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Sascha Radetsky "My Turn" in Newsweek magazine


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am often the target of disparaging remarks from other gay men for being a ballet dancer/teacher, and I am expected to just shrug it off and laugh along with them because if I don't, then suddenly I am getting a bee in my bonnet over "nothing," when in fact such remarks are quite offensive and amount to not just a put-down of me but a dismissal of the entire art form. .

Hans, you really mean 'other gay men' are disparaging about ballet?

Yes, I do. I, too, was quite surprised, especially given how cultured some of these people are. Maybe it's a DC thing, perhaps given that we don't have a major ballet company here.

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In a work environment, it is relatively easy (Note the "relatively". Dealing with sexual harrassment is never "easy".) to deal with sexual harassment when it involves only two or three people, but here the harasser is identified as society as a whole. It is extremely difficult to counsel "society as a whole". Perhaps Radetsky's article is meant to chip away at the larger problem.

I understand your explanation of why you think, as a result of your government work, you would think operationally about some things differently, even though we don't know the nature of that work. But to anyone outside this, the phrase 'harasser identified as society as a whole' doesn't mean anything. I do not see that society as a whole is harassing male dancers except by being the particular shape of society with its codes of masculine or feminine which vary according to which society it is. Agree with kfw on some of this part. As such, it could be said to be harassing everybody in some way or another.

And it's hardly a stretch to see Radetsky's article as a homophobic bit of business, telling straight people who have wrong ideas about ballet that it isn't 'about gay men'.

Tights as business suit.

And even if I think there are more straight male stars than gay in this period, that doesn't change the fact that ballet is often identified with women as ballerinas and many gay male dancers (I don't know if there are more than in the gypsy Broadway chorus lines where I worked, but they were literally all gay in one of the ones I worked with.) That should be the thrust of any grievance, whereas this article is really an attempt to point out how Radetzsky was always interested in the girls. It's definitely an attempt to distance himself from any gay attitudes, which implies that he must be on the defensive about this--whereas that has never mattered before as any important issue, people just live with it. And Radetzky has to live with the fact that what he's said doesn't change the fact that a lot of male dancers are gay. And yet with this article he has chosen to speak for the 'straight ballet dancer'. He is not speaking for the 'male ballet dancer'. I don't find the article anything beyond narcissistic, and fail to see it as being like Vilella's old speeches in the Bronx. That was the way to do it. This reads like a feature from an old Modern Screen more than some plea for tolerance. The way people were going on about it, I didn't read it only because I got the feeling ballet must have finally gotten a surprise cover story. It turned out to be a couple of paragraphs, mostly self-promotion from what I could tell.

Long-winded this time, but I see it as Aurora does. The glass ceiling is sexism and bigotry and discrimination, but sexual harassment is something more specific in the way not only I understand it, but in the way it is popularly understood.

Hans, I hadn't thought of the D.C. tie-in, I guess that could be possible. But I would never ever have guessed it, and it may have to do with contemporary gay attitudes both about image and culture. Contemporary gay culture is a lot more (at least from what I see in New York) about doing the most superficial trendy things--so that may exist here in the gay community more than I've realized. But since I probably have more straight than gay friends, I might not know it; but I think I can tell that there are fewer gay people interested in traditional classical cultures across the board, not just ballet, than there were 30 years ago. Don't know if that speaks to what you were talking about exactly, but I do think much contemporary urban gay culture is all pop all the time, and it gives it this hyper atmosphere combined with a lot of campy silliness.

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I had quite forgotten that the visible profiles on this board differ somewhat from the ones at Ballet Talk for Dancers, but for the sake of information, I am employed by the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation. I occupy the curatorial position at a museum operated by that agency, and have a responsibility to interface with all inquirers of information derived from the collection and equipment at my disposal. Ever try to explain a flintlock to a six-year-old? I've done that. Or try to explain the sequence of treadle/shuttle/heddle/harness to a retired weaver who worked on power looms? I've done that. Want to know what George Washington wore for underwear? I've answered that. How do you dress wood for housewrighting? I've demonstrated that. How do you know if a diamond were cut in the eighteenth century? etc. etc. etc.

But now, with moderator hat in hand, I submit that we are way, WAY :rofl:.

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But now, with moderator hat in hand, I submit that we are way, WAY :rofl:.

