5 Ways Pole Businesses can be active allies to strippers

These recommendations are from Gemma Rose’s webinar” Actioning Allyship: How Pole Businesses Can Respect Strippers” held on May 14, 2024. Members can view the entire webinar at this link. Gemma notes in the webinar that she does not speak for all strippers and recommends that people listen to many resources. Similarly, this resource post does not represent all ways pole businesses could become active allies to strippers and swers. Consider it is a starting point.

While pole has grown and changed over the years, the pole dance industry and the idea of pole dancing is firmly rooted in the past and current world of strippers and swers.

Even if you personally do not have a background in sw, it is important as a business owner in the pole industry to understand your role as an ally and to respect how those experiences founded and continue to influence the pole industry.

Commitment to learn and grow

The first step is commitment.

Commit to educate yourself on the challenges that strippers and swers face when they intersect with the broader pole industry (as opposed to the stripper/swer specific part of the industry) such as (but not limited to) discrimination, whorephobia, lack of representation, and financial and time barriers which may limit their participation in classes, events, or competitions.

Some sectors of the pole industry want to erase the original of pole dancing and its relation to strippers.

Other parts of the pole industry may glamourize or appropriate parts of the stripper “experience” but not include actual strippers/swers in those spaces.

Actioning Allyship

Since you’re reading this blog, you are already looking to understand this issue and how to support the strippers/swers in the pole industry more.

Here are 5 specific things you can do in your pole business:

• Seek out education and maintain an open dialogue – seek out resources and have conversations! (Check out additional resources Gemma provided here.) Strippers face discrimination and challenging working conditions all around the world. Pay attention, use your voice (and if you can, your money too) to support these important issues. Signing a petition or amplifying awareness through social media are free!
• Maintain a zero tolerance/inclusion policy – make it clear in your spaces (studio, event, competition, etc.) that everyone is welcome and how people should conduct themselves in your business.
• Representation matters – for instance, if your competition is “stripper style,” hire actual strippers to be judges. If you host “stripper style” workshops or classes at your pole studio, hire actual strippers to teach.
• Address financial barriers – consider adding a low-income sex worker scholarship or grant funded by sponsors or by the community to subsidize competition or event entries, classes, pole camps, and other spaces that might not be accessible.
• Provide etiquette guides to your students for how to be in a strip club space. Check out this post that you can share with your students (updating for any changes based on your locality).

Remember, this is not an exhaustive list!

What other ways have you found to support strippers and swers in your pole business? Please share and we will update the list!

The image for this post was a commentary on legal issues happening to strippers in New Orleans that was performed (by strippers) to help educate civilians at PoleCon 2019. Watch it here.