[Tango-L] The Jungle and Women's Tricky Tricks

[Fantasia Sorenson]

I loved Darlene's post. (Thanks, Darlene!) I found Darlene's observation,
that the average American man dislikes tango music, a revelation. I never
thought of that. But it stopped me in my tracks. It sounds all too
plausible.

I think that explanation from Darlene is more plausible than another
possibility she mentioned. Darlene said, '...this is the harsh reality of
our societal existence: to "make tango more attractive to men" we just need
to keep as many attractive females around.'

That made me think of the various tricks and strategies we women trot out
for getting dances. For better or worse, the most popular are:

Strategy #1: Be as pretty as possible.
Strategy #2: Dance as well as possible.
Strategy #3: Invite men instead of waiting for invitations.

Darlene, as far as tango having attractive females around, I think we
already have this one sewn up. Have you ever seen so many gorgeous,
compliant women in any one place as are present at any given milonga on any
given night in any given city?

Tango will NOT be more attractive to men if there are more attractive women.
There are ALREADY more attractive women available than men could possibly...
ahh... consume. The only thing that could make it even MORE attractive is if
we did it topless, I guess. I don't advocate that. (Although I can't say
that I condemn it; um, it isn't like it never ever happened...) If
attractive women what would bring men in, then surely we would have seen an
Oklahoma-Land-Rush horde of men crashing into all of the milongas worldwide
a long time ago.

The men haven't done that. There has to be something else impeding them
since the milongas are not lacking for attractive women.

We also rely on Strategy #2. But let's face it. All of us have danced with a
great dancer at some point, and how did we do? Not too bad probably. We
really can adapt well to a lot. Eventually we all figure out that dance
expertise is no insurance policy for getting dances. There really is an
enormous number of women who can dance well.

An enormous number of women who are pretty, and an enormous number of women
who dance well. Still not reeling theme in? Next, there is...

Strategy #3. When those benighted fools (aka Men Who Don't Realize What
Pretty and Great Dancers We Are) don't ask us, well, we just take matters
into our own hands and ask them ourselves. That'll do it. We're liberated.
We're egalitarian. (And as pretty and as good a dancer as anybody else,
d**nit.) We would RATHER be invited, but one less-than-optimum dance
experience is better than slinking out of a milonga not having danced even
once, right?

We usually don't talk out loud about what the consequences of that are.
First, the men we invite will probably never come back and invite us
unprompted, since we've categorized ourselves as pests. Then the only way to
keep dancing is just to continue to be pesky. Some do that. Apparently it
works. Is it fun? Another consequence we women usually don't mention out
loud is that, since the man we invited was going to dance with someone else
had we not intervened, in effect we robbed one of our sisters of a dance.
Usually we think the men are at fault for ignoring us. How many dances do
you think you have missed, girls, because another one of us deflected an
invitation you were going to receive?

It happens. Trust me.
Well, I don't think we are going to make tango more attractive to American
men. It's been around for a long time now. It's just always going to be a
jungle.

Fan