Is it too much to ask how we were off-topic? We followed from your statements and made interpretations of the article, didn't we? If related matters of this sort of obviously controversial things cannot be discussed here, I'm going to just stick to the strict information swapping, and forget about any opinion posts.

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How are we :rofl:? Here's how:

even though we don't know the nature of that work

which is an ad hominem attack on the credentials of the poster even to comment on the mighty issues before the House. Such discourse is not in accordance with the basic rule of discussion on the Ballet Talk boards, in which matters of evangelical religion, proselytizing politics, sexual practices and the other things you don't bring to the dinner table are discouraged. They always lead to a thread going to hell in a handbasket.

Do ask you like with posting etiquette, but kindly remember that controversy does not have to lead to one poster disparaging another.

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How are we :rofl:? Here's how:
even though we don't know the nature of that work

which is an ad hominem attack on the credentials of the poster even to comment on the mighty issues before the House. Such discourse is not in accordance with the basic rule of discussion on the Ballet Talk boards, in which matters of evangelical religion, proselytizing politics, sexual practices and the other things you don't bring to the dinner table are discouraged. They always lead to a thread going to hell in a handbasket.

Do ask you like with posting etiquette, but kindly remember that controversy does not have to lead to one poster disparaging another.

It was no such thing. Not even minutely was I trying to disparage you. I was even showing respect to whatever this work might be by saying that you got your definitions for 'sexual harassment' from a source that is not known to me and it is not the popular understanding of the term, i.e., if anything, that work, whatever it was, gave you the credentials to call it something the rest of use would not. But in nothing I wrote did I say you should not have reason to operate with that in mind, only that most were not going to understand it that way. I was not trying to disparage you as a poster and tell you you 'didn't have proper credentials' to discuss this. I do disagree with the phrase of 'society as sexual harasser', which you may think I criticized too brutally, but I fail to see how it can mean much in such a general form.

In fact, if you haven't been convinced by the above, I thought surely it must be somehow something about how I interpreted Radetzky's article that had been off-topic, but the matter of an 'ad hominem' being derived from what I wrote is a wrong interpretation. I was not doing it. I probably just hate the article.

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Hans, thanks for posting. If you don't mind, would you please tell us what they say? I think of male heterosexual contempt for ballet as homophobic. What in the world do gay males find beneath their respect about it? You say some of these men are pretty cultured --- are they victims of self-hatred, absorbing and mirroring the judgments of straight males who confuse ballet manners with effeminacy? Is it, as papeetepatrick suggests, just that their sensibilities are limited by pop culture? But then why the actual derision instead of just indifference or polite curiousity?

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I think it is some of both. Generally men of my own generation (mid 20's) and younger seem to find it interesting that I am involved in ballet, although there are the inevitable stupid comments about what one can see beneath the tights, but I know how to handle that sort of remark graciously. It's men who are a little older who are really disparaging, and I wonder if it's perhaps because they grew up in an era in which it was not really ok to be gay. These are also people who work in very conservative office environments, so I suppose that could be a factor too.

It's not necessarily exactly what they say as how it's said--referring to the classes I teach as "floating lessons," for example, or implying that I must prefer a particular sexual position because I was a ballet dancer (that's one that comes from all age groups). There is this attitude that ballet is silly and inconsequential, and it is different from the way they talk about other art forms (opera is taken more seriously, for example, and people seem to downright enjoy the national galleries).

I hope this isn't getting too far off topic, but I think this is tied to the idea that in this part of the country it is not really ok for gay men to be noticeably gay--there is this idea that if you act more like a straight male, you're somehow a better person. Since ballet is not recognized as a masculine pursuit, male ballet dancers are disparaged as being more feminine and therefore less deserving of respect and admiration.

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One more :rofl:

I wish the book were still in print. I think it's still one of the best portraits of a ballet company at work that I have ever read.

There are 13 copies available at Amazon (link at top of this page), starting at 34 cents, and a whole whack more if you go to AddAll.com. I have the book and enjoyed reading it and referring back to it. While Mazo focusses on a few dancers to the exclusion of many others, it's always fascinating to get a behind the scenes look at a ballet company, and for me especially, the NYCB that I knew.

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I did check the index to see if he mentions Christopher d'Amboise (who I believe joined the company in 1973, though I don't know which season). . .

I think that's quite early. Off the top of my head, I'd put the date closer to 1978, +/-.

