SM: I took the class once, and my instructor said that the S Factor is a big girl’s club.
Sheila: When you take the class and you fall as in love with it as you will, nothing will stop you from trying to give this gift to other women because you just feel so good. You feel like “Oh my God, that’s why my ass sticks out! Oh, that’s why I have hips, they’re supposed to circle.” Then you just want every woman on the planet to do it. And you start to see women as not a threat, but as sisters.

SM: Do a lot of women strip at home?
Sheila: I had a woman who came here to learn how to strip for her husband’s 40th birthday. Three years later she’s never danced for him. She’s at level seven, and she’s like “I’m just not ready.” It doesn’t have to be sexual unless we intend to use it that way. So when women understand how good it feels just to stretch and stick their butt out and stick their breasts out and not “play” sexy, it’s like “Oh my God, sexy isn’t something I can do. Sexy is something I either am or am not.”

SM: Did you receive criticism in the beginning?
Sheila: Oh yeah, I still do. Not understanding, [people] had an idea from a male point of view of the class. If they came and took the class they would immediately see it from a female point of view and they’d think it’s great.

SM: I didn’t get it until I actually swung around the pole. I walked in and thought “I’m so not a sexpot, this is weird.” And then the minute we start stretching it’s like...
Sheila: “I’m a sexpot, I really am beautiful.”