I am back in the ass-crack-of-dawn yoga class, which is not nearly as painful as the December one was, because the light comes earlier and my car isn’t covered in frost at 5:45 am anymore.

Something is happening with me and yoga. I think our relationship is getting more serious. I have been limping around the house a little bit, and Companion says, “Are you okay?” And I have to say, really quickly, “I just walked into a door! I’m such a klutz.” But yoga loves me and always apologizes later, and buys me some jewelery that less than half the bling falls out of.

When I first started, I thought yoga was nice and friendly, stretchy-stretchy lay on the floor business. And now I realize that, like the Internet, Yoga is Serious Business. The underside of my ribs hurt like they have been hit with a stick. Damn, yoga. I thought we were cool.

Yoga Goal: Give birth to own head by July.

In Other News: The My Humpsfication of Popular Culture

I am slaving away here (okay, not right this second) entering auction items that have come flooding in at the last minute. This morning, as I was munching on a piece of orange and trying not to drip on my borrowed school laptop, I came across an item that pulled me up short. Someone has donated a stripping pole class “party” to the auction for ten women.

My first, knee-jerk response was “ew.” I sat and thought about it for a minute, and tried to get a little more rational about it than that. The description did say that it was private, and that there would be no spectators (other than your female classmates). But it was still bothering me.

I feel like the whole stripperaerobics and pole class phenomenon is part of the Pussycat Dolls and “My Humps” deal. (And I will be the first to loudly proclaim that I love that weirdo Fergie.) But I feel like I can boil this clusterfuck down into one statement: “Hey, look at me! It is empowering me to show you my tweeter!”

I’m not sure that it is. I think, as Zuzu says more eloquently here, maybe people are just just finding new ways to make you feel okay about showing your tweeter.

I am mostly certain that no tweeters will be on display in this pole-dancing class, but it still bugs me somehow. Part of it’s certainly the whole it’s-not-a-male (and sometimes female)-spectator-sport, it’s-empowerment aspect. But there’s something else, too. This item is going up for bid at a school auction. And, HANG ON, sit down, I am not going to that WHAT ABOUT TEH CHILDRENS place. I hate that place. It gives me the flibbertigibbets.

Where I am going with this, is that TEH CHILDRENS have mothers, many of whom will be at this party, since they are the ones invested in the school. It is likely that a mother will win this one. Many of these women who can afford private school and are breeding are also married to or with men, often the fathers of the children. In fact, the pamphlet touts the pole parties as a great “mom’s getaway.”

You see where this is going, don’t you? Studies have repeatedly shown that married/cohabiting women do more housework than their single counterparts, and more than the men they live with. The stay at home moms I know do most of the childcare and make most of the decisions regarding the spawn (which makes sense, if one partner is spending more time with the children).

So we clean, and we take care of teh beebees, and now we have to haul our lumpy asses up onto stripper poles, too? And this is in the guise of “getting away from it all?” You know that when those women come home, most of their husbands are going to say, “WELL? What did you learn at class today, dear?”

I say NO. I respect the choices women make in regards to stripping. It’s a way to make money and support yourself and your children. It’s not a method of personal empowerment for me.

But I have a feeling this will be a popular item, in a way that something that might truly empower women (like a sex toy party, as Zuzu points out in the linked article above) might not be.