Notes on the erotic: Pole dancing, ballet, Fifty Shades of Grey & a conversation with Claude 3.7

Back in February I posted, What is it about depicting sex in writing? From shared knowledge to common knowledge. That line of thought led me to take Fifty Shades of Grey from the library so I could evaluate the sex scenes against those in The Story of O, which I read back in the late 1960s. And that led me to a conversation with Claude about those two books, women, and romance novels. Perhaps I’ll post bits of that conversation in another post, but not here. Then, a couple of days ago, YouTube fed me a video featuring Aurora. I’ve just posted about that video.

So, what’s going on? What’s going on is that I am once again looking into things that have interested me off and on throughout my entire intellectual career, from my undergraduate days at Johns Hopkins to the present. It looks like things are on again.

Since Aurora’s dance was the ‘trigger’ for the Claude conversation I report below, I want to start with some remarks about ballet in a paper by my teacher and colleague, the late David Hays, The Evolution of Expressive Culture (1993). Hays spent the last decade and a half of his life in New York City, where he became interested in the ballet. He bought season tickets to performances by the New York City ballet. While his article is about expressive culture in general, he takes ballet as his central example.

He asked:

Why and how does ballet achieve its powerful effect? At a typical performance of the City Ballet, a large part of the audience are naive. They are not familiar with the pieces being danced; many have never seen them before (the intake of breath that can be heard when the curtain rises on an effective stage set is evidence enough). They are not much expert in the art; the accounts that tie published in newspapers and magazines are generally superficial, often in my judgment missing the essence of the work altogether. Audiences give ovations for performances that seem to me mediocre. Yet the difference in the crowd between entrance and exit is almost tangible. Watching the ballet has changed their mood in a favorable way. Is such a change to be seen between those entering and leaving a great museum of painting or sculpture?

A clue appears in a work that is highly idiosyncratic in both substance and form, Peter A. Bucknell’s (1979) Entertainment and Ritual 600 to 1600. He deals only with England, and says (p. 189):

The ‘magic’ contained in these dances was something that even the dancer could not explain or understand. Because there was something outside the world around him which only dancing seemed to contact–like private prayer–so dancing was pursued in secret.

In secret, but not in solitude. The people of a village would go into the woods at night to dance together, as the people of bands and villages have danced, probably, through the whole history of our species. Bucknell quotes Stubbes (Anatomy of Abuses, 2nd ed., 1583) to the effect that two-thirds of the girls who spend the night in the woods around the Maypole are “violated” (p. 185). Such activities are not acceptable to Catholic religion, or to the Anglican Church that followed it in England; and the Church was inordinately powerful in England at the time. But, reports Bucknell, the Church could not stop these dances (p. 186).

My intention is not to emphasize the sexuality; ‘magic’ is what I think is most important. Balanchine captured that magic, brought it under artistic control, and the New York City audience came into contact with something “outside the world around.” For an audience that probably cannot achieve that contact by prayer, the effect is truly spectacular. Without the artistic control, and the creative genius, Balanchine’s predecessors and contemporaries achieved effects of a much lower order.

Hays then asks, “what is that ‘magic’, what is it outside the world around us” and how can we bring it under artistic control? Good questions. Hays spends the rest of the essay answering them. I recommend it to you. But I want to quote one more passage, the opening and conclusion of a paragraph about Balanchine:

The recognition that Balanchine holds about the same place in the history of ballet that Michelangelo or Leonardo holds in the history of plastic arts came quickly. [...] To put the matter more directly, he converted a somewhat disreputable amusement into an art. (After all, the female dancers are practically nude, and frequently take positions with their legs spread far apart, the bodies grossly exposed.)

That’s what interests me, the way ballet walks a fine line between the artistic and the pornographic, a line that is under continual revision.

That’s what the following conversation with Claude 3.7 is about. As always, my prompts are set in bold face while Claude’s responses are plain, though some subheadings will be bolded.

* * * * *

What can you tell me about the demographics of the audience for ballet?

Ballet audiences tend to have some distinctive demographic characteristics, though these can vary by region and type of performance.

Key demographics of ballet audiences typically include:

• Predominantly female (often 60-75% of attendees)
• Higher education levels than the general population
• Higher income brackets
• Older age skew (typically 45+ years old)
• More likely to be white/Caucasian in Western countries
• Often have personal experience with arts education

There are several notable trends in ballet audience demographics:

1. Aging audiences: Many traditional ballet companies struggle with attracting younger audiences
2. Urban concentration: Ballet attendance is higher in metropolitan areas
3. Digital expansion: Streaming performances have somewhat broadened demographic reach
4. Education correlation: Those with advanced degrees attend at higher rates
5. Cross-generational patterns: Ballet attendance often follows family traditions

Ballet companies are increasingly focused on audience development strategies to diversify their demographics, including educational outreach programs, community engagement initiatives, and digital content to attract younger and more diverse audiences.

Would you like me to explore any particular aspect of ballet audience demographics in more detail?

OK. Now let’s switch to a different topic, though one that’s still about dancing. I believe that there’s been a trend of women taking lessons in pole dancing. What can you tell me about that? When did it start, what’s the motivation, the ideology, and demographics (married, single, ages)?

You're right about this trend. Pole dancing as a fitness activity and art form separate from its origins in strip clubs began gaining popularity in the early 2000s.

