A Long Brief History of Pole Dancing

I really love how mysteriously unknown the history of pole dancing is. Google it now and you'll see the same theories, without any documented proof. So here's my loose interpretation of what I've read on the internet.

The more amusing theory is that it started with the Maypole. Yes, that thing you see at most Renaissance festivals these days. The revelers dance and prance around a pole holding ribbons as they intertwine each other. (There are other sources that say ribbons were added later in centuries, but it's not important for the topic here.) In the defense of whichever historian concluded that as being the start of pole dancing, they are technically correct if you want to be literal about it. But that theory just bores me.

Another theory is pole dancing originated from the traveling circus. If you've ever seen that movie Carnivàle that was on HBO for two seasons, you'd see that just how scandalous the traveling circus was back in the day. The traveling circuses would have these tents for the exotic dancers to perform their art in front of of the horny townsfolk men. God bless artistic improvisation, because some dancer(s) thought they'd turn it up a notch and dance around the center pole of the tent, that held it up. Well, I guess that caught on, because pole started to work themselves into strip clubs and the like. Now that's the type of history I want to read about!

Now, there are some sources that say the fitness aspect originated from India, where men used a tall pole to display their physical abilities; something called Mallastambha. To me it looks like and Indian Cirque du Soleil act. Look it up, because I'm too tried to, and it really isn't as interesting as the whole circus-tent-pole story.

To be honest, the popularity and growth of interest for pole dancing has claims to many originators. Take your pick on what you feel is the birth of mainstream pole dancing/fitness. Regardless, it's in the media even more these days, and there's no stopping the surge of popularity of the sport/art.

In the next blog, I'll try discuss the origin of Men on the pole.