Parade watchers lined up for Jacksonville, North Carolina’s annual holiday parade found themselves watching a horror unfold this weekend: Confident, happy women using their bodies in athletic ways. Also, sparkly leggings.
They represented the students of Studio 360, a fitness studio that offers classes, including aerobics, yoga, and pole dancing.
“As it got closer and I realized what it was and saw a lady performing on a pole in a provocative way, I had to turn the heads of my five-year-old and three-year-old to keep them from seeing it,” a youth pastor told JDNews. “A family oriented parade is not somewhere that parents should have to worry about their children being exposed to what they were doing on that float.” He also said he hopes the Jacksonville-Onslow Chamber of Commerce keeps these abundantly joyous women out of his town’s parades forever. What if his kids have to see women owning their bodies like that again? Horrific.
Another parade watcher told WITN, “I don’t agree with that type of pole dance in a family parade, in a military parade… You know, this is something for our community.”
Pissing people off wasn’t their goal, but it’s a side effect Studio 360 head instructor and manager Brianna Owens says she’s fine with.
Offended townsfolk took their pitchforks to social media, telling the studio how terrible they are for this heinous float and calling the dancers names, including the children in the parade. “We put it out there yesterday. I couldn’t be more proud,” Owens told JDNews. “How they’re handling it now, with horrible comments about them and their children, they’re handling it tremendously.”
Fun fact: Jacksonville also hosts a beauty pageant whose website boldly proclaims in pink, “A Girl should be 2 things…” and you know what, I’m gonna stop ‘em there, because girls should stop listening immediately when they’re told what they should be.
