Images from: Google Images
I was out clubbing again yesterday for a friend’s birthday. When we got there it was quite empty, but we had to take advantage of the £10 before 11pm deal, because the promoters threatened ominously that it would be ‘more thereafter’ and being broke in a chic studenty type of way, we had to ensure that we’d still have enough money on us to pay for the night bus home.
So we got in, hissed at the £2 charge for coat check (it’s usually £1, the cheeky gits!), found a good spot to hang and began to sway lightly on our feet in the way that clubbers do when they enter a party space. It’s code for, we’re here now, we’re open to see what’s gonna happen tonight, DJ play something that will change this sway into stepping! In other words, it’s like the warm up before the athletics.
As the club filled, the DJ’s set progressed from upbeat Soul to velvety RnB/Hip-Hop, and with this progression, came a progression in the dancing. At this point, we were all dancing, screaming along to the lyrics, and listening out for what the next song in the mix would be. It was somewhere at this point, amidst all the activity, that I noticed that the clubland gender roles became more played out than ever.
For guys, a large part of the clubbing experience is voyeurism and for girls, it’s performance.Perhaps I have always known this, but it became more of an articulated thought than a vague idea last night. As someone who likes watching people, I’m very shy about being watched myself, so when it came to the part where the lyrics were telling the girls to ‘wind for me’ and ‘jack your leg up’ and ‘back that ass up’ and ‘work it like you’re working for dollars’, I took a step back and perched on the back of a sofa. I then realised that all the guys were either perched on the same sofa, or up against a wall, watching the spectacle going on. A guy friend pointed at one if my friends and said, ‘Wow that b**** looks fiiiiiine,’ so I said, ‘Errr, yeah, I understand that you mean she looks nice, although maybe I’d have used different words to describe it.’ She was of course, naked. She was ‘having fun’ sexually dancing – exhibiting. He was ‘having fun’ inspecting the anatomy and mating rituals of a prize b**** – voyeur-ing.
Every so often, during a particularly dramatic contortion by one of the girls, a guy or a couple of guys would latch them selves onto her behind and simulate a sex act. Then all the other guys would whip out their cameras i.e. Oh the pleasure of sight both for now and here after! Don’t get me wrong, I love dancing, and mucking about with friends, but the focused attention that seems to demand that you dry hump and pseudo-copulate on the dancefloor kind of kills it for me. Being clung to by another being impedes my movement, so when all that starts, I’m more than happy to go back to people watching. There are always so many things to see: elaborate avoidance schemes, successful linkages, attention seekers, the cool kids, the kids who can pretend they’re cool because it’s dark, comical drunken virtuoso, all sorts!
After a while, all the guys were asking me what was wrong, and why I wasn’t 'having fun'. It wasn’t enough for them that I just enjoy kicking back and watching the scene (even though they know what I’m like already). On top of that, it wasn’t enough that I happen to be mildly scoliotic and aggravated winding on the dancefloor means hell to pay pain-wise the next day. It wasn’t enough that I fell on the stairs yesterday, and my knee got hurt because I landed awkwardly on it while trying to protect the chocolate cake I was carrying at the time. None of that was enough, they swarmed round me like flies, pestering, trying to force me to ‘have fun’. Trying to get me to do the whole ‘I’m sexy all up in the club bit’ so they could sit back and watch. Oh hell no! Not last night.
What was funny was, I did get up and dance again, but my dancing wasn’t valid because I didn’t ‘get low’. I didn’t proffer my bottom to the first available taker, I didn’t jump onto a sofa and bend myself in half. Stepping my heeled feet and midi dress, moving my arms, nodding my head, mouthing along to the lyrics, snapping my fingers, moving my shoulders, flicking my hair, swaying my hips lightly – none of that constitutes dancing, apparently. Someone said to me, ‘come on girl, put your back into it.’ So I said, with a huge smile ‘Sorry, I don’t grind.’ ‘Ugh,’ was his response.
The birthday boy sidled up to me and said, ‘I used to think too much when I was younger too, and it’s not good for you. Try and have fun.’ Granted, he was drunk.
