26 Feb
2017
26 Feb
'17
8:32 p.m.
On Mon, Feb 13, 2017, Neal Schlein via Callers wrote:
I do not want to replace gent and lady as terms, based on my own experience.
What I'd say is that what I want doesn't matter much.
Some context: I've been dancing for between 29 and
37 years, depending on
how you count--my parents met at a square dance and I grew up dancing.
Somewhat similarly, I'm a second-generation dancer, although my parents
were more into folk dancing (they met on a hike).
I am a happily married man and prefer to dance with
women as partners and
corners. I don't mind dancing with men, but that's not what I go to dances
for; if I wanted to get close to a bunch of sweaty guys, I'd play
football. If we're honest, we can admit that the vast majority of our
general dancers (both new and old) are probably similar. So why not let
the dance reflect that? That's more likely to win friends than taking a
wonderful dance with character and making it into "gender free diet
crystal contra."
Normally I make a point of avoiding any discussion of my gender and
sexual preferences, but because it's relevant here: I'm cisgender male
and heterosexual.
Like Neal, my personal preference is to have women as partners
(regardless of whether I'm dancing boy or girl -- and particularly in
contra I'll happily gender-swap near-constantly). But I want my contra
community to be inclusive, and because of the kyriarchical society we
live in, I am happy to lose some of my preference to encourage greater
participation from groups who would not be comfortable with hetero- and
other kinds of normativity.
[Not going to bother discussing Neal's points about gender styling; it's
something that I don't care about.]
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