I started dancing in a community that uses gender-neutral or positional calling. I’ve heard of some quippy one-liners that have been lost to this kind of calling, and some of them are pretty funny, but I don’t really have any of the nostalgia for it that some older dancers seem to. When I started dancing in a community that would alternate between gender-neutral and gendered calling, they would have an announcement for gendered calling: “It doesn’t mean anything, just dance with whoever comes at you.” But I find it feels a little uncomfortable for me as a man to be dancing as a “lady” rather than a “robin.” It feels like to me it’s about comfort vs slight discomfort, but to some of the older dancers it seems to be about a fantasy of gender that I don’t understand and don’t particularly want to participate in.
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