‘I am having fun,’ I said. ‘I’m enjoying the music, I’m enjoying being with everyone. And look, I am dancing.’
‘No you’re not, you’re depressed,’ he declared. ‘Here, have some more alcohol then you’ll be dancing properly.’
I rolled my eyes (privately of course). Another cliché: buy a girl a drink and she’ll lose all her inhibitions. For goodness sake, I come from Opobo, where local moonshine, is the preferred alternative to Listerine. The Irish afterall have their ales, and we have our gin.
‘I’m fine hun, seriously, thanks! Stop worrying.’ I waved my hands in the air and started doing the electric slide and he looked at me as though he really wanted to believe me but somehow, I wasn’t making that possible.
Sigh! I looked around. Another girl had lined herself up with a ledge and was giving it the same attention she would give to a man under the right circumstances. The guys were moments away from dribbling. They had forgotten about capturing the image on camera for later. They were focused on the right now, broasting in lewd concentration, being stimulated by their sight. After about three minutes, someone began to film it. Then she made a show of not wanting to be filmed (as though she had NO CLUE that she was being watched before) and then carried right on with romancing the wooden ledge, with even greater alacrity, I might add. One brave man stepped forward and welcomed her posterior with his crotch. ‘That’s what I’m talking about,’ the other guys said. So it would appear, I thought.
Eventually, I decided to leave, because frankly I was tired, and I just wanted to go to bed. Why people can’t seem to accept that it's a valid choice for a girl to come into a club and just chill, like I was doing, is beyond me. Maybe because unspoken club rules state that the guys are supposed to be pleased/pleasured by what they see, and the girls are supposed to provide the entertainment. My lack of performance (on their terms) was robbing them of a fraction of the £10 value they came in to behold, and it struck me as all very problematic. The guys paid £10 to see some good booty, the girls paid £10 to have the undivided attention of a room full of horny men.
I suppose most girls love to be watched and ogled at, but I’ve never been most girls and I make no apologies for that. I really don't enjoy being watched. I’m not a tomboy at all – I do love my heels, a nice frock, makeovers, etc, nor am I particularly interested in being controversial, but I find it difficult to accept that if I’m not consciously trying to make a guy imagine having sex with me, then I’m contravening some sort of ‘fun having’ rule. If you asked any of them about last night, they would claim that they’re not sure whether or not I had fun. And I would beg to differ. I so did, because I got dressed up, danced (on my terms), hung out with friends, took silly photos, listened to good music, and got some fodder for my blog! It probably sounds like I’m being disparaging of the club experience, but I’m not; I actually like going clubbing. I’m merely trying to deconstruct it and find out what the point is, for the different people who go there. Why they go, what they percieve as fun (and why that is). Also, if they’ve ever actually stopped to question the shape their assumptions about clubland behaviour take i. e. do they ever consider that they might be playing a role that's dictated to them by the club space, and by media semiotics surrounding similar spaces (e. g. music videos)? What happened to the days when most dancing was about movement, rhythm, skill and not latching on to the tail end of the nearest mother ship?
I suppose the idea about meditation in clubs in my poem below (Nightclub) came true in that I reached a new gender role discovery. I would also like to refer to my post (Exploring Erotica) below for the topic of respectability. Some girls complain about the way guys respond to them in clubs. Granted, there are lots of losers who do unprecedented letching (heck they’d hit on a duck if it waddled past), but for the large part, guys respond to the signals that the girls are putting out. Note to women (again!): if you don’t want to be mistaken for a stripper, don’t act like one and then pretend to be offended when you’re treated like one. At a certain stage of your life, you should be able to make cognitive assessments about your behaviour. If you’re going to act out a part, be prepared to deal with the repercussions.
So we got in, hissed at the £2 charge for coat check (it’s usually £1, the cheeky gits!), found a good spot to hang and began to sway lightly on our feet in the way that clubbers do when they enter a party space. It’s code for, we’re here now, we’re open to see what’s gonna happen tonight, DJ play something that will change this sway into stepping! In other words, it’s like the warm up before the athletics.