At risk of raising a few hackles, I think there's an elitist slant in this discussion. It's all been about professionals. What about the young boy who wants to take ballet because, well, just because he likes it? Should he receive any less encouragement and support than say, the Ethan Stiefels who, from the start, are pegged as future stars? The ones that will never get into the elite academies. What about the ballet equivalent of the Little League second-stringer? They're as marginalized in this discussion as they (likely) are in the school yard. And I think Sascha had these fellas in mind as well as the grown-up pros.

There is this attitude that ballet is silly and inconsequential, and it is different from the way they talk about other art forms (opera is taken more seriously, for example, and people seem to downright enjoy the national galleries).
Thanks for making this point, Hans. I wonder if that is due to the popular image of the art as a stage full of females? Or more so, getting back to the folks who see only their daughters' recitals and Nutrackers, a stage full of very little females in pink frills? We know that's not the case, but as said just a few posts above, changing public perception is no easy task.
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Carbro, you make an excellent point. To me, this thread is for all male ballet dancers, regardless of age, ability, and sexual orientation.

I also agree that ballet is looked upon by many people as a pastime or social club for little girls, not a profession for grown women and not males of any age.

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There is this attitude that ballet is silly and inconsequential, and it is different from the way they talk about other art forms (opera is taken more seriously, for example, and people seem to downright enjoy the national galleries).

As Hans mused earlier, there could be something in the regional differences. While I find much contemporary urban gay culture purely fashion-oriented, the generation prior to mine, pre-Stonewall and in the closet, definitely was full of its 'ballet queens' quite as much as 'opera queens'--at least in New York. They were so many gay Suzanne Farrell fans you couldn't even count them. But this can vary from place to place, and Hans's observation about it 'still not being okay to be gay' may be true in D.C., although I can't see how it follows that they find ballet 'silly' (although I don't dispute that they do so if that's what the evidence is, and Hans would know), i.e., the closeted gays of the 50s and 60s in New York were very involved in ballet-going (although if they were in New York in the closet periods, they were still only semi-closet--that's why they came here, so they wouldn't have to be.)

"Ironically, the stereotype of the sissy male dancer has given rise to a male dancer who is anything but."

This is the kind of thing that some can overlook in the article and some can't. After having already declared his own sexual preference, he is making a statement which doesn't make any sense, because there is no evolution from the 'stereotype of the sissy male dancer' to the 'anything but sissy male dancer' any more than there is from the 'sissy male in general' to the 'anything-but-sissy male'. One would be able to derive that this new masculine non-sissy dancer in fact, owed a great debt to this very stereotype of the sissy male dancer, since that is from what this new dancer rose phoenix-like.

To me, this thread is for all male ballet dancers, regardless of age, ability, and sexual orientation.

The thread is, but the article is not, IMO. He would have needed to say explicitly that "gay does not equal sissy" as well, which he does not do--especially if he needed to proclaim his heterosexuality as well. Without including 'gay masculine dancers' explicitly, he puts them back in the closet. He says 'some of my colleagues are gay' and adds 'Can we move on now?' which is like saying 'That's the bad news. Now here's the good news.' It also brings up the even more difficult matter of 'does sissiness exist?' People usually don't want to answer this, as it involves political correctness. Sissiness means male effeminacy (which can be straight or gay, by the way), and it does exist. There is plenty of it everywhere, so it must exist in the dance world--I've heard that it does. So that some of the forms of effeminacy among males--someone mentioned that there is problem 'trying to act masculine' and that gays often want to do this to make them feel a 'better person'--are considered not very desirable. I think all these points of view are fair. I know I want to 'seem masculine', not effeminate, and don't care what the verdict on that is (I certainly am under no obligation to do so in the environment in which I live.) But there are some very famous male dancers who are what I would term 'very feminine' in some ways which I find attractive and that adds to their art as ballet dancers--and seeing 'the feminine' in males is not the same thing as 'effeminacy' (or not exactly the same and/or not nearly always the same), although most don't make the difference, and it does need to be made, as does the fact that there are many effeminate straight men as well.

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To me, this thread is for all male ballet dancers, regardless of age, ability, and sexual orientation.

