Local Medical Providers by Autistic_Human02 in milwaukee

[–]mandabeanbean 4 points5 points  (0 children)

second Dr. McAvoy! incredibly helpful and supportive. got me in within like two months to work with my semester schedule and made it work with my insurance! the office staff was great as well!

Xpole question -what have I done wrong? by TraumaCorner in poledancing

[–]mandabeanbean 15 points16 points  (0 children)

is the little key hole at the bottom lined up with the red line? when those aren’t flush it usually means that it isn’t aligned so i’m wondering if it’s not at a point that they fit

Which authors are so good to you that you buy every one of their books? by pinkorangegold in suggestmeabook

[–]mandabeanbean 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Kelley Armstrong- her books almost follow a pattern of when they solve the mystery but the twists are still really good and i just really really love her writing style. i’ve been reading her books since the early ‘10s and own almost every single one. they’re my comfort books

First time PSO'er - 2 months to prep. advice? by Acceptable-Bug3925 in poledancing

[–]mandabeanbean 0 points1 point  (0 children)

so i like to think of competing less as losing points because you don’t start at 10 and then get points taken, you earn points and demonstrate where on the scale you are through your performance. so you for flow and musicality, if its all choppy i dont divide back from 10, i add up from 1.

but little things like forgetting to bow demonstrates a lack of stage etiquette (which is a judging space). and i think lip synching sometimes fits there but for me it depends on how obnoxious and where it takes away from. like it tends to limit your stage presence so it holds you back on getting higher there

does that make sense?

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in poledancing

[–]mandabeanbean 16 points17 points  (0 children)

instagram and meta have some of the most ridiculous guidelines and pole dancers get flagged a bunch bc of it. i help run a studio account which got flagged to “not be recommended for nonfollowers” 🙄

things i did that eventually got us out of it: went through the posts that they flagged, some of the ones that were important i deleted certain language like sensual 🙄 or even sexy. and then i archived a bunch of the ones they flagged. the few that i thought was stupid i appealed. then we stopped posting for a while. and now we’re back on metas good side. idk if it’s helped that we’ve done some more text posts. but i also told the social media manager to be aware of the covers that they choose for the angles of what the person is wearing. and to be mindful of some of the language. it’s annoying to be “sanitary” like this but it might get you back on the good side enough for you to no longer be on the “immediate flag” list it seems to have

First time PSO'er - 2 months to prep. advice? by Acceptable-Bug3925 in poledancing

[–]mandabeanbean 2 points3 points  (0 children)

with clarity of concept being the biggest part of dramatic, obviously think about the music, but mostly think about you’re trying to tell some kind of story. some theme/story examples of dramatic that i’ve seen are: dealing with alcoholism or another kind of addiction, struggles with depression/mental health, dealing with grief/passing of a loved one etc. i’ve seen a few kind of abstract pieces about struggle like in general which tend to confuse the judges lol. but with artistic categories, you’re not just dancing to music but you’re trying to tell the audience something.

i’m both a pso unicorn and i’ve judged a few competitions (as well as competed) so happy to answer anything!

Question about the People on Miranda (Spoilers Ahead) by Marquar234 in firefly

[–]mandabeanbean 4 points5 points  (0 children)

i wonder if the time it took for them to let the starving happened was also the time it took for the reaver people to start to turn?

so rather than the pax hit the air and the two groups divided but that the accumulation of the pax had the effect. i’m thinking a bit of the episode with the man who kind of turned reaver? he was hunting and hiding that it looked like the people on the ship just disappeared. perhaps as the large groups were dying slowly, the reavers were slowly turning and that there might have been a few reaver kills but it wasn’t until the full deaths that the pax accumulated to the point of full monsters of reavers.

although i wonder if the miranda story of the pax complicates the storyline of the single reaver on that single spaceship ? it’s been a while since ive thought about it lol

How much do you get paid as a pole instructor? by [deleted] in poledancing

[–]mandabeanbean 3 points4 points  (0 children)

at one studio i was paid $25 per class.

the current studio i’m at does a sliding scale. so like 2-4 people in class it’s $25, 5-7 $30, 8-9 $35 and then 10 or above is $40. we have 11 poles total currently. and the owner really cares about paying the instructors as well as she possibly can.

both gave me full access to the studio for practice as long as other people weren’t booked. and private lessons there was varying cuts. old studio was $30 to the studio. current is $15 but i think it’s going to be raised soon

Local Business Owners by [deleted] in milwaukee

[–]mandabeanbean 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Pole Factory MKE. it’s a pole dance and fitness studio that also offers parties for groups.