As the club filled, the DJ’s set progressed from upbeat Soul to velvety RnB/Hip-Hop, and with this progression, came a progression in the dancing. At this point, we were all dancing, screaming along to the lyrics, and listening out for what the next song in the mix would be. It was somewhere at this point, amidst all the activity, that I noticed that the clubland gender roles became more played out than ever.
For guys, a large part of the clubbing experience is voyeurism and for girls, it’s performance.Perhaps I have always known this, but it became more of an articulated thought than a vague idea last night. As someone who likes watching people, I’m very shy about being watched myself, so when it came to the part where the lyrics were telling the girls to ‘wind for me’ and ‘jack your leg up’ and ‘back that ass up’ and ‘work it like you’re working for dollars’, I took a step back and perched on the back of a sofa. I then realised that all the guys were either perched on the same sofa, or up against a wall, watching the spectacle going on. A guy friend pointed at one if my friends and said, ‘Wow that b**** looks fiiiiiine,’ so I said, ‘Errr, yeah, I understand that you mean she looks nice, although maybe I’d have used different words to describe it.’ She was of course, naked. She was ‘having fun’ sexually dancing – exhibiting. He was ‘having fun’ inspecting the anatomy and mating rituals of a prize b**** – voyeur-ing.
Every so often, during a particularly dramatic contortion by one of the girls, a guy or a couple of guys would latch them selves onto her behind and simulate a sex act. Then all the other guys would whip out their cameras i.e. Oh the pleasure of sight both for now and here after! Don’t get me wrong, I love dancing, and mucking about with friends, but the focused attention that seems to demand that you dry hump and pseudo-copulate on the dancefloor kind of kills it for me. Being clung to by another being impedes my movement, so when all that starts, I’m more than happy to go back to people watching. There are always so many things to see: elaborate avoidance schemes, successful linkages, attention seekers, the cool kids, the kids who can pretend they’re cool because it’s dark, comical drunken virtuoso, all sorts!
After a while, all the guys were asking me what was wrong, and why I wasn’t 'having fun'. It wasn’t enough for them that I just enjoy kicking back and watching the scene (even though they know what I’m like already). On top of that, it wasn’t enough that I happen to be mildly scoliotic and aggravated winding on the dancefloor means hell to pay pain-wise the next day. It wasn’t enough that I fell on the stairs yesterday, and my knee got hurt because I landed awkwardly on it while trying to protect the chocolate cake I was carrying at the time. None of that was enough, they swarmed round me like flies, pestering, trying to force me to ‘have fun’. Trying to get me to do the whole ‘I’m sexy all up in the club bit’ so they could sit back and watch. Oh hell no! Not last night.
What was funny was, I did get up and dance again, but my dancing wasn’t valid because I didn’t ‘get low’. I didn’t proffer my bottom to the first available taker, I didn’t jump onto a sofa and bend myself in half. Stepping my heeled feet and midi dress, moving my arms, nodding my head, mouthing along to the lyrics, snapping my fingers, moving my shoulders, flicking my hair, swaying my hips lightly – none of that constitutes dancing, apparently. Someone said to me, ‘come on girl, put your back into it.’ So I said, with a huge smile ‘Sorry, I don’t grind.’ ‘Ugh,’ was his response.
The birthday boy sidled up to me and said, ‘I used to think too much when I was younger too, and it’s not good for you. Try and have fun.’ Granted, he was drunk.
‘I am having fun,’ I said. ‘I’m enjoying the music, I’m enjoying being with everyone. And look, I am dancing.’
‘No you’re not, you’re depressed,’ he declared. ‘Here, have some more alcohol then you’ll be dancing properly.’
I rolled my eyes (privately of course). Another cliché: buy a girl a drink and she’ll lose all her inhibitions. For goodness sake, I come from Opobo, where local moonshine, is the preferred alternative to Listerine. The Irish afterall have their ales, and we have our gin.
