A confession (with apologies to Catullus)
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I have recently heard so many assertions (here in Europe) from dancers who claim never to feel anything even remotely verging on the erotic when they are dancing tango. At the risk of stating the obvious, I’d like to say something briefly about this.
To me, tango remains a particularly sensual dance, largely because of the special qualities of the tango embrace. You can take pleasure simply in the physical proximity which the dance provides, if you find your partner attractive. Also, for very good leaders in particular, there must be a thrill in the idea that you are giving your partner an intensely pleasurable experience: something which can obviously excite — though perhaps in a less directly physical way — on the dance floor as well as in the bedroom.
So, do I ever feel anything sexual when I am dancing tango? Well, not so often and it certainly isn’t necessary to my enjoyment of the dance. But, yes, sometimes I do. And I don’t feel guilty about it. Tango is a game, an enactment of a fantasy.
And as for what I may feel on the dance floor at that moment towards my partner in the magic space of the embrace, during the fleeting moments of the tanda:
in vento et rapida scribere oportet aqua
It should be written down on air and running water.
Comments From Original Post
9 Responses
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simon says:
HA HA – perhaps it is a reflection of my britishness but the moment there is any kind of expectation involved in a dance, If my partner is particularly well known for being a good dancer or if somebody has recommended me to a friend, for example, i fall to bits… It’s a little bit like tango impotence (unfortunately there isn’t yet a little blue tango pill that… well you know).
This has a number of results… I rarely dance with teachers, i often choose not to dance with my favourite partners and people that i enjoy dancing with the most are people with which a personal relationship could only ever be purely plutonic.
If the theory of evolution were applied to tango i think my future offspring would be doomed
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terpsichoral says:
PS You made my day with my favourite ever typo, “plutonic” for “platonic”. Or was that intentional? Your relationships with your dance partners have overtones of the Classical underworld? Oooh, sounds kinky.
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Actually my relationships with partners have been known to become kinky and some of my favourite milongas happen to be held in crypts but i don’t think i would be fooling anyone if i were to try passing that typo off as anything but a schoolboy error – Extremely sorry – i will try harder (actually you will probably take that as a reference to something else. I can’t win).
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*smirking*
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PS Let’s have some more tango confessions.
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border tangoman says:
Having recently read; Aleph Bravo Tango by Dyv Sarawa I think a lot of people must turn a milonga into a personal hell; in this book people are striving to find all sorts of things in or at a milonga and in the dancing that one is surprised that anyone is happy at all. I found it terribly dark and funny. Is this really what people go to milongas for..not specificially erotic encounters but in the pursuit of desires of all sorts. Makes me want to go off and do Ceroc where the aim is to have a good time.
I experience eroticism from time to time, a woman whose body flushed with heat after she embraced me…..sometimes its just a lightness of touch..but I take these physical responses as normal as breathing and just notice them…..and keep dancing…my heart is not there on the dance floor it belongs to……
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@BTM Your comment about people striving to find all sorts of things at a milonga struck a cord (i’m going to have to read that book). I think it may have made me realise why I sit a lot more than most at milongas.. I think I am striving for that perfect dance (obviously it doesn’t exist and you could argue that the more one dances, the better one gets and as a result, that dance becomes a little less impossible). The feeling I get when i’m having a great dance is similar to the feeling you get when you are watching a good tennis rally or when you are skimming stones on water… as time goes on I get more and more excited. Every bounce or return makes me think – “yes! go on.. go on my son” until the point where the pebble sinks or the ball hits the net (or you try to lead a cross and end up getting a kick)… But anyway the point is that once i have had a really good rally I think I like to revel in it. If conditions don’t seem right for that perfect dance i will sit it out.
I think i might need to man up a bit and stop trying to chase that tango dragon.
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I haven’t read the book, but I certainly agree that the milonga can be a difficult place. I write about a couple of my own less happy personal experiences of this (though in one case I did have some nice dances) here and here. For the Argentines, the milonga is not just for dancing. It’s a multi-purpose space for flirting, arguing, breaking up, pursuing women, pursuing one night stands, crying over exes, touting for students, showing off, chatting to friends, meeting family, listening to music, relaxing and vegging out even. Vanity Fair, in short. But that’s partly because tango is such an integral part of their culture. You really can find all sorts there.
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Yes, man up, Si! I hate guys who sit most of the night. (Of course, as a follower who LOVES to dance, I’m biased).
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"HA HA – perhaps it is a reflection of my britishness but the moment there is any kind of expectation involved in a dance, If my partner is particularly well known for being a good dancer or if somebody has recommended me to a friend, for example, i fall to bits… It’s a little bit like tango impotence (unfortunately there isn’t yet a little blue tango pill that… well you know). This has a number of results… I rarely dance with teachers, i often choose not to dance with my favourite partners and people that i enjoy dancing with the most are people with which a personal relationship could only ever be purely plutonic. If the theory of evolution were applied to tango i think my future offspring would be doomed"
"Ah, the dreaded tango performance anxiety! I can assure you, Simon, that you are not the only one to suffer from it. Personally, I don't feel nervous when I'm dancing with someone I consider to be a very good dancer, even if they are a 'star' of the tango world. But I used to get extremely nervous when I was dancing with someone I had a major crush on. My legs would turn as stiff as two wooden sticks and I would start trembling. But -- a lot of experience on the dance floor at milongas and a couple of crushes later -- this no longer happens to me. My heart rate may rise and, occasionally, I may even get a little aroused, if I am dancing with someone I find VERY attractive, though since, as a woman, I don't have the problem of unwanted erections, I don't really worry about it too much. But it no longer affects my dancing. Now I can have a crush on someone and I still feel able to focus on the tango, and dance just as confidently as ever. I'm sorry that you deny yourself dances with your favourite partners, though. I think you will get used to the jittery sensation with more experience and, in time, you'll find that any butterflies flying around in your head and tummy stay there and don't affect your dance. And, in the meantime, maybe you should give yourself permission to try to enjoy whatever sensations arise! As one of my friends once remarked "Maybe you need to learn to get comfortable with your discomfort!""