Timeline and evolution:

• Late 1990s/early 2000s: First pole fitness studios began opening in countries like Australia, the US, and UK
• 2005-2010: Significant expansion of pole studios worldwide
• 2010s: Increasing mainstream acceptance, competitive events, and athletic recognition
• Present day: Now widely established as a legitimate fitness activity and performance art

Motivations for participants:

• Physical fitness (builds significant upper body and core strength)
• Body confidence and empowerment
• Artistic expression
• Community and social connections
• Challenge of learning a technical skill

Demographics:

• Predominantly women (though men's participation is growing)
• Age range typically 20s-40s, with the core demographic in the 25-35 range
• Mix of married, partnered, and single participants
• Broad socioeconomic range, though classes can be expensive
• Increasingly diverse in terms of body types and cultural backgrounds

Ideological context: The pole fitness movement often positions itself within a framework of reclaiming female sexuality and bodily autonomy. Many participants view it as a way to embrace their bodies and strength outside of traditional gender expectations. There's sometimes tension between the fitness/artistic pole community and those who work as professional exotic dancers, with ongoing discussions about cultural appropriation and respect for pole dancing's origins.

Some pole studios emphasize the artistic and athletic aspects while downplaying sensual elements, while others explicitly embrace the dance's sensual roots as part of its empowerment potential.

OK. Now here’s a stretch. In the second decade of this century “Fifty Shades of Grey” became a runaway best seller. It’s a romance novel, but also full of explicit BDSM sex. And the audience is predominantly female. It seems to me that this is consistent with the trend in pole dancing.

You've made an interesting observation. There are some parallels between the "Fifty Shades of Grey" phenomenon and the rise of pole dancing as a recreational activity for women. Both trends reflect shifts in how some women engage with expressions of sexuality and desire:

• Both gained mainstream popularity around the same time period (late 2000s into the 2010s)
• Both involve women voluntarily engaging with activities/content that have historically been considered taboo or inappropriate for "respectable" women
• Both sparked cultural conversations about female desire, agency, and sexual expression
• Both faced criticism from different perspectives - some viewing them as empowering and others seeing them as problematic

The "Fifty Shades" phenomenon (which sold over 150 million copies worldwide) revealed a significant appetite among predominantly female readers for explicit sexual content that explores power dynamics. Similarly, pole dancing classes allowed women to explore movement traditionally associated with erotic entertainment in a supportive, female-centered environment.

What makes these trends noteworthy is that they represent women choosing to engage with these elements of sexuality on their own terms, often in women-only or women-dominated spaces, rather than for the direct benefit of male viewers or partners.

However, both phenomena have complex relationships with feminist thought. Some view them as representing sexual empowerment and choice, while others critique them as potentially reinforcing problematic gender dynamics or simply repackaging male-oriented sexuality for female consumption.

Would you like to explore these cultural connections further or discuss the critiques and defenses of either trend?

Now, let’s go back to ballet. Of course, we have both male and female dancers. The dancers typically wear leotards, often very sheer leotards, I’m specifically thinking about ballerinas. The ballerinas often take postures and movements and leave the genital region quite exposed, though of course it is covered. Still the skirt on a tutu is very short. There seems to be a lot of eroticism hidden in the ballet, yet it’s not thought of as being at all erotic. I do note, though, that male dancers are often thought of as being “sissies” by guys who aren’t into ballet. How does this related to what we’ve been discussing?

You're touching on some interesting cultural contradictions about ballet. There is indeed a sensual and aesthetic element to ballet, particularly in how the body is displayed and highlighted by form-fitting costumes.

Classical ballet emerged in European court culture and has several paradoxical aspects:

• The costuming is revealing by traditional standards (tight-fitting, showing body lines and form), yet ballet is considered "high art" and thus culturally respectable
• There's an emphasis on the exposed female form, but it's presented within a framework of aesthetic purity and technical discipline
• The female body is prominently displayed, but typically in ways that emphasize ethereal qualities rather than overt sexuality
• Male dancers perform incredible feats of strength and athleticism, yet have historically been stigmatized in some cultures as effeminate

These contradictions relate to our previous discussion in several ways:

1. Cultural perceptions of female bodies and movement are highly context-dependent. Similar movements might be read as artistic in ballet, empowering in pole fitness, or erotic in other contexts.
2. There's a class and cultural status dimension to how we categorize physical expression. Ballet's association with elite culture has helped shield it from being viewed primarily through a sexual lens, unlike pole dancing's origins.
3. Both ballet and the "Fifty Shades"/pole dancing phenomena involve complex negotiations of gender, sexuality, and power, but expressed through different cultural frameworks.
4. The stigmatization of male ballet dancers highlights how activities associated with female bodily display or traditionally feminine aesthetics are often devalued, regardless of the physical prowess required.

What's particularly interesting is how similar physical elements (bodies in motion, revealing attire, flexibility, strength) can be interpreted so differently based on cultural context and historical association.

This has been interesting. Lots to think about. More later.

I'm glad you found this conversation thought-provoking. The intersections between art forms, cultural perceptions, gender expectations, and sexuality certainly offer rich territory for reflection.

The way society categorizes and values different forms of bodily expression reveals much about our underlying assumptions and hierarchies. Ballet's position as "high art" versus other forms of dance and physical expression shows how context and history shape our interpretations of similar movements and displays.

I'd be happy to continue this discussion whenever you'd like to explore these or related topics further. There are many more dimensions we could examine, from historical perspectives to contemporary evolutions in how these art forms are practiced and perceived. 

Addendum: Movies about male strippers

Here’s a list of movies about male strippers. There are 20 movies in the list. Only four are before 2000. I note further that one of those four, All in Good Taste 1983, might not be about male strippers, though it IS about strippers. The Wikipedia entry is too skeletal to tell definitively & that’s the best I could find.