I was pregnant with our daughter Maya the first time someone warned me about The Pole. I’d just finished speaking on a panel about the state of black America, which the crowd of mostly young black professionals was convinced wasn’t too good. Afterward, the father of a middle-school-aged daughter introduced himself and offered this advice to me, the parent-to-be: “Just keep her off The Pole.”

Everyone within earshot nodded. I nodded too, because I understood his warning. As the author of Ghetto Nation: A Journey into the Land of Bling and the Home of the Shameless (Doubleday, 2007), I’ve spent a lot of time thinking and writing about the effect of hypersexualized, consumerist culture on his daughter, my daughter, and all of us.

Most parents are fed up with the barrage of music videos dripping with overly sexual images—often lifted from the world of strip clubs and porn. Many of us know that The Pole is shorthand for “ghetto”—a mindset that no longer refers to where you live, but to how you live. I believe it embraces our worst behavior, manifested in the bizarre notion that stripping is an empowering exercise.

But even as we bemoan its impact on our children, many parents apparently want to live by The Pole. These days, pole dancing is celebrated by the mommy set at tony suburban workshops, as well as by rappers, the Hollywood elite (see celebrities like Kate Hudson, Natalie Portman, and Teri Hatcher, who showed off her moves on Oprah), and, of course, erotic dancers. Carmen Electra’s line of exercise videos (including Aerobic Striptease, Fit to Strip, and The Lap Dance) have hit No. 1 on Amazon’s fitness DVD section. Suburban Mc-Mansions are being outfitted with home poles, reports the New York Times. And parents hosting over-the-top teen parties rent mini-poles. When did it become acceptable for 13-year-olds—or their moms—to imitate topless dancers?

The saturation of these hypersexualized, materialistic “ghetto” media images does not bode well for our daughters. In just one study, black girls ages 14 to 18 who watched an average of 21 hours of music videos a week were twice as likely to have multiple sexual partners than were girls who watched fewer videos; after a year, nearly 38 percent had acquired an STD.

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