"Señorita Terpsichoral: You are not alone. I love the feeling of a woman in my arms. Sure it can be sisterly, motherly or an "aunt Bessie." It can even be a very spiritual experience sensing the feeling of another. I have intuited things about a person that were surprisingly accurate. But really, this is a dance of men and women. What takes away the eroticism for me is my main job to protect the woman from dangerous dancers. And there seems to be so many of them!"
"I agree that, on the whole, it is much easier for the follower to feel something romantic or erotic during the dancing and for exactly the reason you mention, because we can concentrate fully on the leader and don't have to worry about the other couples on the floor. I should stress, though, that it still isn't a frequent experience for me. And given the choice between dancing with someone I find very attractive but who is not a good dancer and a wonderful dancer whom I don't find attractive in the slightest I would not hesitate for a second to choose the latter."
"It happened to me just once: she was a japanese woman, very attractive both in looks and intellectually. She had a way to move, to react to my movements that I had never experienced: everything was dense as I like it, but generally smoother, sweeter. It was surprisingly carnal, in a way that never occurred to me with anyone else. That night she asked me to take her home, I did, but didn't go further, as I already had a partner. That relationship ended eventually, and I regretted my choice. ;) Apart from that single time, I had just a couple of occasions where I didn't feel sexuality, but I felt some kind of strange emerging sentiment coming out of the dance, and of quick words exchanged while dancing. It's an extremely, extremely rare event, though. What happens more often than not, is to dance with some woman that is amazingly attractive or sexy: that doesn't mean that her sexiness actually has any effect on the dance, or on me. On the contrary, it might end up being a distraction, a nuisance, and have a general negative effect."
"It surprised my in the beginning of my tango when on first sight the relationship between women and men seemed so surprisingly sober in a dance where people are so close and everything should be focused on the embrace, the energy between the two. That assumed contradiction scared me ... later I was happy to discover that there is much more under the hood, seldom told but that many people appreciate that intimate side and are sometimes willing to reveal it. Yes, I already felt it, sexual excitement ... quite often in some extent but I would like to draw a bigger picture... I heard from three people already that they could only dance with some one they could also imagine to have sex with. First time I heard that, about 5 years ago, I thought that this is the expression of a rather arrogant person, even more since I was not fond of that person, but lately two others persons that I really appreciate told me the same. They would only feel real pleasure and are only willing to completely give away dancing with some one they can imagine having sex with and I hope you do not get me wrong we are in the realm of fantasy and imagination. If that realm is left one day in the hands of the persons concerned. One of these persons asked me how does it come that I feel pleasure dancing with so many different people and that I am willing to commit myself to many other (I always try) even if I can not imagine having sex with most of them. So I tried to answer that question for myself and came up with: I think when I dance I am trying to see and make contact with something very intimate of the other's personality something authentic that is rarely shared. For me this is also something one should get when having sex with someone. In that way getting a glimpse on that part of the personality is exciting and may be arousing in a quite sexual way. (Sorry for my English!)"
"Thank you very much for this frank and interesting comment. I suspect your friends are not alone in their view. But I don´t share it AT ALL. I enormously enjoy dancing with many people with whom I would never have sex. I´ve danced with many much older men whom I do not find sexually attractive in the least. I dance with many much younger men, whom I assume do not find me attractive and whom I cannot really imagine having sex with. I´ve danced with some very young guys whom it would actually be illegal to have sex with (they were 14 and 15). I´ve enjoyed dancing with many gay guys. And I enjoy dancing in close embrace with other women, despite being heterosexual. I also frequently dance with the boyfriends, lovers and husbands of friends of mine. So I am glad that tango is not always such an overtly, strongly sexualised dance, otherwise I would be denied the pleasure of dancing with many partners I enjoy. However, I cannot deny that tango itself has a sexual element, whoever you are dancing with. There is something beautiful and, yes, more or less erotic about that kind of close connection and I think that is nothing to feel worried or guilty about. (I use "more or less" here to cover a very broad range of feelings and possibilities). When I enjoy dancing with someone, it´s usually because of the pleasure I take in the music and the dance. Occasionally, there is a further source of pleasure in that I find them attractive and enjoy their physical proximity. But, actually, I can very rarely imagine actually having sex with any of my dance partners. And sometimes I can imagine having sex with someone but they are not a good dancer and I don´t actually enjoy dancing with them. Reflecting on this, I wonder whether there is a difference here between my experiences as someone who dances tango primarily in Buenos Aires and those who dance in Europe. At the European tango marathons, I danced with a lot of young and very attractive men. Here in BA, I dance with some gorgeous guys, too, but also with guys (and sometimes women) from a much wider range of ages and levels of ´beauty´."