Pole pas de deux

Pole pas de deux

Saturday, June 11, 2011

Male Pole Dancers and Dance Belts

A few days ago I was looking at keywords used in searches that lead people to my webpage. I was intrigued to find out that "dance belt" came up quite frequently. In fact someone searched using the string, "Do male pole dancers use dance belts?"

I'm male (last time I checked), I pole dance, and yes I wear a dance belt. Before we get to the reasons I need to explain a dance belt for the non-ballet people.

Male ballet dancers wear tights. Now there is no way to hide that pesky "bulge" in all its splendor when you wear tights. Nobody (especially the female friends of Congressmen) wants to see the "bulge" much less the amount of detail that is available to the eye if a man is wearing tights and no underwear. This leads us to the next issue. The dance community does want to see the male posterior and those muscular legs. So how does one show off the lower half of the male anatomy without showing Mr. Happy or visible underwear lines?

The answer lies in the dance belt. A dance belt is a glorified, super uncomfortable, thong for guys. Yes, long before Stephanie Seymour graced the Victoria's Secret catalog in thongs, male ballet dancers were cramming their "junk" into dance belts.

Now everyone who reads this blog knows that I pole danced first and then took up ballet. One of the first things you learn in pole (sometimes painfully) is that skin sticks you to the pole. The more skin contact you have on the pole, the easier it is to defy gravity. I learned early that if I wanted to learn the Superman move I couldn't wear shorts that hung down below my knees. The answer I found was the compromise between the much maligned Speedo bikini swimsuit and the next step up in coverage that comes with the "boy short" style of swimsuit used by competitive swimmers.

I blissfully danced for almost two years without much thought to how my "lines" looked when I was pole dancing. Then last December Amanda Campbell, a Denver area photographer came to the studio where I was dancing and photographed a charity event where I danced. While I was looking at the pictures of my dance I couldn't help but notice that my endowment was quite visible. It was especially noticeable when I was inverted.

The next time I pole danced, my dance belt went on before the boy shorts. No more bulge and I could still get the right amount of skin on the dance pole.

The downside of this story is that a dance belt  is the male ballet dancers penance. The women have pointe shoes and bloody toes. The guys are all being cut in half by the g-string that is stuck up you know where. I can't speak for Steven, Dominic or male strippers but this middle aged guy wears a dance belt. When in doubt, less is more.

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