From The Archives: 6.11.2018

An article salvaged from the archives of my previous blog. Originally posted on June 11, 2018.

I am beginning to get annoyed with the fundamental sexism of ballroom dance. It's up there with figure skating, except the ballroom people freely admit that a plurality if not majority of the male dancers are gay. I went to a "gender-free" ballroom workshop this past weekend. This should not have to be a specific thing, and yet it is. When even Ye Ballroom Instructor, a dude who won titles dancing with other dudes, has to consciously remember to say "lead" and "follow" rather than "he" and "she", the gender essentialism must be pretty fucking entrenched.

I lead whenever I am given the choice. I am not making any kind of political statement or asserting any kind of gender identity. I lead because it's easier for me, and I have more fun. There are so far three whole people on planet Earth that I can follow to any useful degree. With everyone else, it is a long frustrating sequence of having to tell my brain to cut that shit out, without actually knowing what shit that is, because frankly I am so much better-suited to leading that I can't tell when I'm crossing the line between "keeping myself from falling" to "leading the dance". If you've ever busted your dominant hand and had to spend a few weeks doing everything with the incompetent one, then you have experienced the same kind of aggravated clumsiness.

The only place I am routinely given this choice is at events run by Ye Ballroom Instructor. I mentioned this to him once, and his response was 'yeah that's how it goes'. I'm just like, does this not bother you? Even a little? Judging from the results of the workshop, I can both lead and follow him just fine, so at least there's that.

I'm told there are female leads in the local lindy hop community. They show up in borderline-drag and still apparently have to get very pointed about asserting it. The other (ex-competition) dancer who co-taught the workshop complained that always leading meant never getting to do all the pretty spins. So apparently I'm not a complete space alien.

I've considered finding myself a nice lesbian bar to practice in, but I'm afraid that would end badly. I get hit on enough in dance clubs where you're explicitly not supposed to do that on the dance floor, can't imagine how many noses would get out of joint if I tried to just go dancing in places where people do hook up. I'm not even sure it would work -- for all I know, I'd run into the same problem there, just framed as "butch" vs "femme" instead.