[Tango-L] Tango as a Latin antidote to Puritan inhibition

[Felix Delgado]

> From: joe.grohens at gmail.com
> Subject: Re: [Tango-L] Speak up if you are uncomfortable
>
> I am uncomfortable with tango promoters and teachers representing
> tango as a Latin antidote to Puritan inhibition.
>


First, I would like to say that a tango instructor guilty of sexual
misconduct has no part in a tango community.

Second, I don't think Tango-L is the place to magnify whatever
justice has been handed out in the courts to this individual.

However,
shock about sexual misconduct shouldn't lead to the banishment of
sexuality from tango. To do so only denies something that is inherent
in tango, Argentine and a lot of Latin American culture. Sanitizing
tango, as is done in ballroom dance tango, also removes a healthy
outlet for sexuality in a generally sexually repressed society.

So, I think tango is a perfect Latin antidote to Puritan inhibition.

I grew up in a US Latino community. Hugs and kisses among friends and
family were a normal part of my daily life. Women wearing short skirts
and low necklines were only considered to be feminine, not prostitutes.
Of course there was a limit, a boundary somewhere, but not the baggy
clothes potato sack turtle neck wardrobe I see walking around on my
college campus.

It was when I got to high school, but mainly
in college that I realized that affectionate hugs and kisses (for
example, in greeting people) could be (mis)interpreted as sexual
advances. There were limits placed on touching each other. I also began
to see that the dominant (predominantly Anglo) culture valued
minimizing the differences between men and women and, in particular,
was critical of women who expressed their sexuality or men who
expressed their attraction to women through compliments on their
appearance, etc. I felt so sorry for my 'liberated' Anglo friends who
were prisoners in their politically correct homogenization of sexual
differences and repression of sexuality. There must be some influence
of the American Puritan heritage that is the root of this aversion to
masculinity, femininity, and sexuality.

Then I encountered
tango. I felt I had found a home away from home, where you can hug
someone during a dance without being threatening. Where women can be
feminine and men can be masculine (in a healthy way), where it is OK to
flirt and express your sexuality.

> I am uncomfortable with middle-aged women dressing for the milonga as
> if they were turn-of-the-century prostitutes.

Let me play 'politically correct' here? What an ageist comment!
Is it OK for young women to dress in a revealing manner?

I have seen prostitutes walking the streets in several North American and
Latin American cities, and I have been to milongas around the US, and I
have never seen any women dress like a prostitute. Maybe I'm going to
the wrong (or is it 'right'?) milongas. What I do see are women
dressing up and enjoying their femininity and sexuality. Although there
may be some extreme cases, I think these women are just having fun,
perhaps given permission within a tango environment to express
themselves in a way they are not permitted to without criticism outside
the walls of the milonga. In that way, tango is liberating. Besides,
it's their own choice. No one is telling them how to dress.

Let's let tango live on as an healthy antidote to the hang-ups about sex 
the Puritan heritage puts us in.

Felix


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