photo: stripperpole.com
While I’m not religious in a conventional sense, I consider myself spiritual in that I am a seeker of “the meaning of life.” That said, I think maybe even I’m offended by this story… Christian pole dancing?
Women in Spring, Texas, just outside of Houston, have taken the popular fitness trend of pole dancing and put their own twist on it.
The idea is called “Pole Fitness for Jesus,” and if that doesn’t get your attention, I’m not sure you have a pulse. The program was started by Crystal Deans, owner and class instructor of Best Shape of Your Life.
I presume it’s her real name, but Crystal also happens to be an ex-strip, I mean, dancer. It’s something that she gave up years ago.
“It’s not something I felt very rewarded with … I decided I didn’t want to do any more, so I decided to take the part that I liked about that and bring it here,” said Deans.
Of course, like any pole dancing fitness class, this isn’t a training program for future strippers. The goal is to get people fit while connecting with God. However, the Jesus/stripper-pole association does seem a bit, what’s the word I’m looking for… sacrilegious.
Sure, a pole is just a pole, but when the person who created the program is an ex-dancer, the association is a little impossible to get away from.
“I think it’s a fabulous thing. I was raised around religion. My parents were very religious, and it’s a great way you get the stigma off,” said Pole Fitness for Jesus enthusiast Tiffany Booth. “It’s not just dancing on a pole. You have music and you have girls together working out. There’s tons of different kinds of workouts; this just happens to be one.”
Dean, of course, defends her program against naysayers.
“People who want to sit there and judge it, you know, like, ‘Well, that is sacrilegious,’ or you know,” Dean said in an interview with News KXAN in Austin. “That doesn’t make you a good Christian when you judge other people.”
I don’t know that being a good Christian means having no opinion about anyone’s actions ever. Ultimately, the positives outweigh the negative, but if you are trying to distance what you are doing with the act of nude dancing, maybe it’s not such a good thing to do the exercise in short shorts and high heels.
(via: New York Daily News)