Debators offer pole dancing lessons

A renowned debating society at Britain's Cambridge University said on Monday it would offer pole dancing tuition to members, in a building more used to the presence of international statesmen.

The Cambridge Union Society said female students would be offered lessons in the sensuous dance more often associated with strip clubs than the historic chambers of one of the world's top universities.

Lessons would be given in the Blue Room at the union's building, which is more commonly used for debates, said the society.

The organisation has welcomed countless world leaders in the almost 200 hundred years it has existed, but now also puts on a range of other activities. Speakers to have addressed students include wartime British prime minister Winston Churchill, former United States president Theodore Roosevelt and India's first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru.

A Cambridge Union spokeswoman defended the move, saying there was "nothing degrading" about it. "We are of the opinion that classes like these are a way of empowering women, as well as being a fantastic way to exercise and have fun together with other women," she said.

"If an intelligent, independent woman wishes to learn a particular form of dance in respectable surroundings, we see nothing degrading in that."

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