‘I’m fine hun, seriously, thanks! Stop worrying.’ I waved my hands in the air and started doing the electric slide and he looked at me as though he really wanted to believe me but somehow, I wasn’t making that possible.
Sigh! I looked around. Another girl had lined herself up with a ledge and was giving it the same attention she would give to a man under the right circumstances. The guys were moments away from dribbling. They had forgotten about capturing the image on camera for later. They were focused on the right now, broasting in lewd concentration, being stimulated by their sight. After about three minutes, someone began to film it. Then she made a show of not wanting to be filmed (as though she had NO CLUE that she was being watched before) and then carried right on with romancing the wooden ledge, with even greater alacrity, I might add. One brave man stepped forward and welcomed her posterior with his crotch. ‘That’s what I’m talking about,’ the other guys said. So it would appear, I thought.
Eventually, I decided to leave, because frankly I was tired, and I just wanted to go to bed. Why people can’t seem to accept that it's a valid choice for a girl to come into a club and just chill, like I was doing, is beyond me. Maybe because unspoken club rules state that the guys are supposed to be pleased/pleasured by what they see, and the girls are supposed to provide the entertainment. My lack of performance (on their terms) was robbing them of a fraction of the £10 value they came in to behold, and it struck me as all very problematic. The guys paid £10 to see some good booty, the girls paid £10 to have the undivided attention of a room full of horny men.
I suppose most girls love to be watched and ogled at, but I’ve never been most girls and I make no apologies for that. I really don't enjoy being watched. I’m not a tomboy at all – I do love my heels, a nice frock, makeovers, etc, nor am I particularly interested in being controversial, but I find it difficult to accept that if I’m not consciously trying to make a guy imagine having sex with me, then I’m contravening some sort of ‘fun having’ rule. If you asked any of them about last night, they would claim that they’re not sure whether or not I had fun. And I would beg to differ. I so did, because I got dressed up, danced (on my terms), hung out with friends, took silly photos, listened to good music, and got some fodder for my blog! It probably sounds like I’m being disparaging of the club experience, but I’m not; I actually like going clubbing. I’m merely trying to deconstruct it and find out what the point is, for the different people who go there. Why they go, what they percieve as fun (and why that is). Also, if they’ve ever actually stopped to question the shape their assumptions about clubland behaviour take i. e. do they ever consider that they might be playing a role that's dictated to them by the club space, and by media semiotics surrounding similar spaces (e. g. music videos)? What happened to the days when most dancing was about movement, rhythm, skill and not latching on to the tail end of the nearest mother ship?
I suppose the idea about meditation in clubs in my poem below (Nightclub) came true in that I reached a new gender role discovery. I would also like to refer to my post (Exploring Erotica) below for the topic of respectability. Some girls complain about the way guys respond to them in clubs. Granted, there are lots of losers who do unprecedented letching (heck they’d hit on a duck if it waddled past), but for the large part, guys respond to the signals that the girls are putting out. Note to women (again!): if you don’t want to be mistaken for a stripper, don’t act like one and then pretend to be offended when you’re treated like one. At a certain stage of your life, you should be able to make cognitive assessments about your behaviour. If you’re going to act out a part, be prepared to deal with the repercussions.
About the unprecedented letches, though, while I was minding my business waiting for the night bus home, a bald, sweaty, rotund, drunken weirdo staggered up to me and began to interrogate me. Even after he had established that I wasn't Halle Berry, Samantha Fox, Shakira or Beyonce, he asked me if I'd like to go home with him. I declined politely. 'Is it becaue I'm ugly?' he asked. I didn't respond. He then tried to help himself to a handful of the chips I was eating. 'Stop it,' I yelled. 'Go away! You can't just stick your hands in other people's food.' 'I only want one chip,' he said. I shut the take away box and glared at him. Thank goodness, I shut it before he could get his grotty fingers on my food. 'Oh, you slut,' he said, shaking his fists, then he disappeared. Last time I checked, there was nothing slutty about eating soggy chips in a full length black coat and no make-up, so I didn't need to be offended, because he was clearly the one with issues, mostly, those to do with cider-induced altered perception. If I had been pole-dancing on the bus shelter, then maybe he'd have had a point. But I wasn't, so he didn't. Oh ye women, take note.
