enough to move them from withholding their money. This is just an example of differing valuations of erotic capital. Because I’m not arguing wether twerking, acrobatics or balletics or any other technique has compensational value. I’m talking about what is considered in academy as erotics and the rebuke of sexy from society when it doesn’t fit preconceived notions.
May Cause Self-Denial
I’ll probably never stop pole dancing or doing pole dance tricks; but the term itself needs to backseat so that people whose identities are complex, like mine, can shotgun with me. I want folks to feel like the financial investment of a pole is worth it, because beyond being attractive and beyond making money, they’re in this lane for the sort of sexy that you can’t pin down or box in. That’s who I’m talking to.
At the intersection of so many interests and relationships, legitimizing myself to other pole dancers is losing its attraction. Yeah I love being told I’m sexy AF when I post a photo or video. It’s sexy too, when I finger this keyboard to communicate with you in comma, parenthesis and period. It’s sexy to roll my eyes as I lovingly help my retired dad with his budding business. It’s sexy when I’m dancing in the car on the way to pick up my little brother up from college to come home on the weekends. It is salacious sending voice messages that are like podcast episodes to my friends. It’s sexy forcing myself outside to get that 8AM sweat. It’s sexy watching dark dramadeys and reality shows in a tshirt and a thong while sipping coffee at 5PM. These things too, contribute to my erotic understanding. They are my self.
Being a guerilla theorist, creative director, graphic artist, nude-taker, research nerd, pole dance tricks instructor, essayist, somebody’s daughter, friend, sister, linesister, lovergirl, real nigga and 10 year gig/self-employed veteran. Whew. There’s plenty of intersections that I’m sure the politics of pole pressure me into denying. No more.
May Cause The Cultivation of Dignity and Self-Respect
“Sexy and you know it” is a statement about external validation that comes from an inward knowing. Sounds in line with what erotic researchers and theorists write about. Reasons why one chooses to pole dance or do pole work are many. I think though that because it is so closely tied to the sex industry, sex appeal and constructs of what it means to be sexy it overlays deeper insecurities that people admit (or don’t). They want confidence, they want sensuality, they want strength (read vitality and vigor), they want attention, they want financial security, they want access to something passionate and meaningful.
Erotics and sensorial stimulation have something in common. What’s beneath erotics and what I deem obscenity are universal human experiences; but also a raw wisdom in leisure and labor— discernment, dignity and affection. That is the dimensionality I want to continue to cultivate, 400 Degreez of Erotic Funk.
“Veronica Harrington on X: ‘Strippers These Days...” X (Formerly Twitter), 1 Apr. 2024, twitter.com/BigKea_/status/1774843591480746030.
Ice Cube (Director). (1998, April 10). The Players Club. Ghettobird Productions, Cube Vision Productions.