My Therapist Sent Me to Pole Dancing Class
Pole Dancing as Therapy…
When I think of therapy homework, I think about reading self-help books or practicing communication skills. I don’t think of stripper classes. At least, I didn’t until my therapist suggested I take one.
Most of the work I’m doing in therapy revolves around trauma, but I’ve also recently come out of a relationship. She suggested this exercise as a way of helping me reclaim my confidence and sexuality after a particularly challenging breakup. While burlesque was also a suggestion, I felt that pole dancing might be a better fit for me with its athletic component.
If I’m honest, I always wanted to try a class at Pole La Teaz, Atlanta’s premier pole dancing studio. I just never made it a priority. Since it counted as therapy homework, I booked my session. Only, I didn’t book just one. After factoring in the drive time to the city, I decided to book three back-to-back sessions: Intro to Pole, Filthy Friday Sultry Chair, and FloorPlay for Beginners. I showed up excited to be there with no real idea of what the classes would entail.
And I had the best time!
Because it is a women-only environment, I felt safe and supported. I was able to relax and enjoy learning new skills without feeling judged. In fact, even though these women were strangers, they were warm, friendly, and supportive. We were there for many reasons, and all of them were valid.
The start of the session felt like group therapy as we sat in a circle and shared what had brought us to the studio and to pole dancing. We opened up — sharing intimate details of our lives and our private motivations for coming to class. As Lotus, our instructor, reminded us that we were in a safe place to share and to express ourselves, I knew that this was exactly the right place for me to be on a Friday night.
Of course, therapy homework was my reason, but here are 7 outstanding reasons to sign up for a pole dancing class:
Exercise
Pole dancing and the related classes are phenomenal exercise. I didn’t feel it, at first. I was in the third class before I felt the impact of the first two. By the time I drove home, I could tell that I had gotten more of a workout than I had imagined I would. These workouts can be done at any level of fitness, but they are workouts. Athleticism is involved, and it’s truly wonderful exercise.
Confidence Boost
There’s something about feeling sexy for yourself and no one else that can really ratchet up your confidence level. We weren’t performing for a partner or doing anything but learning sexy tricks while having fun. I’m not sure if I’ve quite gotten my groove back, but I do know that I walked out with a big smile and a strong boost to my ego just for participating.
Empowerment
Not everyone equates sexual expression to empowerment, but there is something uniquely empowering about doing something like this for ourselves. It doesn’t just help us feel more confident in our own skin. It also helps us feel like we’re in control of our lives. The confidence we build fuels a sense of self-empowerment.
Safe For Sexual Expression
It’s a place to safely express our sexuality. We can be both sensual and sexual in a safe, non-judgmental environment. We can feel sexy without having sex and get in touch with our sexuality without having to share it. We can express ourselves in a sultry way without needing accolades or appreciation from anyone else.
Self-Love
Learning to move in sensual ways can help us cultivate self-love — and even self-acceptance. In these classes, there was no one acceptable body type. The women who participated were all shapes and sizes. There wasn’t even a suggestion that a particular body type would be ideal. Instead, it was just accepted that any body could be sexy.
It was emphasized that our attitude matters more than our body type. Feeling sexy conveyed sexiness. Cultivating self-love is about more than feeling desirable, but learning to see ourselves as worthy and attractive can certainly help us find love and acceptance for ourselves.
Fun
Fun is a good reason to sign up for a class. If listening to sultry music while wearing a sexy outfit and strutting your stuff in class isn’t fun to you, don’t do it. But if it does sound like a good time, it’s worth signing up. If nothing else, we can laugh at our epic fails and get a little thrill when we get a move just right.
Spice Up Our Sex Lives
It just might spice up our sex lives. It never hurts to have a few sexy tricks up our metaphorical sleeves. Learning to move in sensual ways can be a way to strengthen sexual experiences. It’s more than just taking off our clothes. It’s about the full experience of intimacy and learning to have fun with it.
I plan to take another class as soon as I can work it in my schedule. It may have started out as therapy homework, but by the end of the class, I was studying the choreography and trying to figure out how to improve at a few of the moves I still wasn’t confident I was doing correctly. I’m eager to learn and happy to do something fun that also keeps me active within a safe and supportive community of women.
I no longer have a significant other who will benefit from this, and yet that is exactly what makes taking these classes so powerful. I’m not doing it for anyone else. It’s just for me. That’s powerful.
I once did a boudoir session for the same reason — as a way to do something for my own enjoyment, even though I wasn’t planning on sharing the photos with a partner. It made me feel strong, beautiful, and sensual. It wasn’t about objectifying myself; instead, it was about learning to feel comfortable in my own skin — more than comfortable, really. It was about learning to love the skin I’m in.
We can reclaim our sexuality for ourselves — remembering that our pleasure matters whether or not we’re in a relationship.
