“I hated looking in the mirror”
Plus-sized Pole Dancers On What It Means To Be Sexy
48-year-old Kellie Koh proving that there is no age nor size barrier to pole dancing and feeling sexy.
Why, in an age of sexual equality, diversity, and liberation, do we still think of eroticism as something immoral? Of plus-sized bodies as unsexy, unsightly, or shameful?
Kellie Koh, a 48-year-old pole dancer who used to weigh 85 KG, notes
“I’ve always felt sexy regardless of my size. But people think women … should do certain things and dress in a certain way.”
“My daughter had to write a composition entitled ‘What Does Your Mother Do For Fun?’,” Kellie begins, and we erupt in laughter even before she gets to the good part. After we collect our senses, Kellie continues, “She wrote this whole thing about how her mother is a pole dancer. So I got calls from parents.”
“‘Oh, I understand you’re a pole dancer,’” they asked worriedly.
“I replied, ‘Ya, it’s a sport, you should come and join!'”
“‘Are you sure?’ they questioned.”
“After that, I had to explain to my child, ‘Listen, pole dancing is a sport. You get stronger, you embrace your body, you dress up in nice clothes, you role play.’”
But Kellie didn’t really need to defend pole dancing to her daughter. The children were, in fact, impressed by her daughter’s depiction of her.
“The kids don’t associate pole dancing with strip bars. Only the adults do. To [the kids], it’s only a dance.”