The thread is, but the article is not, IMO. He would have needed to say explicitly that "gay does not equal sissy" as well, which he does not do--especially if he needed to proclaim his heterosexuality as well. Without including 'gay masculine dancers' explicitly, he puts them back in the closet. He says 'some of my colleagues are gay' and adds 'Can we move on now?' which is like saying 'That's the bad news. Now here's the good news.' It also brings up the even more difficult matter of 'does sissiness exist?' People usually don't want to answer this, as it involves political correctness. Sissiness means male effeminacy (which can be straight or gay, by the way), and it does exist. There is plenty of it everywhere, so it must exist in the dance world--I've heard that it does. So that some of the forms of effeminacy among males--someone mentioned that there is problem 'trying to act masculine' and that gays often want to do this to make them feel a 'better person'--are considered not very desirable. I think all these points of view are fair. I know I want to 'seem masculine', not effeminate, and don't care what the verdict on that is (I certainly am under no obligation to do so in the environment in which I live.) But there are some very famous male dancers who are what I would term 'very feminine' in some ways which I find attractive and that adds to their art as ballet dancers--and seeing 'the feminine' in males is not the same thing as 'effeminacy' (or not exactly the same and/or not nearly always the same), although most don't make the difference, and it does need to be made, as does the fact that there are many effeminate straight men as well.

papeetepatrick raises some great points. Never, for instance, will we see a mainstream article on men in dance in which a male dancer says "I signed up for ballet because of meeting all the boys" or "I like moving gracefully to music" or "Ballet helps me to bring out my feminine side" or even "my mom didn't want me to grow up to be a jerky straight guy." Ballet companies drool over loudly straight men (think Ethan Stiefel revving his motorcycle in Center Stage); articles/press material about gay male dancers are less likely to discuss the dancer's personal lives than materials about "straight" ones, which love to trumpet marriages and children. And yes straight in quotes b/c there are loudly straight male dancers--as in any profession--who are deeply closeted. BTW the notion that male ballet dancers can be closeted never ceases to be a point of amusement among my non-dancer friends--in fact, they can't believe the closet exists in the dance context at all, and giggle that the ballet world gets so excited over what they see as rather rigid ideals of masculinity. (But some of these friends also can't believe dancers smoke and do drugs.)

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I always shake my head when I hear that America, meaning US, (and sometimes North America) is the country (place) that admires individualism, because schools are equal to the military in their demand for behavioral conformity -- and I mean outside the classroom.

That any student is in physical danger for what s/he is and wants to become is appalling.

As for Russian reverance for male dancers, it is no less homophobic: there is great prestige to lose, compared to the meant-to-be dismissive assumption that "they're all gay."

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This is the sentence that I was addressing, which I found self-contradictory, carrying as it does with an implied dismissal and a statement that there is no dismissal.

If acknowledgment of a common problem means 'dismissal,' then that's what it was, I suppose.

Do ask you like with posting etiquette, but kindly remember that controversy does not have to lead to one poster disparaging another.

Indeed.

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Helene's post reminds me that Russian respect for ballet dancers does not go so far as to include a societal acceptance of homosexuality.

Papeetepatrick, I think the regional difference is due to DC not ever having had a major ballet company. The Washington Ballet, and previously the National Ballet, were nothing more than chamber companies until Septime Webre came on board. Even now, TWB is very small, WSB has a tiny male dancer population at the upper levels, and Suzanne Farrell's company uses imported dancers. The Kirov Academy is isolated in an inaccessible neighborhood, and although companies often tour to the Kennedy Center, that is very different from having a "home" company regularly performing a familiar repertoire with familiar dancers fed from a school. Thus, a love for and appreciation of ballet has not developed here the way it has in, say, Manhattan, where Lincoln Center is easily accessible by foot in a bustling part of town. (I don't know as much about the development of opera here, but as the Baltimore-Washington area has--and has had for some time--some prestigious music schools, I would think music would have an easier time.)

I also think papeetepatrick and Ray make very good points regarding male effeminacy and ballet.

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Perhaps a story from work would clarify what I intended here.

We aren't the French Academy, where in Pre-Revolutionary days (and somewhat after), you could find duels all over the countryside, as the Academicians took umbrage against refutations of their theories by resorting to sword and pistol against their opposition in debate. At least modern peer review in journal articles, while still sometimes scathing, does not often end in letter-bombs and drive-by shootings.

In March of 1783, a movement arose among the officers of the Continental Army to go on an actual strike against the government unless they received a retirement package that they wanted for after the war. The author of the scheme was John Armstrong, Jr., the son of a Pennsylvania Congressman, and a principal aide-de-camp to Maj.-Gen. Horatio Gates, Washington's second-in-command in terms of seniority. Washington convened his officers and gave them one lulu of a pep talk, which ended in the measure not even being seconded when it was moved.

