Continued Gender Issues and Tango

So a great friend of mine asked for a bit of clarification on what I meant exactly regarding dances such as tango helping kids to define themselves sexually and as future men and women. He's actually a brilliant medical student with more than a little experience in the study of gender issues.

His question was basically "how would your theory work when considering that the simple dualistic nature of tango might not permit the inclusion of those that want to live in a different gender identity, or simply to live as one attracted to their own gender?"

Oddly enough I think it could still work. I danced the other day at a class with too few women, but there were a couple of men there that were training to be instructors (so they had to know both the men's and women's steps, which are very different and complex), and they both offered to occassionally play the women's part in the dance. One was a japanese guy and he was very fluid and a great dancer and he adapted to the part beautifully. It was actually cool to think that a child that might want to learn the other's role could, and it could work. A pleasant thought, to offer the individual in question a harmless way to explore their personal boundaries at an early age in a non-sexual, non-judgmental manner, perhaps helping to simplify and clarify their understanding of their own developing nature.

The man yeilded and followed like a woman, but it was very different because he knew the man's steps such that he could tell me what to do as I led him. Which of course makes me laugh at the ridiculous nature of what I am proposing. I've completely transgenderfied what is supposed to be my "simpler" solution. A man playing the woman leading the man who is supposed to be leading the woman, who is, in fact, a man.

As most people must suspect, dancing with the opposite sex in class is by far the norm, but it happens occassionally that one or another might momentarily "switch teams" to help each other practice. Perhaps my friend then said it best: "Maybe you can just think of the dance as a Platonian abstraction of the ideals of both sexes? Then the two halves simply come together in a melodic interplay of archetypes." Leave it to a science nerd to boil it down to it's bare essence. Well said, you gender-savvy geek!

posted by goat hill dreamer @ 2:46 AM