“If you want to change the world, change the metaphor.” Bertrand Russell.
My world is intimacy. My metaphor is Tango. I want to change them both.
For intimacy to be experienced and expressed, it must be in a safe, supportive, and mutually enhancing engagement. It must be given and received freely and graciously. It can not be taken or stolen. It should be an axiom that all human interaction be founded on respect, co-operation, and consent.
Should be …
A few years back in Ontario, the Provincial Government introduced a high school curriculum that taught consent to the students. The focus was on dating practices, underscoring the axiom that “no means no and yes means yes:” Unless one has explicit consent for sexual contact, it is non-consensual. To violate personal boundaries is not only offensive and abusive, but it is also a serious felony.
Unfortunately, as soon as the Conservative Government assumed power, they scuttled the program as too controversial: students should not have to reflect on such sensitive matters.
After all, what was wrong the old system of dating where a guy is free to make assumptions about what his date wants even when she clearly does not share his opinion? That was certainly how I was schooled. My male role models couldn’t care less about consent. In fact, it merely added more excitement to the conquest: “No” simply means she is just playing hard to get. Try harder.
“If you want to change the world, change the metaphor.”
But to change the world we must first change the metaphor.
The Tango fascinates me as a metaphor and practice for acquiring the intimacy skills of introspection, mindfulness, creativity, intimacy, cooperation… or not!
Tango essentially spans the whole continuum of relational dynamics in both its historical development and its popular representation, ranging from the stereotypical macho male seducing a voluptuous, scantily clad woman (read: non-consensual sexuality) to the soft, gentle, most delicate expressions of mutuality (read: consensual sensuality). (For some personal reflections on the BA social and dance scene check out a colleague’s recent book, Intoxicating Tango: My Years in Buenos Aires by Cherie Magnus.)
In Tango, the same structural dynamics that allow for such distortions of male/ female interaction also contain the elements that can elevate the dance into something that transcends power dynamics and embodies the essence of consensual sensuality. The close embrace, the pauses, the melancholia, the call-and-response step patterns, invite us to dance delicately through that beautiful garden of vulnerability and intimacy.
From the moment I approach my partner on the dance floor, I am listening. Is there acknowledgment, a warm smile, eye contact? How does the embrace feel? Do our energies complement? Is there resistance, responsiveness, tension? I attune to her timing, her interest in certain moves, her emotional investment, her interest in embellishments.
My lead opens a door, creates space that invites my partner’s creative response. I wait mindfully as my partner steps through to adorn the dance in her special way. I take only what is graciously and freely given and in turn give only what is readily received. I resist the temptation to layer the dance with fantasies or ego needs or glutch-and-grab self-indulgence.
Relating subject to subject
To relate to another as subject to subject without agenda, without manipulation or expectations, with full consensual engagement is the most humanizing thing we can do. Our being is expanded and deepened as we are appreciated and attended to in this manner. This is the essence of intimacy – and Tango.
Take the first step. Risk entering the dance.