Armstrong was not himself deeply emotionally attached to his idea, but was concerned that Washington had meant to lambaste him personally, and sent a letter some years later, asking his late commander if that had been his intention. Washington replied to the effect that he had not known whose writing it had been, and that no personal animosity had been inherent in his denunciation. (Actually, in GW's delivery text, he used phrases like "My God! What can this writer have been thinking? Can he not be an insidious enemy from (enemy-occupied) New York?" Those sound pretty personal to me.)

Many years later, about 50 to be more precise, Timothy Pickering, who had been deeply emotionally invested in the idea, wrote to Armstrong, asking, "C'mon, now, you and I are old friends, it's been a long time. Did you actually write those proposals or not?" Armstrong wrote back, apparently still smarting under the idea that he had been laid out by GW himself, "Yeah, I wrote it, but the Boss said that he didn't know it was me, and was just going after the ideas." He wrote, by the way, in a disguised hand, and signed the answer, "John Montgars", thus seeking still to maintain his anonymity.

I think that people do get involved with their ideas, so much so that they are a personal extension of the self into the wilderness of dispute, and I, here am as guilty as anyone. In a connected world, impartiality toward one's own mores and thoughts is more difficult than in the days when a letter did not have immediately to be sent, and taken back to the desk for a second, or a third massage for clarity and impersonality before sending.

Therefore observing the limitations and drawbacks of the medium in which we communicate, I apologize to those to whom I have given offense, and to those to whom I have not, for wasting your time.

Sincerely,

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So much has been discussed on this thread that has occupied my mind often, and I love the different perspectives. When I was growing up, we really thought in terms of four sexes, not two, teen years were very interesting sorting all that out, and as Ray so very rightly points out, it doesn't always get fully sorted then. I have to say when I read this article I did not at all think of it as an article about men in ballet, I saw it as an article about straight men in ballet. I figured that was why he was bothering telling us he was. I could have been wrong. I have always felt that ballet was an incredibly tough profession and each sex had their own issues to deal with. For instance:

Gay girls: ok, where I live this is the absolute worst. Shunned by the ballet world and "the community" which in my area is a very closed set of people with a very militant core who do everything short of write a handbook on what gay women must and must not do. Gay women must dance modern. Possibly street dance, maybe jazz, NEVER classical ballet.

Straight girls: very competitive, can be very degrading and humiliating, forced to suck up to men of both orientations, putting (usually straight it seems) men in a position of ultimate power over your entire life including what / whether you eat, full license to criticize your body, your mind, your soul, ... aaaaghhh!

Gay boys: can have an awful lot of the same issues as the girls, the glass ceiling mentioned here that I've wondered about as well, dealing with possible effeminacy in their dancing and criticism for it (something perceived straight dancers are not nearly as often criticized for ... and as pointed out, it can be there in both cases). (Hans, I was very shocked to hear of criticism of ballet from the male gay community in DC - I think here a lot of the gay male dancers prefer jazz, at least when they are younger, but the male gay community is very supportive of ballet. It's the women that trash it constantly.)

Straight boys: it can sometimes be a little hard to feel sorry for the straight boys, but they obviously do have their issues (which get more air time than anyone else's) and I think confusion may be a major one. And maybe the assumption that they are gay when they haven't figured it out yet gets very annoying and may lead to things like Ethan Steifel saying he "likes to dance balls out" and the constant talk of how he would have destroyed the house if his parents hadn't put him in dance. Here's an article where Rex Harrington says “My mother enrolled me in the National Ballet School because she knew before I did that I was a little bit tipped.” http://archives.xtra.ca/Story.aspx?s=1444957. I can't count how many times I have heard variations on that from boys in jazz or ballet. I think it might be ok sometimes, but most of the time people like to figure things out for themselves and announce it themselves without the adults taking that over ... yeeesh.

Anyway, the reason I am writing this is not because I expect anyone to agree with my perceptions or think that they are in any way complete, but because I would love to hear more discussion on gender politics in ballet, I think there is an enormous amount to be sorted out and I don't think it's an old story at all. Barely scratched in fact.

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Gay girls: ok, where I live this is the absolute worst. Shunned by the ballet world and "the community" which in my area is a very closed set of people with a very militant core who do everything short of write a handbook on what gay women must and must not do. Gay women must dance modern. Possibly street dance, maybe jazz, NEVER classical ballet.

