Ava Adore

Telephone?

Stop calling, stop calling, I don’t wanna talk anymore.
(I left my head and my heart on the dancefloor.)

While I was writing a rebuttal to this post on mmmfeminism, I realized another facet to the ‘reasons why’ posts—specifically the one concerning ‘dancing as therapy.’ Part of it has to do with this anonymous post (albeit not mine) on queersecrets.

It’s obvious why I don’t dig going to straight clubs unless on a favour. But I didn’t grasp until today, really, that gay-friendly clubs also don’t serve my purpose. Don’t get me wrong—I love gay clubs, drama aside. I get to flirt and drink and bullshit. But…

If you’re a queer person and you’ve been to a queer-friendly club, you know there’s a layer of pressure there. The same pressure that queersecrets poster was feeling. At my local queer-friendly club, I can’t dance and pick up girls. The two, for me, are mutually exclusive.

At my club, if you dance well, the girls are intimidated by you. It’s out of our cultural norm. They expect you to ‘man up,’ stand by the bar, drink and brood and offer lighters, kind of thing. Which I am into, don’t get me wrong, that’s part of who I am—but I also like to dance.

I’m pretty good, as it happens. Mind you, I’m nowhere near as epic as this all-guy gay dance troupe who likes to come in every Wednesday (I love them), but I’m damn good enough that local girls shy away and don’t really want to dance with me.

Dancing, as anyone will tell you, can be just as intimate as sex, and I think that’s part of the perceptions and anxieties when you’re not just doing the expected lesbian two-step shuffle. Bottom line is, while I love the gay club, it’s no space for dance-therapy.

Stripping bridges these two issues for me. I feel like I can’t dance at the gay club without social distractions; I feel like I can’t dance at the straight clubs without harassment; while the House pays me to dance my heart out without repercussion.

I’m safe from harassment, protected by management, interactions are on my terms, my cell phone stays in my locker, and I don’t have to worry about the other girls because we’re all here to do the same thing…

and I can be as free with my dancing—my therapy—as I like.