Conclusion: A Positive Active Identity?

Abstract

This book began with a description of a poler. Pole has multiple, contradictory meanings and its practice generates questions about display and objectification. But we have also seen that pole is a positive activity for many women all over the world; pole represents a complex intersection of body, pleasure, fitness and friendships. Pole classes, and their attendant associations and cultural anxieties which radiate outwards like ripples on water, leave me perplexed for a number of reasons. Mostly because I know that by this point I should, perhaps, posit several airtight conclusions and yet I am not going to even attempt to be so glib. As I warned in Chapter 1, this research has proved to be of the sort from which new questions proliferate rather than questions being answered. So I am not going to attempt to fool anyone into thinking that I believe there are definitive answers to a phenomenon like pole classes: I do not. It will always divide opinion. This is not to say we should lazily avoid discussion; only that sometimes we have to acknowledge that human actions often cannot be tied up in a neat bow. As I also said in Chapter 1, qualitative research is not an exact science — but it does offer us an exquisitely detailed and current window on our world.