Let me tell you about a few very memorable, surprising moments when I first started dancing. You tell me if you think they were appropriate:
I was in Boston. A dance partner snuggled up to me, putting her vulva firmly against my right leg. She bent her torso backwards, and off we went on a foxtrot promenade. I'll be honest: That shook me up. This, she told me later, was the International Ballroom definition of connection. I thought that I knew the foxtrot, but not like that! Many years later, I learned Argentine tango. At that time I was an experienced salsa, merengue, and bachata dancer. I was at a Latin bar in El Paso, Texas. The young lady made the same kind of connection as described above while dancing the Bachata. This second dancer and dance, the bachata, were from the Dominican Republic. Neither of the women above asked me for permission.
I cannot suggest what appropriate touch is for you because each person is different, and each culture is different. Some behavior is truly inappropriate as judged from a multicultural perspective.* This post, however, focuses on norms for certain dances and their country of origins. In other words, some dances define “appropriate touch” differently.
There is also one's own personal experiences which define what is appropriate. My family were huggers, which would be awkward and even inappropriate in some families. Where I live now in France, friends and family--both male and female--greet me with an “air kiss” on each cheek, but also in France I am not to hug them--unless, of course, they dance tango. What does this all mean? “Appropriate touch,” cannot be defined by one group of people. The countries I have lived in (Mexico, Egypt, Germany, and France)--all have influenced me differently to practice what body and verbal language I use. Yet, monocultural and monolingual people around me--especially in America--want to legislate what they define as being “appropriate discourse” and “appropriate touch." This is nothing more than an extension of believing that American culture is the center of the universe.
Morality Police in Action
I bring up this subject because of all the drama I saw about “appropriate touch” in Austin, Texas. More specifically, we are talking about a close embrace here. I haven't seen the same issue in Europe. Before the first of two times I lived in Austin, the tango community had already started with people learning tango and going to Argentina. They eventually brought back Argentine teachers to Texas. However, in 2019 the community was reeling from some fairly young “influencers” who wished to use their kink community norms and apply these ideas to Argentine tango. In the kink community, asking for permission is the norm. Asking if a milonguero embrace is acceptable would be like asking if I can make some turns in salsa. Austin, a once very open and loving tango community, was poisoned--for a few years--by this notion of what others felt was appropriate or not appropriate touch. But the problem still continues all across the US.
I bring up this subject because of all the drama I saw about “appropriate touch” in Austin, Texas. More specifically, we are talking about a close embrace here. I haven't seen the same issue in Europe. Before the first of two times I lived in Austin, the tango community had already started with people learning tango and going to Argentina. They eventually brought back Argentine teachers to Texas. However, in 2019 the community was reeling from some fairly young “influencers” who wished to use their kink community norms and apply these ideas to Argentine tango. In the kink community, asking for permission is the norm. Asking if a milonguero embrace is acceptable would be like asking if I can make some turns in salsa. Austin, a once very open and loving tango community, was poisoned--for a few years--by this notion of what others felt was appropriate or not appropriate touch. But the problem still continues all across the US.
One thing I would recommend to monocultural/monolingual people or those damaged by their trauma history is you not attempt to change a dance or tell what other cultures should do to meet your needs. Take up some other thing, like playing cards, or just stay at home. You are the monarch of your own castle that way. However, if you stay with tango and dance with safe and caring people, trauma histories can be addressed organically by facing your fears. It's called exposure therapy. The trick is to find the right people and the right community. I suggest working with a trained therapist, especially if they are dancers.
In Austin, they had a meeting to decide who was naughty or nice. One member of the kink community told others that I might be a “perpetrator” because unlike most, I was dancing in a close embrace. An older Argentine couple came to my defense. They told her that the way I dance is a normal milonguero style. One of my favorite partners, who had spent a lot of time in Argentina, was accosted verbally by the same upholder against close embraces. The “upholder” told this marvelous tango dancer that she was a bad example for the community because of her close embrace! My friend replied simply, “Go fuck off!” I have been trying to think of a more appropriate way of responding, but so far, the words just don't come to me. She and I did just fine fending of these influencers, but another person was totally ostracized and shammed. Was he truly so inappropriate or was it that he was brown, poor, a sensitive musician, and struggling? My wife and I, newly returning to Austin from years in Europe, did not attend the Austin Festival that year, and instead found warm embraces in Salt Lake City's tango encuentro. Imagine that, leaving Austin to go to Salt Lake City to escape the prudes!
Cultural Appropriation
In tango, asking for consent for a normal embrace for social tango is like asking swimmers at a public pool if you can get in the water with them. What is happening in tango in certain communities is simply “cultural appropriation”--taking a tradition and way of being from one country, calling it the same name in one's own country but insisting on transforming it into something quite different. Arthur Murry Studios did exactly this with Argentine tango. The cultural appropriate of tango in this case has created a dance that is strange and even horrifying for most Argentine tango dancers to watch. Here's the test if your community has culturally appropriated tango: Does tango in your community look like how it is danced in Argentina? No? C.A.
In tango, asking for consent for a normal embrace for social tango is like asking swimmers at a public pool if you can get in the water with them. What is happening in tango in certain communities is simply “cultural appropriation”--taking a tradition and way of being from one country, calling it the same name in one's own country but insisting on transforming it into something quite different. Arthur Murry Studios did exactly this with Argentine tango. The cultural appropriate of tango in this case has created a dance that is strange and even horrifying for most Argentine tango dancers to watch. Here's the test if your community has culturally appropriated tango: Does tango in your community look like how it is danced in Argentina? No? C.A.
If you are going to dance “Argentine” tango, it's best that you know what touch means at the source of this wonderful dance. But if you wish to dance American tango or European Ballroom Tango, please go to a dance studio to learn an adapted style of tango. Warning: Once you are at the gold or platinum level, you will join your partner at the hips and bend away from each other at the torso. Have fun with that. That's all “inappropriate” stuff for authentic Argentine tango.
For me, appropriate touch is a warm embrace as if you love and respect that person and accept them the way they are. That says it well for Argentine tango's touch in just a few words. I recommend this sort of touch as the appropriate touch for a milonga.
This blog has addressed real issues with inappropriate behavior at the milonga. Austin never really confronted "outstanding, white members" of their community that could have fit into some of the descriptions in the following blog posts I have written about truly inappropriate behavior.
For me, appropriate touch is a warm embrace as if you love and respect that person and accept them the way they are. That says it well for Argentine tango's touch in just a few words. I recommend this sort of touch as the appropriate touch for a milonga.
This blog has addressed real issues with inappropriate behavior at the milonga. Austin never really confronted "outstanding, white members" of their community that could have fit into some of the descriptions in the following blog posts I have written about truly inappropriate behavior.
_________________________________________
* Regarding truly inappropriate behavior (extra reading):
- Heartbreak Milonga and the Tango Tomcat is my translation from the German about inappropriate behavior at milongas.
- Tango Psychopaths refers to a book, given to me by a forensic psychiatrist, who appears in courts around the US to describe the level of dangerousness of a person being charged (often for murder). The book is The Gift of Fear. Since that book was written and my post, more is known about the differences between male and female psychopaths. So let me add: Female (tango) psychopaths tend not to physically harass, harm or kill their victims, but enjoy ruining a person's reputation, getting the person ostracized from a community, and even ruining their ability to make a living.
- Kitty Litter was about the women new to tango who left tango because of vulture teachers or excellent dancers who lorded over them.
- If not for me, then for them is a short film completed by Marco Calvise, a producer/director totally outside of the tango world. Yet he picks up on so many aspects of the tango scene, including the "tango tomcat."
