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I’ve been made to feel like I’m ‘asking for it’ when I hear certain comments from men about one of my dance forms. I’ve been made to feel like this not by people I don’t know, but people I am close to.

No, I do not strip. But I perform burlesque routines that sometimes include wearing lingerie (mind you, more of my body is covered than if I were wearing a one-piece bathing suit).

During these conversations with those people I am close to, I’ve often become confused. Yes, I am wearing an outfit that is (often) equated with sex. Yes, I understand that some men are going to be turned on by watching women in these outfits performing a sexy routine. But no, I don’t believe they have the right to put that turned on-ness on me, or expect that I’m sexually available to them because I performed a dance in a sexy outfit.

Maybe I’m wrong? Maybe I AM asking for it? Men are men, right? It’s their biology, yes?

Then I finally realized something one night last week – the problem is, as a culture, we’ve equated ‘sexuality’ with male sexuality.

That a woman performing in front of men means she is open to or wants to have sex with those men is completely the male version of events, spawned on by not only a cultural acceptance of this ‘fact’, but demand for this type of thinking.

Funny we never talk about female sexuality as a culture, unless its in the context of male fantasy (and so, it’s most often not true female sexuality). Besides the fact that it’s harder to sell sex to women than men, and we live in a system based on making big dollars off of stimulating the nether regions, it’s so much more complicated than men’s sexuality.

So let’s just act like female sexuality doesn’t exist.

The Female Response

Well, I call bullshit. Women don’t always want to take the responsibility for working, cleaning the house, raising babies, taking care of the finances, and having sex with a partner who may not be helping with any of the aforementioned things, but guess what? A whole lot of them do (and not because they are biologically-inclined to do so).

There are so many different forms of sex. Oh really? Sure, in a male-dominated world, there is only one – penis in vagina or ass (female or male). In a woman’s world, dancing, dressing herself up, being stroked, fantasizing about making love to another or herself, being tied up, watching another couple make love, being fingered or fingering herself, touching her breasts, flirting and touching another person’s arm, can all be sex, among a myriad of other options. Those things in and off themselves can be fulfilling to her. Partaking in them doesn’t mean she is inviting a random or known penis to penetrate her.

Where’s the Line?

Why can’t a woman just feel sexy in and of herself dancing in front of an audience? I don’t care if that dance is bollywood, bellydancing, or burlesque – the quality lies inside of the woman, who can get her rocks off just by doing that – and why shouldn’t she be allowed to? (The same can be – and is – true for many male performers. We just don’t talk about that because it’s allowed for men to have attention without women thinking, ‘I deserve to have sex with them because they are dancing for me’.)

Men (and women) are and should be allowed to let their minds freely roam (and the reality is, they will no matter what anyone says). The issue occurs when they open their mouths to let out an inappropriate comment. Most men I know wouldn’t appreciate another person coming up and asking them for money because they are driving some flashy car or are flinging their money around at a fancy restaurant. It’s their right to do that with their money without being harassed, just like it’s a woman’s right to wear what she wants in any setting without being harassed for it.

Some might say that a woman dancing, in whatever form, is moving from an empowered position, and in a culture used to women being in submissive positions, they must be torn down from the powerful position via sexual dominance. I don’t know if that’s a correct assumption, but it IS high time that we recognize and break out of what is deemed appropriate sexuality in our culture.