The problem is the wh0rephobia, not the reaction of strippers to wh0rephobia.
Many of you have seen me on social media talking about the disgusting performance at exogen spain (this is a world renowned pole dance competition franchise), and they claim to respect the roots of pole dancing…but their handle on tough situations makes me think otherwise. To sum it up quick: a troupe hit the stage holding signs saying “exotic does not equal striptease” then they surrounded a girl who was a symbol of a stripper and they proceeded to strangle her, then carried on with their off-beat routine. Nobody stopped it, the show continued and they were awarded GOLD instead of immediately being disqualified from the showcasing of violence against sex workers.
Now, this is 2026 and majority of us have the internet and opinions. This obviously was not received well and the stripper community spoke out, loudly and with anger. That is a FAIR reaction to seeing your likeness being killed on a public stage, just so that these “dancers” can desperately try to separate their dance from the evils of stripping. They were eventually disqualified but only after online backlash. The people involved released a surface level and (in my opinion) fake apology. After said “apology”, the performers went on to defend their lazy art attempt and double down by saying “russians brought exotic to where it is now” and “you strippers should come compete on a big stage if you don’t want to be marginalized”. I should not have to explain why that is deeply disrespectful.
First off, us strippers DO perform on big stages both inside and outside of the club…your once a year competition performance will never beat our weekly schedules. Second, you do not own this style of dance, you are simply cosplaying us while trying to erase the foundation of pole dance. You would not have a pole if it was not for strippers. PERIOD. The complete ignorance from these performers is wild and they should not be allowed to compete. If you think you are better than the working girls then, come into a stripclub and see if you even have the stamina to do what we do. Better yet, see if anyone even tips you. You don’t know an audience like a stripper does.
Anyways, the part of this situation that bothers me the most is that the competition organizer is now asking us all to meet their hate/violence with love and forgiveness. Yeah, they actually thought that was the right move. Because telling people how to react to disrespect is the answer. How are you making more of an issue out of our FAIR reaction to violence? Why are you sweeping the violence under the rug and doing PR for these ignorant performers? 100% does not feel like you stand with strippers at all. You are rushing to defend the people who caused this issues and gaslighting us into thinking that we are wrong for being mad about it.
So, is me calling them weird b*tches (for the weird behaviour) worse then them adding to the violence that my community faces? We face that violence because of people like that, treating us like the problem, treating us like the bad guys who ruin pole dancing, acting like we are beneath everyone else…
Imagine if roles were reversed. Imagine if strippers took the stage to execute a russian pole dancer…imagine the outrage. But, we don’t do weird sh*t like that. We can’t even post photos of ourselves online without risking being banned, but these pole dancers can be out there in the smallest thong and get to keep their accounts. We rarely ever engage in discourse about non-strippers unless they are being outwardly disrespectful to us. These cosplaying culture vultures are constantly bringing up strippers, forever talking about us and how we are not the same. It’s a very weird obsession and it screams jealously.
To sum this up…BEING MAD ABOUT VIOLENCE AGAINST YOUR OWN COMMUNITY IS NOT THE PROBLEM, THE VIOLENCE IS THE PROBLEM AND YOU DO NOT DESERVE TO BE MET WITH LOVE AFTER FANTASIZING ABOUT STRANGLING ME.
A stripper’s freestyle on a random tuesday night will ALWAYS look better than anything these cosplayers can come up with after months of practice. I’m over coddling people’s feelings and letting them get away with bold disrespect on a public stage. I said what I said and I apologize to no one. Maybe stop talking about strippers if you can’t handle the response we have.
And stop using the term exotic, that’s weird asf.
