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I love to dance and am learning to belly dance. I see dance as being scared as well, but all the more reason to incorporate it into my relationship. For me, the power exchange between partners attains a spiritual level that is scared as well. It's not "just sex" to me.

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here is an ancient tribe that when asked about their religion and philosophy said "We have no religion, we have no philosophy. We dance."

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Is stripping considered dancing if you're humming a tune?

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Nope, not a dancer. Although we live in a log cabin in the woods, by the time it's warm enough to be naked outdoors it's tick and poison ivy season. And somehow I can't imagine the smell of Deet to be an aphrodisiac.

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Yes Yes Yes!!!

This post has me smiling. I love love LOVE dancing, and it is with
added joy when he asks that I dance for him. It's while in the groove
that any vestige of innocence is easily undulated away.

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May I suggest you add this to your list?

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I'd rather have sex.

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ORIGINAL: ChatteParfaitt

Many people do not know it, but one of the first things you learn when undertaking belly dancing is that it is not done for men. This is a dance for the female who does it, to celebrate her existence, her femininity, her sexual attraction. That men love to watch it is an added perk.

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ORIGINAL: MaxsBoy

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ORIGINAL: ChatteParfaitt

Many people do not know it, but one of the first things you learn when undertaking belly dancing is that it is not done for men. This is a dance for the female who does it, to celebrate her existence, her femininity, her sexual attraction. That men love to watch it is an added perk.

That's exactly it, except for the last sentence, in my case.  I have been bellydancing for about ten years, and was taught from the beginning that it is not about sex or looking hot for your man, and to perform for those reasons is disrespectful to the dance.  Dancing specifically to look sexy for someone else just isn't something I can do.  When I dance  it is to help me feel more centered and connected with my own spirit and with the energy of the world around me, or as a kind of sacrifice to Kali.  That (to answer someone's question earlier in the thread) is what I mean by "sacred".  Of course ymmv, and not everyone here is even talking about bellydance.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belly_dance

When belly dance became popular in the United States during the '60's and '70's, teachers sought to distance the dance form from the sleazy reputation it had developed in vaudeville and burlesque, by developing "ancient origin" theories for the dance, emphasizing a woman-centered background, ideally associated with Goddess worship, popular in feminism at the time, or childbirth,[4] and de-emphasizing traditions associated with erotic entertainment and prostitution.[5] The supposed connection of bellydance with motherhood and childbirth is based on an account in the highly romanticised autobiography The Dancer of Shamahka (1918, trans. 1922), by Armenian dancer Armen Ohanian. Ohanian presents a romaniticized vision of the Orient and takes an antimodernist and anticolonialist stance, berating the "desctructive breath of the Occident" for ruining the "primitive purity" of "olden Asia".[6]

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ORIGINAL: Ishtarr

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ORIGINAL: MaxsBoy

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ORIGINAL: ChatteParfaitt

Many people do not know it, but one of the first things you learn when undertaking belly dancing is that it is not done for men. This is a dance for the female who does it, to celebrate her existence, her femininity, her sexual attraction. That men love to watch it is an added perk.

That's exactly it, except for the last sentence, in my case.  I have been bellydancing for about ten years, and was taught from the beginning that it is not about sex or looking hot for your man, and to perform for those reasons is disrespectful to the dance.  Dancing specifically to look sexy for someone else just isn't something I can do.  When I dance  it is to help me feel more centered and connected with my own spirit and with the energy of the world around me, or as a kind of sacrifice to Kali.  That (to answer someone's question earlier in the thread) is what I mean by "sacred".  Of course ymmv, and not everyone here is even talking about bellydance.

American women seem to be the only ones in the world who actually know about this "sacred woman art" of belly dancing that can't be seen by men.
It was done to commercialize that style of dance in the US by getting women to believe it could also be non-sleaze form of self-expression.

Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against people who want to use belly dancing as a form of Goddess worship and self-expression that's not centered around female sexuality as a service to men.
However, claiming that this is the origin of the tradition of belly dancing is historically wrong.
The tradition as belly dance as a form of Goddess worship was made up by modern day American women, ignoring the fact that historically this form of dance has always been linked to prostitution and slavery.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belly_dance

When belly dance became popular in the United States during the '60's and '70's, teachers sought to distance the dance form from the sleazy reputation it had developed in vaudeville and burlesque, by developing "ancient origin" theories for the dance, emphasizing a woman-centered background, ideally associated with Goddess worship, popular in feminism at the time, or childbirth,[4] and de-emphasizing traditions associated with erotic entertainment and prostitution.[5] The supposed connection of bellydance with motherhood and childbirth is based on an account in the highly romanticised autobiography The Dancer of Shamahka (1918, trans. 1922), by Armenian dancer Armen Ohanian. Ohanian presents a romaniticized vision of the Orient and takes an antimodernist and anticolonialist stance, berating the "desctructive breath of the Occident" for ruining the "primitive purity" of "olden Asia".[6]

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ORIGINAL: ChatteParfaitt


Sorry, Ishtarr, wiki is not necessarily your friend.

Belly dance has it early roots in the pagan matriarchal fertility goddess. Tribal peoples throughout history have been fascinated by the female ability to create life.  These early fertility dances were symbolic recreations of childbirth and a way to celebrate this ability. "The sharp hip movements, deliberate muscular contractions and spasms, as well as sinewy undulations, demonstrate strong connections to the body's responses during labour and delivery." from wordbellydance.com

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ORIGINAL: Ishtarr

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ORIGINAL: ChatteParfaitt


Sorry, Ishtarr, wiki is not necessarily your friend.

Belly dance has it early roots in the pagan matriarchal fertility goddess. Tribal peoples throughout history have been fascinated by the female ability to create life.  These early fertility dances were symbolic recreations of childbirth and a way to celebrate this ability. "The sharp hip movements, deliberate muscular contractions and spasms, as well as sinewy undulations, demonstrate strong connections to the body's responses during labour and delivery." from wordbellydance.com

I'm not basing my opinion on wiki.
I just used wiki as a quick reference point for people to start research on if they are interested.
I will quote you my sources if you're interested, but they'll all be in Dutch, not English.
I have a family member who has spend their entire life researching ancient dance traditions.

You're right, btw that tribal people throughout history have used dance forms to celibate female spirituality, however, I wasn't talking about a generalization of dance worship, but about belly dance as a dance form specifically the way it's nowadays practiced with the movements nowadays used and the costumes nowadays used.

The style of belly dance Westerners think of when they think of belly dance was developed by slaves and prostitutes as a form of entertainment for men. That includes the movements most practiced and the style of dress used. There may be other dance styles which use similar motions that are meant to express Goddess worship, and there are certainly tribal dance styles that are meant to do that very thing. But belly dancing, as it came from the orient to Europe and then to America is a sexualized form of dance meant for the pleasure of men.

If you want to go back to tribal routs and celibate femininity by dancing that's just fine. If you want to call it belly dancing, that's just fine too. But claiming that belly dancing doesn't have anything to do with men is a historic misrepresentation of this form of dance.

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ORIGINAL: leadership527

Well OK, not that I'm an expert on this. But on the show I just saw they made a statement which makes sense. Belly dancing originated nowhere and everywhere. It is simply a form of dance which emphasizes the sexual aspects of the female body. Humans pretty much everywhere and always have liked doing that, whether or not they'd admit to it.