I love to dance. Dancing is my anti-drug. Besides improving flexibility, strength, endurance and a sense of well-being, dancing is fun.
In fact, on my nerdy late nights, I was looking at some journals, and according to New England Journal of Medicine, dancing is the best way to combat dementia. That is enough reason to keep me electric sliding for years.
Now try to take those feelings to a club and get your feelings hurt. I was at Park Street Patio with some folks who like to dance their faces off, and we had a great time in the South Campus Gateway before going downtown, so we were spoiled by our friendly Mad Mex crowd.
We got there, and the DJ not only was a raging misogynist but the worst hype man in history. Every time a good song would come on, he would break in with broken sentences.
“Who’s gonna have sex tonight?” “Put your hands in the air if you like hand jobs!” “If you’re a girl who’s kissed a girl (and if not you should), put your hands up!”
And my other favorite: “If you’re trying to get f—ed, put your hands up.”
In addition, comments that would just be declarative in nature: “All girls are sluts who had a boyfriend but didn’t come out with him.”
That place will not get a dime from me, but friends know mama loves a cocktail.
Now that does not add to my dance experience. Seeing one girl with only a shirt and the bottoms from a bikini on stage with stilettos is not sexy; it is nauseating. This was a performance that I had not signed up for. Can we just dance without marginalizing men or women?
A place does not need to package misogyny as a reason to celebrate and get folks to go downtown.
People would come to this experience regardless because of the rite of passage. In fact, I will assert that heterosexual males will follow wherever women go. It is not that difficult.
What I want is a venue that gives you a sweat rag when you enter because they know you’re there to do work.
I want a venue that doesn’t smell like three-day-old beer funk and crusty butt, where the floor is not wet with booze, but with sweat from the folks trying to get back their feeble minds because going to a club today is like we have lost ours.
I cannot fathom the thoughts that went through that DJ’s mind to think that his language makes me want to have relations or feel sexy when the appeal is being cheapened to performing fellatio and girls having their coochie-snorchers out on the dance floor. People practicing baby-making.
Grinding is not dancing, and I do not think it is what the researchers found that really helps with aging.
Where can a person go to dance and not be objectified by men hugging the walls and gazing at their prey or women performing for unrealistic expectations? I am not sure.
Someone email me that place, and I will hype it like a free Chipotle day. I will continue to dance with friends and be silly because it adds to my physical and mental well-being.
However, there will not come from me a behavior that will bring a shame on my sex or my Mama Pat, because I still reverence her opinion.