And that, my darlings, is it from me…for now.
Smooches,
xx
And that, my darlings, is it from me…for now.
Smooches,
xx
5 comments:
This post couldn't have been more timely. I was at a party last night, and the girls were "dancing" in the middle of the floor, and the guys were sitting on couches watching/drinking. But I found each gender's performance in this scenario and past ones, to be a little different from what you've described. The girls at this party soon became quite annoyed at what they called the guys' "7th grade attitude" and stopped dancing, and the party soon fell apart. The conclusion here: active participation, in this case, dancing, was required of both parties.
But that was actually a rare experience. Most other parties I have been to have been mirror images of the performance you've talked about, with one difference: the male's performance is only successful if carried out with an air of nonchalance. Be they posted up on a wall with a woman's behind glued firmly to their crotch, or be they simply watching, they send signals that say: "you're good but you're not all that."
Observe a man who is grinding (ok, so I am an intellectual voyeur?) or should I say a man upon whom a woman is grinding. It is very unlikely that you will see what he's really thinking on his face. Sure he may be sweating, sure he may be looking very intently at some part of her anatomy, some part that he hasn't gotten his grubby paws on just yet, but in my experience, he's also leaning casually against a wall, occasionally taking a swig from a drink perched on a table or ledge nearby, and even chatting and laughing with some of his boys. He makes a big show of having his attention diverted from time to time despite the fact that the woman is at this point balancing on one leg or on her hands only.
Now this is the part of the male performance that confuses me. Why go to such lengths to show that you are not that into it, that you are only slightly "moved"/ interested in said lady's gymnastic prowess? Is this a manifestation of a larger "masculine" phenomenon?
And why, pray tell, do all those hip hop and dancehall songs contain such elaborate instructions for the contortion of the female body and none for the male?
And these, my dear, are my thoughts on your post. And also, I have missed you :-)
i have come to the conclusion that i actually just dont like clubbing much. I do enjoy it sometimes, like maybe 2 in 10 times. haha.It has taken me a while to 'own it', precisely because if this pre-determined, ostensibly universal idea that 'having fun' for young people equals clubbing, and as such dancing in the way one is 'expected to' (as mentioned). Thats the bit that really annoys me.....people force feeding you ideas on how to have fun. 90 percent of the time,I say, gimme a lovely restaurant, people i can have a good, interesting, funy conversation with, and a bottle of wine. yup yup!
Oh i forgot to say.....with regard to dancing (even in a club where all that has been mentioned is going on); how might the dynamic change when the guy is a serious or semi serious 'love' interest/boyfriend and not a random perv/random voyeur?
Might a little miss like to be watched by little mr boyfriend/love interest? Would such an acquaintance (cant think of another word :) ) make a difference? Might a little miss want to show a little mr what she got? *teehee*
I agree Annie...we should make the men jack it up and let them see how it feels to be made into a gymnastic spectacle. And Yem, about the dancing between missy and mr...I really don't know. What I know for a fact is that the board plank dancer girl and another grindy-grindy girl both have misters in their lives, although the misters weren't out with us that night. It would be amazing to see how and if the dynamics change when the misters are about. I'll get back to you n that one. No doubt, it'll be someone's birthday again soon, and I'll get the chance to observe and report my findings!
Lol, what club was this? Sounds horrid! I'm not a huge fan of clubbing either, but every so often I can't resist the urge to go dance like a weirdo on ecstasy with my friends! I love dancing! Though not in the grindy grindy way the people you described did. Urrgh! And I couldn't agree more with your point about women, their actions, and repercussions. Some girls really do take the piss! And the one about clubbers acting out prescribed music video roles is so true! I've had to resist many an urge to slap champagne bottle-toting male companions around the head and yell, "Stop behaving like a moron!"
Oh and uh... I come from Opobo too, I know I'm being dumb but.. local moonshine? Listerine? Please explain.
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