Cardio Striptease: Feminist fitness?

I got the most interesting email from a friend of mine today.....

"Hey Audrey:

OK... so I'm out to dinner with 7 mommies this weekend and most of them are into running/fitness and they're really fun, cool women who are all organic and everything.

So, one of them starts talking about this stripetease fitness class she's going to offer near us around Valentines Day and ALL of them think this is cool. I'm like, WTF? Weren't we the same gals who were spelling womyn with a "Y"? I turned to my good friend Claudia (a botanist turned nature photographer with a 7 year old girl) and I say, "What are you going to tell Robin you're doing when you go to learn how to exercise in a fashion based on the complete objectification of women?"

It was bizarre. And, then our nanny was all into the idea too when I told her about it. The 20 something girls today are really sexualized in a gross way- I mean I was pretty open and sowed my oats in my 20s but I did it listening to The Dead and wearing Birkenstocks not showing my thong and all of my cleavage (ok... i've never had cleavage :-)).

Strange days indeed.

Am I just a prude?"

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This is SUCH a hard question... and it leads back to the discussions I've posted on this blog about Female Chauvinist Pigs. Some women think they are being liberated by getting in touch with their inner stripper... others, like m'self, think that the whole Girls Gone Wild trend cons girls and women into thinking that their sexuality is the nexus of their power and that they should exploit it to their gain since we live in a culture that exploits it anyway.

I'm all for feeling sexy.  I'm all for feeling powerful... but I gotta agree with my friend who emailed,  and so many other women who feel like they are feminists, but not into raunch culture...and therefore are made to feel prude and lame.

It just ain't right.

Comments

[Ashley]

I'm so glad you brought this up. I definitely agree with you too. My idea of being liberated isn't being into raunch culture. I think it's just exploitation, really. And I'm saying that as a 23 year old female living in the middle of all of this hype about gaining power through flaunting your sexuality. I don't buy into it, and yes, sometimes people make me feel like I am just a big prude, even though I KNOW I'm not. But I'd rather feel like a prude any day than feel like I am a sex slave for men.

[mom]

Without suggesting that stripper fitness is to blame for rape (DO NOT READ ME AS SAYING ANYTHING CLOSE TO THIS!), you post connects in an interesting way to the extremely insightful analysis over at feministe on rape culture and the Match.com serial rapiest in Philadelphia (she also references GGW):

http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2007/10/15/on-rape-and-power/

Very worth the read, and the external links.

[Amanda Stein]

Wow...that was an amazing article from feministe.us - thank you so much for posting that. That is so completely depressing and terrifying...

[Marjorie]

I'm with you.

I just can't get on board with pornography, stripping, prostitution being empowering. Granted, I have not been a participant, so my experience is certainly limited by that, but I just can't see beyond what I see as exploitation.

Sexy, however, is fantastic when you don't lose yourself.