I've been dancing both roles since before I started calling. I
remember dancing once with David Cantieni at Spring Weekend in the
80s, and women getting mad at us because we should have danced with
them... And, I started using "Men" and "Women" almost when I started
to call.
I used to say, "Anyone can ask anyone to dance, men can ask women,
women can ask men, men can ask men, and women can ask women. You
should try as many of these as possible." Then my dance community,
Santa Barbara, CA, received a letter about me saying that at a dance
in Santa Maria, a little, quite conservative town north west of
Santa Barbara. The letter noted that some people left when I said
that. After that, on further reflection--for the time and place--I
felt the letter writer was correct. I didn't want to drive away
homophobic people, though I wanted people to feel comfortable
dancing with anyone.
But Read W., well, I'm from California, and he's from Massachusetts.
Things might have been different back here, rather than out east,
since we are the "left coast"...
~erik hoffman
Oakland, ca
On 1/21/2016 5:33 PM, Read Weaver via
Callers wrote:
I expect at the time you made the change from "ladies" to
"women," very few men would have considered dancing with another
man, and those who did would have faced confusion at best, and
hostility from some--I speak from my own experience. As that has
changed, so has the language. Sorry if you think that's something
to sigh about.
Read Weaver
Jamaica Plain, MA