Great comments, CeC! I think gay women's relation to ballet is woefully under-discussed; the gay ballerina qua lesbian won't appear in Newsweek anytime soon. For those so inclined, the dance theorist/historian Susan Foster, who self-identifies as queer, writes extensively on ballet in a positive vein.

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Straight boys: it can sometimes be a little hard to feel sorry for the straight boys, but they obviously do have their issues (which get more air time than anyone else's) and I think confusion may be a major one. And maybe the assumption that they are gay when they haven't figured it out yet gets very annoying and may lead to things like Ethan Steifel saying he "likes to dance balls out" and the constant talk of how he would have destroyed the house if his parents hadn't put him in dance. Here's an article where Rex Harrington says “My mother enrolled me in the National Ballet School because she knew before I did that I was a little bit tipped.†http://archives.xtra.ca/Story.aspx?s=1444957. I can't count how many times I have heard variations on that from boys in jazz or ballet. [...]

I wanted to reply to this too--very observant as to the kind of narratives that people like to hear about men in dance. As opposed to, say, "I got hooked on dance because I watched Busby Berkeley movies and wanted to be a petal on one of the human flowers"; or, "I wanted to get AWAY from the boys who were tipped and trying to burn down the house"; or "I wanted to see those boys in tights."

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I wanted to reply to this too--very observant as to the kind of narratives that people like to hear about men in dance. As opposed to, say, "I got hooked on dance because I watched Busby Berkeley movies and wanted to be a petal on one of the human flowers"
Ray, this is my all-time personal favorite reason for going into ballet!

And this is my second

or, "I wanted to get AWAY from the boys who were tipped and trying to burn down the house"

Thank you. :)

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"Ironically, the stereotype of the sissy male dancer has given rise to a male dancer who is anything but."

This is the kind of thing that some can overlook in the article and some can't. After having already declared his own sexual preference, he is making a statement which doesn't make any sense, because there is no evolution from the 'stereotype of the sissy male dancer' to the 'anything but sissy male dancer' any more than there is from the 'sissy male in general' to the 'anything-but-sissy male'. One would be able to derive that this new masculine non-sissy dancer in fact, owed a great debt to this very stereotype of the sissy male dancer, since that is from what this new dancer rose phoenix-like.

As a heterosexual and therefore a member of a perceived minority in his profession, could this be nothing more than his version of "We're here, we're queer, get used to it!"?

Ironic, isn't it, that this article whose purpose was to debunk stereotypes has evoked so many on this thread?

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I wanted to reply to this too--very observant as to the kind of narratives that people like to hear about men in dance. As opposed to, say, "I got hooked on dance because I watched Busby Berkeley movies and wanted to be a petal on one of the human flowers"
Ray, this is my all-time personal favorite reason for going into ballet!

OMG I'm not special anymore!

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I wanted to reply to this too--very observant as to the kind of narratives that people like to hear about men in dance. As opposed to, say, "I got hooked on dance because I watched Busby Berkeley movies and wanted to be a petal on one of the human flowers"
Ray, this is my all-time personal favorite reason for going into ballet!

OMG I'm not special anymore!

No -- you ARE! I've never heard these before, and am absolutely delighted at even the small possibility that someone, having read them here, will use them in real life.
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As a heterosexual and therefore a member of a perceived minority in his profession, could this be nothing more than his version of "We're here, we're queer, get used to it!"?

Since he wrote such an unintelligible sentence in the first place, in which the sissies give rise to the 'anything but sissy' male dancer--but doesn't know he wrote such a sentence and the editor didn't catch it--I would imagine it could be his version of almost anything he wants it to be. And certainly the 'some of my colleagues are gay. Can we move on now?' can be anything he wants it to mean too. It could be the Rush Limbaugh version of 'We're here, we're queer, get used to it', which is just as tiresome as the original one. One deals with black or white racism as it comes up, or female spousal abuse when it comes up too--the fact that only 5% of spousal battery is from the female doesn't make each individual case any the less serious.

Ironic, isn't it, that this article whose purpose was to debunk stereotypes has evoked so many on this thread?

Not really, considering how the 'stereotype-debunking' is so limited, is parasitic on stereotypes itself for its very existence, and is written in so colloquial a voice that it sounds like something in a high school paper (even if that is the one in 'Fame'.)

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