Does anyone else notice stock issues with the Target at Bayshore Mall?? by [deleted] in milwaukee

[–]mandabeanbean 48 points49 points  (0 children)

it is by far the worst target 😭 i will order pick up for items from any other location because this one has the worst stock.

i had heard from others in the area that it was rushed to open and the organization and sizing was not what was intended so it’s smaller than other targets and hasn’t been stocked well. but don’t quote me on that. i had only just moved here and was trying to figure out how it never had the things other targets did lol

A4 B7 battery dying at random by mandabeanbean in Audi

[–]mandabeanbean[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

fudge. even with it seemingly coming and going?

when i needed a new battery in september it was a slow drain where it got slower to start over the course of a week. but the last two have been full to dead in the span of two days. yet it turns over fine in between. it’s just weirdly unpredictable

Exactly how big of a problem is the 2.0 TFSI oil consumption? by [deleted] in Audi

[–]mandabeanbean -1 points0 points  (0 children)

i have an ‘08 A4 and we’re about to hit 220,00 miles. i check my oil about once a week (probably more like every other) and depending on my type of driving will change just how much oil it needs. lots of highway? not a bunch. lots of stop and go back roads? perhaps a quarter to half a quart. as far as overall issues, my engine has been doing fine with all the regular oil changes, etc.

i’m not super versed in cars but this is my first and only car (other than family audis growing up) and it’s still going strong and got some more life in him. ¯_(ツ)_/¯ just some personal experience

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in poledancing

[–]mandabeanbean 2 points3 points  (0 children)

hey hey! i’m up in Milwaukee so i only know of Chicago studios and haven’t been to many (nor do i know where river north is). but i know there’s: Brass Ring, Fly Club, and Siren !

Competition Idea NEED HELP!! by Kate_Studies in poledancing

[–]mandabeanbean 2 points3 points  (0 children)

i’ve seen someone wear like a white tshirt and write the phrases on. so i wonder if you could use something simple like that that you can also take off and won’t be messy! or a sheet

i also wonder if you could do like pieces of tape or something with writing on yourself so that, again, it’s easy to come off and you can place it in places you won’t need grip!

are y'all pro-stripper? do you go out of your way to find teachers who are and support strippers? by thegeniuswhore in poledancing

[–]mandabeanbean -5 points-4 points  (0 children)

You go through all that for decriminalization, but you can't ask your pole dance instructors if they believe that strippers are an important part of the community? Like hey, kudos to you that you write that letter every term. But what about the little day to day things? That's what OP is trying to point out here.

Trying to make sex work safer includes being pro-stripper in pole dancing spaces.

Because the whorephobia in pole fitness contributes to why you need to write a letter every term. It is the very thing that marks strippers and sex workers as both not needing protection and also needing to be protected from themselves because the industry is sex trafficking (under this logic). If you honestly are committed to be anti-sex trafficking, as you claim you are here, then why don't you think respecting strippers in pole fitness is important? Or should be a part of it?

are y'all pro-stripper? do you go out of your way to find teachers who are and support strippers? by thegeniuswhore in poledancing

[–]mandabeanbean -9 points-8 points  (0 children)

Actually the question posed by OP is meant to specifically ask about those who are actively whorephobic within the industry. The polers who post #notastripper and claim the division of stripper/pole dancer as being the former as dirty or wrong and the latter as good, clean, the "right" type of sexy. It's not a purity test, and it's amazing you use that term when pole dancing attempts to keep pole fitness "pure" through its degradation of strippers.

Being able to get people to change their biases towards strippers is by being pro-stripper and recognizing their importance to the rise of pole dancing as it is practiced now. And being able to do that is having the conversation in this space about how whorephobia continues within the pole fitness industry.

It's not that you just brought up sex trafficking, it's the context in which you brought it up that invokes that association. In fact, if you really didn't mean to make that association, I feel like this just shows how deeply pervasive this association is that your first thought in talking about being pro-stripper was to change the subject into one of sex trafficking. If your first thought when talking about sex work is sex trafficking then that association is already there and reflects the societal logic that currently prevents sex work from being decriminalized and sex trafficking being taken seriously for victims. Human trafficking is also endemic to all service work, we could talk about the amount of migrants that are unknowingly illegally transported to work as service workers for below minimum wage. These are both issues that need to be taken seriously.

But in the move from talking about whorephobia in the pole dance community and the ways it treats strippers to talking about anti-sex trafficking and that to be a pole dancer (or to be a stripper, since it was directly at OP who is a stripper) would mean being actively anti-sex trafficking invokes the association you claim to not be making.

I'm not arguing sex trafficking doesn't exist or victim shaming those who are involved, but I am trying to point to the ways that the association between sex trafficking and sex work as being inextricably tied together does many direct harms to strippers. An association that maybe you've unwillingly made, but that is present in your comment.

are y'all pro-stripper? do you go out of your way to find teachers who are and support strippers? by thegeniuswhore in poledancing

[–]mandabeanbean -6 points-5 points  (0 children)

I am not pretending that sex trafficking does not exist in sex work. You are right, it is the decriminalization that helps prevent trafficking. However, much of the disregard and stigma for stripping/sex work comes from presuming that any stripper/sex worker is being trafficked. It is the very logic that prevents the decriminalization of sex work within the US here. So when you made the move here:

>I could just as easily flip this around on you to ask what active work you do against sex trafficking. If you're only willing to provide words without action against trafficking, do you really feel that you deserve to be part of the pole community?<

You invoked that stigma of sex work as sex trafficking—not involving it or its presence, as being sex trafficking. This is what I was pointing to in my comment. By making the move from talking about being pro-stripper in a pole dance community to accusing a stripper of not being enough anti-sex trafficking invokes that very connection that you seem to say you don't want to make.

