This is a really interesting question! I've also certainly worried about this tension, especially in re: people's right to decline any dance. A friend of mine once described it in a nifty way: "you can always decline a dance" is consent 101. It's the basic lesson, and you really want folks (esp. the folks with societal conditioning against saying "no") to internalize it. After that is solid, though, you get to consent 201: "you can always say 'no', but there are all sorts of reasons you might say 'no', and it's worth thinking about where those feelings come from. Is it a matter of personal safety, or does this person not look like the people you usually socialize with, or...?"

I think my biggest follow-up question to you is: when you talk about wanting to empower people to say "yes", is this a need you've seen, or just think theoretically could exist? Even with the degree to which the dance community has started empowering people to say "no", the vast, vaaaast majority of people still do the twirls and still make eye contact, and I don't see people shrugging off those options just for the hell of it. So I guess I'm asking: what behavior are you seeing in these arenas that concerns you?

I will grant that declining dances is a thornier subject, because there ARE a bunch of folks in our community who people are less excited to dance with for some really unfair reasons (e.g. fat folks, disabled folks, etc.) This is definitely something we as a community need to talk about and address to make contra a welcoming space to all.

I know that my friend group tries very consciously to set examples of asking everyone to dance, and I've heard a good line (on SharedWeight?): "you never know who might give you your best dance of the evening." My personal check on myself (esp. at dance weekends, where I'm likely to be really excited about dancing with all my friends that I rarely see) is that I need to have at least one "mediocre" (quote unquote) dance per < day / session / etc. > -- which means I need to dance with someone who's less skilled, or with an unknown quantity/someone I might not otherwise dance with. (And then if they turn out to be a splendid dance partner, well, yay! I had better go ask someone else outside of my usual circle to dance.)

I also want to remind everyone that the burden of inclusivity lies not just on the ask-ees, but also -- maybe moreso? -- on the ask-ERs. Our concern should not JUST be "if we tell people (often women*) that when asked, they may say no, what if they say no to EVERYONE?" 1. Ask-ees (women) are not the gatekeepers of the contradance experience, but more importantly, 2. If we want to create an inclusive dance community, we also have to foster one where ask-ERs (often men, though decreasingly so) will ask everyone, regardless of age, size, gender, ability, etc.

* I imagine that the "empowerment to say no" disproportionately comes into play for women being asked to dance, so if we're worried about "being able to say 'no'" going "too far", that has some implicit gender behind it in my mind.

Final thought: we talk so much about how it's okay to say "no" because many of us -- especially women -- are so conditioned AGAINST saying "no". It would be a pretty cool problem to have, I think, if people felt comfortable enough advocating for their boundaries and physical limitations that we had to focus hard on empowering people to say "yes" again.

There are a bunch of (not necessarily organized) thoughts. Thanks for broaching this topic!

- Maia

On Fri, Sep 13, 2019 at 6:32 PM jim saxe via Callers <callers@lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:

In discussions among dance callers and organizers, online and off, a variety of topics come up from time to time that might be grouped under the heading of empowering people (especially new dancers) to say "No".  Some examples:

     * Assuring new dancers that it's ok to decline an invitation
       to dance as someone's partner, and that doing so doesn't
       oblige them to give a reason nor to sit out the dance.

     * Telling people that if they're not comfortable making eye
       contact, they can look at, for example, the forehead or
       ear of the person with whom they're swinging as a way to
       avoid getting dizzy from looking at the walls.

     * Teaching how to decline a partner's or neighbor's attempt
       to lead a twirl or other embellishment.

Without downplaying the importance of empowering people to say "No", I'd like to know if anyone has ideas about empowering people to say "Yes" (while still empowering them to say "No").  For example:

     * While I agree that nobody should feel compelled to dance
       with any particular partner, I think it's nice to be in a
       community where most dancers are comfortable dancing with
       a variety of partners and where a single person arriving
       with no regular partner of group of friends doesn't face
       the prospect of being an involuntary wallflower for most
       (or all) of the evening.

     * While I agree that nobody should feel required to make
       eye contact if they find it uncomfortable, I rather like
       dancing in a community where people generally do enjoy
       making more eye contact on the dance floor than they do
       with random passing strangers on the street. I wouldn't
       want to emphasize teaching avoidance of eye contact to
       point of developing into a community where everyone
       habitually looks at or past their partner's ear.  (And
       no, that doesn't mean I think it's ok for dancer A to
       gaze at dancer B as if he meant to fall through her eyes
       into her very soul while dancer B very obviously is not
       responding in kind.  [Stereotyped gendered pronouns
       intentional, but the same point applies with any other
       pair of pronouns.])

     * I've sometimes heard the action borrowed from "Petronella"
       described with words such as "move or spin one place to
       the right."  To me that seems to suggest that just walking
       to the next spot around the ring is the standard version
       of the figure and that spinning is an embellishment.  I'd
       rather suggest that the spin is standard and the leaving
       it out is an adaptation for those with limited mobility,
       energy, or balance.

Perhaps some of you can think of other examples.

When someone makes two remarks--call them P and Q--that seem to suggest different courses of action, it's tempting to read them as being connected by a "but" ("P but Q") and to assume that the person means to imply that whichever remark came second (that is, the one after the explicit or implicit "but") thoroughly overrides the one that came first.  That's not my intention here.  I'd really like to get some conversation going about helping people feel empowered to say "Yes" and ALSO helping them feel empowered to say "No".  As an illustration that those need not be conflicting goals, let me mention that IMO one of the things that can most empower someone to say "Yes" is confidence that they'll be respected when they want to say "No".

Thoughts, anyone?

--Jim

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_______________________________________________
List Name:  Callers mailing list
List Address:  Callers@lists.sharedweight.net
Archives:  https://www.mail-archive.com/callers@lists.sharedweight.net/