‘Gay yet?’: Confronting cultural narratives and assumptions about men dancing with men
Dr Sarah Wingrove
4/29/20265 min read
In ‘The One with the Ballroom Dancing’, an episode of Friends[1], the main scenario features Joey (Matt LeBlanc) helping the building custodian, Mr Treeger (Michael G Hagerty) learn how to dance. Upon returning from a rehearsal, Joey is greeted by Rachel (Jennifer Aniston) and Monica (Courteney Cox), the latter of whom asks ‘So how goes the dancing? Gay yet?’. Encapsulated within this single line of dialogue is a primary assumption that has continued to be made about not only men who dance with men, but men who dance, period. Joey argues with them that he is not doing ‘a girly dance’ but that ‘it’s like a sport, it’s manly’. His claim is quickly disproven narratively however, as he comes to acknowledge that he does not know how to lead and is therefore unable to perform ‘manly moves’. In this scenario, assumptions about both sexuality and gender expression are intertwined – because Joey is dancing in a supposedly feminine way, it must also be an indication of his burgeoning homosexuality. Many of these cultural narratives are applied to dancers of various dance styles, including those in the UK Swing scenes that includes West Coast Swing, Modern Jive (including Ceroc and SILC) and Lindy Hop. This is despite their relative lack of representation in popular media, aside from the notorious ‘Lindy Hop-a-thon’ competition on Strictly Come Dancing which was declared to be a ‘disaster’ due to the judges’ unfamiliarity with a marking system put in place specifically for the dance[2]. Part of the project, ‘Navigating Masculinity Among Heterosexual Men Who Dance with Men (MDM)’ is investigating how male dancers in the UK swing scene feel they are perceived by others because they are dancing with other men. Whilst the project lead, Dr Matt Hall has been involved with Modern Jive and West Coast Swing dance communities since 2008 and 2019 respectively, I became involved in this project as something of an ‘outsider’ and am aware that I harboured my own assumptions about both men who dance, and men who dance with men (MDM). The two key assumptions I held related to the sexuality of MDM as well as their prevalence in the UK swing dance scenes. In the course of conducting forty interviews with self-identified heterosexual MDM in collaboration with Dr Hall, not only were many of these assumptions challenged, but I became particularly aware of efforts within these communities to both desexualise and degender the dance.
Assumption 1 – That most men who dance with men identify as gay or have intimate relationships with other men.
Largely, when we see partner dancing on television, it will be, as in the case of the Friends episode, some form of ballroom dance. Consequently, assumptions we might make about partner dancing are likely to draw from these media images and narratives. An example of this is the ‘Strictly curse’, which has been described by Dr Vanessa Parson as where ‘music plus dance equals a primitive interpersonal bond that is unavoidable’.[3] This produces the cultural narrative that dance partners must be incapable of dancing together successfully without falling in love with one another, or at the least being sexually attracted to each other. What we see is that this narrative of partner dancing as inherently romantic and/or sexual is not only applied to opposite-sex dance partnerships, but also to same-sex situations between two men. It may be seen as comedic – in the Friends case, it is presented as a ridiculous scenario due to Joey’s characterisation as a notably heterosexual lothario[4] – or as a cause for concern, because of the revelation of a character’s supposed queerness and/or the threat of homophobic violence (see our blog post on the dance between Louis and Lestat in Interview with the Vampire, 2022-). Unsurprisingly, this narrative also leads to the presumption that MDM either identify as gay or have relationships with other men (the idea being that even if they were straight before, dancing with another man might ‘turn’ them gay). By nature of being involved in the project, this assumption was quickly rectified for me as all twenty men I personally interviewed self-identified as heterosexual, ‘straight’ (or in one case, as ‘normal’). Yet, I was still curious to discuss with our participants about how they navigated this presumption. Some participants described their resentment for the sexualisation of partner dancing in general, and the impact this could have on their relationships off the dance floor (though several acknowledged that they had met their wives and partners in a dance scenario). For a few, there was also a specific discomfort with regards to their dancing with other men being associated with their sexuality. A larger number were less fussed with the presumption being made but did take issue with the stigma they experienced because of it. This could take the form of rejection by other potential dance partners or mocking behaviour.
Assumption 2 – That MDM is very uncommon.
As we approached recruitment for the interviews, I also wondered whether Dr Hall’s connection to the various dance communities would be enough to garner the minimum number of participants we required for the study. I presumed that irrespective of sexuality, few men danced with other men at all, and those comfortable speaking to two researchers would be even lower in number. Not much of a dancer beyond clumsy childhood ballet lessons and compulsory Ceilidh classes during PE in Year 11, my most recent experience of dancing had been line dancing with my partner, Steph, in Omaha, Nebraska. The surprised response to us as a same-sex partnership led me to the conclusion that perhaps same-sex dance couples were still something of a rarity, and if this was the response in the Democratic ‘blue dot’ of the state to two women, then the potential response to two men would be more discouraging. What perhaps should not have surprised me was the strength of the networks and community between dancers, especially MDM who were aware of one another through the community, including having danced with one another previously. Consequently, recruitment for interviewees was relatively simple and snowballing, a method whereby personal networks within a community are employed and participants inform other potential participants of the study[5], was prevalent. Whilst some did also hold the view that MDM are relatively uncommon, it was very dependent on the dance groups and classes they frequented and their own micro-culture. Within interviews, participants would often suggest other dancers to Dr Hall and me, and this made it clear that beyond the forty men we interviewed, there are many more men dancing with one another in the UK.
Conclusion
As this project progresses and we continue to analyse and interpret the data from our participants, I am curious to see whether any further revelations are a surprise to either myself or Dr Hall, particularly when comparing our own experiences speaking with participants. Almost thirty years has passed since ‘The One With the Ballroom Dancing’ was first aired, and media representations of MDM will continue to inform perceptions of these dancers for those outside of the dance communities. Our research, and the subject of further blog posts, will examine what exactly these depictions look like, and the extent to which they inform or reinforce expectations of MDM today.
[1] Friends, season 4, episode 4, “The One with the Ballroom Dancing,” directed by Gail Mancuso
[2] Katie Archer, “First 'Strictly' Lindy Hop-a-thon ends in scoring disaster”, Yahoo! News, November 24, 2018. https://uk.news.yahoo.com/first-strictly-lindy-hop-thon-ends-scoring-disaster-204058350.html
[3] Vanessa Parson, “The Strictly Curse: music plus dance equals a primitive interpersonal bond that is unavoidable,” University of Sunderland School of Psychology Blog, December 18, 2018. https://sunderlandpsychology.wordpress.com/2018/12/18/the-strictly-curse-music-plus-dance-equals-a-primitive-interpersonal-bond-that-is-unavoidable/.
[4] The only significant distinction from this is the ‘quasi-spousal same-sex double act’ that Joey performs with his roommate, Chandler, which Alec Charles compares to Sesame Street characters, Bert and Ernie (2020, p.7).
[5] Kath Browne, “Snowball sampling: using social networks to research non‐heterosexual women,” International Journal of Social Research Methodology 8, no.1 (2005): 50, DOI: 10.1080/1364557032000081663.