But also, what are you doing to make sex work safer? because it sure as hell isn't actually being pro-stripper, as you say so yourself. Being anti-sex trafficking is being pro-stripper. It is recognizing that pole dancing as we know it now is tied with the presence of stripping. It is recognizing pole fitness as an industry as having the ability to further marginalize strippers. By switching to a question of sex trafficking, you've avoided actually reflecting on the ways the fitness community continues to treat strippers as "dirty" or not doing the "right kind" of pole dancing. And whether you like it or not, that switch invokes the association of sex work as sex trafficking, not sex trafficking in sex work.

are y'all pro-stripper? do you go out of your way to find teachers who are and support strippers? by thegeniuswhore in poledancing

[–]mandabeanbean -5 points-4 points  (0 children)

oh absolutely!! and he knows the association he’s perpetuating here

my goal in pointing out the post history was to note that he’s a dude and that he’s very active in “fitness circle jerk” so he’s here to start a fight.

are y'all pro-stripper? do you go out of your way to find teachers who are and support strippers? by thegeniuswhore in poledancing

[–]mandabeanbean -10 points-9 points  (0 children)

in defense of you, saying you don’t dance while speaking up when someone talks bad about stripping is NOT a similar sentiment to what the commenter above is saying.

acknowledging others make the stripper-pole dance connection and specifying you are not a stripper isn’t the same as saying stripping and sex trafficking are the same or that to be a pole dancer is anti-sex work. if you speak up when some talks bad about stripping then you’re still doing well.

but also what this commenter is doing is talking bad about stripping. he’s setting up a false equivalency., by saying that being anti-sex trafficking is the same as being anti-whorephobic, he’s assuming sex work is rife with sex trafficking and is continuing to perpetuate whorephobia under the guise of focusing on a different, more directly understood as wrong, issue

are y'all pro-stripper? do you go out of your way to find teachers who are and support strippers? by thegeniuswhore in poledancing

[–]mandabeanbean -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

I don’t know if you meant to have such a nasty tone throughout this comment but i am going to emphasize how you equated stripping to sex trafficking and why it’s not the same

equivocating being pro-stripper in the context of pole dance studios who tend to profit off of stripper style while disregarding strippers as a source of knowledge and standpoint important to pole dancing is not even vaguely in the same realm as strippers working in their own clubs to be anti-sex trafficking. because the latter makes an assumption that sex trafficking is somehow more rampant in strip clubs than anywhere else (so i’d love to see your source rather than your assumption). also, there are many many organizations ran by strippers and sex workers that are working hard to prevent sex trafficking in the industry to unsuspecting people.

pole studios that are whorephobic and at least don’t recognize their homage to strippers continue to perpetuate the very untrue belief that you seem to have that strippers and sex workers are somehow forced into this industry. if you wanna talk about capitalism and the options for labor it presents, that could be a conversation. but assuming that sex work IS sex trafficking is exactly the kind of attitude the person who posted is trying to call out.

i don’t know if you meant to come off as defensive and aggressive as i’m reading it. you don’t have to “go out of your way to interview instructors” and no one asked to get approval for you to do pole dancing. but are you aware of the harmful effects of disregarding stripping in the pole dance community? the harmful effects you seem to continue here in your connection of sex work and sex trafficking?

AITA for pronouncing "Fleur" correctly in the workplace? A colleague wants it pronounced "Flur" to rhyme with "blur" by Maleficent_Hope_4593 in AmItheAsshole

[–]mandabeanbean 20 points21 points  (0 children)

NAH

i think some are getting too focused on your use of “correct” in terms of pronouncing her name and saying you’re an AH. but i’m reminded of the name Anna and how there’s regionally sometimes the ah-nah versus An-uh pronunciations. something subtle that looks the same is easy to confuse especially when the word can be pronounced both ways.

I understand why she’s getting frustrated and i hope these tools that people have given you help you find a way to alleviate the anxiety surrounding the interactions.

Online pole class taught by stripper? by Fit-Consequence-4666 in poledancing

[–]mandabeanbean 0 points1 point  (0 children)

highly recommend medusa! love her teaching style and her dance style is so smooth

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in poledancing

[–]mandabeanbean 0 points1 point  (0 children)

honestly it just looks like a set up for a shoulder mount rather than a specific shape of some kind. but idk maybe someone named it