Working the pole?: A feminist netnographic analysis of pole dancers' digital media practices

Despite increased regulation of 'sexual' content on social media platforms like Instagram and TikTok (Are, 2023), digital pole dance content produced by recreational pole dancers, sex workers, and celebrities for leisure/work continues to grow in online spaces. This original, mixed-methodological project analyses the shifting significance of pole dancers' digital media practices to provide a timely and necessary examination of how these practices are reshaping the boundaries of gendered and sexual (digital) labour. To provide an intersectional analysis of how these boundaries are being reshaped, I am using a feminist netnographic framework that centres the lived experiences of pole dancers who use digital media for leisure/work.

The recent explosion in popularity of pole dancing, which involves using a vertical apparatus for aerial tricks and dance movements, can be traced back to North American strip clubs where workers have performed pole dance shows for paying customers since the 1960s. In the 1990s, strippers began teaching pole dance in fitness studios, which created a popular new leisure practice, new opportunities for work and a lucrative global industry that initially catered predominantly to cis-gendered women. The emergence of digital media platforms extended pole communities and industries into free and paywalled online spaces, which once again created new forms of leisure and work. This project focuses on pole dancers who use digital media for leisure and/or work to account for the blurred boundaries between pole dance/sex work that have emerged since the practice grew into a leisure practice that has now also extended into online spaces.

Pole dancers using digital media for leisure/work are situated at the intersection of many broader academic debates within feminist media and cultural studies, including digital labour, gendered sexual economies, and cultural practices. However, this cultural phenomenon has not been sufficiently explored within...