I was quite delighted, as I leafed through the Union termcard this week, to find that pole-dancing has been restored to their schedule. Their fortitude in resisting feminist pressure is laudable, and we must be thankful that freshers seeking training in this slippery vocation still have somewhere to direct their inquiries.

Presumably the good people who run the Union were strong enough to face the continued outrage of prominent women’s-rights campaigners heckling and hassling them. I envisioned eggs being thrown at the windows during session, or protestors from the rape crisis centre attending a class in burkas, in a deliberate violation of the dress code of fishnets and stilettos. Because, let’s face it, there was a disproportionate level of controversy about the classes.

Varsity itself became a forum for the debate. People seemed to think it was wrong that an institution like Cambridge, with a reputation for academic excellence, was not also setting a moral and social standard – pole-dancing classes being, I presume, tantamount to prostitution. Yet anyone who has ever spent five minutes in Cindies on a busy night will know this is sheer hypocrisy. Girls and boys not only grind drunkenly – with or without the aid of a pole – they also suck each other’s faces off in return for payment, albeit in alcoholic form. Others prefer to strip off on the stage of the ADC in the name of ‘art’. I wonder how many of those outraged protestors have ever felt compelled to participate, even against their better judgement?

At least taking a class gives you a new skill-set. It encouraged those who aspire to their own objectification to practice their abilities in a safe, alcohol-free environment – all the better to show off when you hit the club dance-floor, I suppose. It is an inevitable fact of life that in today’s competitive society, ‘sex appeal’ is still a valuable asset. It may not be fair, or right, but it is fact. ‘Good-looking’ people have been statistically proven to do better in the workplace, according to a study by the University of California, and subsequently reported in the Journal of Economic Psychology.

Researchers investigated three subject groups according to general perceptions of what is and is not attractive. Their different incomes were also considered in regards to the observations made as to their behaviour. They discovered that those they rated the most attractive make 12% more money than the less good-looking participants. The ‘moderately attractive’ earn seven per cent less than the beautiful ones.

They deduced that this was because they found it easier to generate co-operation among their co-workers: “Beautiful people tend to be in more successful teams because other team members are more co-operative in the presence of beautiful people.” It would be a Californian university. Apparently the panel managed to eliminate the potential explanation that the more successful were just more selfish. It is not entirely clear how.

But wait, there is some consolation. The researchers concluded: “The good news for those like Ugly Betty is that when the beautiful people are not pulling their weight, their good looks count against them. In those situations, the unattractive invariably come out as the winners.” No excuse, then, for slacking in supervisions: undoing those top buttons of your blouse is not going to help if you haven’t done your homework.

Anyway, I digress. To return once more to the abolition of pole-dancing, I say we keep up a vociferous campaign to ensure its continuance in the coming years. Our survival in this social and academic jungle depends on it. Perhaps, to placate the critics, the Union could start an equivalent men’s bare-knuckled boxing class or, even better, teach them to move their hips like Ricky Martin. Then at least no one would complain boringly about inequality.