When Honey Hairston’s father passed away in 2023, the weight of grief nearly overwhelmed her. Determined not to let heartbreak derail her, she clung to her faith and her drive for personal transformation. In her search for a method to work through her loss, she discovered pole dancing.
The exercise became the perfect outlet for her to express her passion for physical exercise with one catch —- she wanted to look good and wear heels while getting her workout.
“Dancing after that is kind of what helped me deal with the grief and the emotions of having my dad pass,” said Hairston, a 2024 counseling psychology alumna. “And so I was like, ‘Nah, I really should bring this to other people who are experiencing many other types of emotions.’ Because just being in your 20s, some things and trying to navigate the world is [a lot], and all those emotions can kind of get stored up in your body somewhere.”
Just months after her father passed, Hairston founded TemPole Fitness, the university’s first student organization dedicated to the unique form of exercise. When she graduated in May 2024, Hairston passed the torch to current TemPole president, Sam Ellis, a sophomore psychology major.
TemPole meets every Friday at 6 p.m. at Seduction Dance Studio on Girard Avenue near 27th Street, less than a 10-minute drive from Main Campus. Lydia Parker, studio owner and instructor, leads TemPole’s weekly lessons with expertise from her 15 years of dancing industry experience.
Ellis says the class reaches its maximum capacity of 11 attendees almost every week, but the club has a membership of more than 100 students. The current class price is set at $12.50 but is expected to drop to a tentative $7.70 next semester after receiving funding from student activities.
With most pole dancing classes in Philadelphia reaching nearly triple these prices, Ellis takes pride in hosting an accessible outlet for students of any skill level to improve on the pole.
“The large majority of our membership are complete beginners,” Ellis said. “So watching them over the course of the semester go from no pole dance experience to doing all these different tricks, going upside down, hanging by the pole, I’m so proud of them.”
Ellis underwent this same transformation when they first took dancing for a spin. The first time they saw their instructor seamlessly hook their legs around the pole and ignite all muscles to pull off a move, they couldn’t imagine their body being able to emulate their instructor’s graceful tricks. But when Ellis stepped up the pole and imitated the movements with kindred grace, the confidence that followed kept them entranced.
Ellis is well aware of the sex work stigma associated with pole dancing but doesn’t let that impact their favorite form of exercise, they said.
“It’s a great workout,” Ellis said. “It’s a beautiful art form, and it is really empowering to students and to dancers. So yes, there is a stigma. I will say that our members and our students, we get it. They understand that there are so much more to pole dance than sex work.”
Allison Monroe followed a friend to TemPole Fitness last semester. Learning the ways of the rod from Parker helped build Monroe’s self-confidence, she said. By the spring, she wanted to give back to the club that had given her a fuller sense of herself.
Monroe, a sophomore biochemistry major, became the club’s vice president this semester, but quickly began to worry about what everyone else would think of her. As the grandchild of devout conservative Catholics, Monroe knew how the outside world saw pole dancing. Once upon a time, she shared that same stance.
“Only strippers do it,” she recalled thinking before that first class. “You have to be sexy for it to work. The only form of dancing is erotic dancing.”
Of course, Monroe worried that employers, friends — family, even — would have the same hang-ups she did, and more. Yet she also recalled having her preconceptions snapped from day one: Parker said Monroe, like many of the college-aged dancers she instructs, had a woefully incomplete sense of pole dancing when she started.
Yes, Parker explained, pole dancing featured red-light district elements. But much of the craft called for choreography akin to ballet, even.
“What [the students] used to kind of giggle at, when I would do it like, ‘All right, let’s try this.’ They would kind of laugh and joke,” Parker said. “Those laughs and jokes turn into hair whips and arched backs and hip rolls and their face. They start to become more serious about it, and that’s how I know, okay, the confidence is coming in. The shorts get shorter because it’s like, ‘I feel badass.’”
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