Soooo, let me get this straight. It’s ok to march around in a bikini and high heels on a stage on national television if you are competing for a pageant title. It’s also ok to pose in lingerie for the pageant. But getting on a stage in a tank top and heels and dancing to win a competition that deems you sexy is completely inappropriate. I mean insert a stripper pole and some sensuality into a picture and all of a sudden, a scandal is brewing. I don’t get it. I really, really do not get it.
I will be honest: I’ve never been a fan of beauty pageants. They seem a little forced to me, a little fake. I suppose the same could be said of certain strip clubs and even certain pole dancing studios. But I find the picture of Rima Farikh on the pole a hundred times more genuine and interesting than the one of her in her bathing suit. And I’m not referring to the fact that her legs are slightly splayed open either. I’m referring to the fact that there is emotion and a feeling of joy in her face and her body. She is letting that naughty temptress part of herself come out to play and she is having fun doing it. This is a woman who takes great pleasure in her body and in her beauty. And isn’t that part of what the whole pageant thing is about? So why is it ok for her to enjoy herself on a pageant stage but not on a pole dancing stage? Because the second you cross over from a perceived “good girl” wholesome, display of your beauty that has just a whisper of sexiness to it into an overt display of sensuality that makes no bones about what you are doing and how much fun you are having doing it, you are perceived as a lesser woman, a bad girl, a whore.
Some people would argue that we should just do away with the whole thing: pageants, strip clubs and pole dancing classes. I disagree. The solution for women is not to banish our bodies and our beauty. The solution is to determine how we can make the choice to display the grace and sensuality of our bodies, in all shapes and sizes, without being labeled bimbos or bad girls. Perhaps one of the biggest disappointments in all of this hype about Rima Fakih is how much people overlook or simply dismiss the possibility that these women enjoy sharing their feminine sexual energy with the world. It’s for fun and for pleasure. And that perhaps there is nothing inherently wrong or misguided about that. [book id='' /]
