What's worse, what's setting up the kids more for relationship problems

Parents allowing/encouraging their 11 year olds to work out on a pole,

or

Schools providing those 11 year olds with birth control without telling notifying the parents, even if the parents would want to know, or don't consent for the kids to have birth control?

I suspect the number of parents allowing their kids to pole dance is a very small number, but my guess too, is that the parents know and consent.

Handing out BC pills to 11 year olds with no parental consent seems very suspect. These kids cannot be considered either informed patients or informed signatories to a contract.

Broadsheet wants to hype the pole dancing issue but won't talk about the parental issues involving BC pills in elementary schools.

And Broadsheet Feminists(TM) can't decide from one day or another whether stripping is empowerful or just another patriarchal oppressed group.

But Broadsheet Feminists(TM) do claim to be sex-positive feminists, which is why they think that handing out BC pills to elementary school kids is A-OK.

male urinals can be packed in, so if you make this change women will have FEWER stalls available. Is this a price they are willing to pay?

I wrote an article on pole-dancing a while back which allowed me to try it out and it was super fun - like being a kid on a jungle gym again. There was a real sense of freedom and play, right until we got to the part where you're supposed to lick the pole provocatively. Ew.

But regardless of whether you're swinging around the thing like a kid or dry-humping it like a stripper, pole dancing has a very clearly defined sexual connotation in our culture.

It's completely inappropriate and messed up to teach little girls pole-dancing. What's next? Flash-your-coochie-for-the-paparazzi lessons?

The Dutch have the lowest rates of teen pregnancy/STDs/abortions et cetera, because of their extensive sex education and availability of contraception. I'm not sure what ages are involved, but the point is, it works.

This is ridiculous. If you are the 1 out of a thousand or whatever people who doesn't have a ding dong or a coochie box than you just get to pick whichever bathroom has the shortest line. Forcing everyone else to squeeze into one room is stupid.

Well when you add up the abstinence that leads to anal sex and the christian bdsm thing a while back, ya I can see it. You spend your life being almost forcibly repressed and denying the existence of your sexuality, then you marry a guy who is secretly gay, I can see how that'd make a chick a fuh-REAK!

Hubcap halo!

So - are boys and girls doing the "strength and flexibility" pole dancing training? IF it is just girls - guess that says something.

This is too damned creepy. Are the kids going to dress as strippers too? I mean, that is what pole dancing came from, right?

No ballet dancing bar or mirrored walls come from the porn industry. Both boob jobs and pole dancing come from the world of stripping.

Who thought this was a good idea?

Double GRRRRRR...

Chefs can be hired by a restaurant. In Austin, several restaurants have hired award winning chefs, so the chef does not automatically need to open his/her own place.

Chefs can also work their way up from a small establishment to a larger place.

Chefs can also get investor money from other women. Women control more than half of money in this country. Quit sitting on it and invest in your sisters.

With the exception of Alice Waters, maybe female chefs have nothing original or creative to offer the market. That is probably the REAL answer.

Which is worse?

Pole-dancing for 11 year olds, or a school giving out birth control to those 11 year olds?

I know which one Broadsheet has not mentioned.

When I was in junior highschool in Minneapolis in the 80s, a few kids were already having sex. There was a pregnant girl in my class. Even then I thought: we are badder than the last generation and it's cool. But I wondered what it would be like in ten years? If kids would be having sex even younger? And, even then, I knew if I became a parent I would be horrified if that became true.

I've often wondered where it would all stop, because it's so natural for kids to want to out misbehave the older generation. So in the future will we argue about full frontal nudity in the junior high holiday pageant? Oral sex in the high school play? Kama Sutra electives for sophomores?

Maybe women in sheer minidresses at the office are just a few seasons away. What a gorgeous, distracting sight. I can barely walk around New York without smacking into light posts from looking now.

I consider myself a monogamous libertine. I think people should celebrate their sexuality however they want at pretty much whatever age they want, as long as it's not adults preying on kids.

But if I was a parent I would be half-prude. I would not let my 13 year old daughter take pole dancing classes.

Yes, pole dancing for pre-teens is creepy. Jon Benet creepy.

Most dancing stages also have a horizontal bar and a mirror at the back.

Can we ban ballet while we’re at it?

What is pole dancing?

When feminist-lawyer-mothers started suing everyone in existence because their little rapist to be got a booboo.

Blah blah blah, and just last week all you cuties at Feministing and Feministe were talking about the research that said you were better in bed (when it didn't say anything like that.)

Is that supposed to be persuasive argument in general?