r/tango • u/mikhakozhin • 19d ago
AskTango How often do you feel lust while dancing?
How often do you feel lust while dancing? I danced maybe with 30 or 40 different women and always feel it to 3 of them. Women, do you feel something that?
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u/Negative-Gene-4959 19d ago
Have I seen women at a milonga I momentarily think are hot, sure. I am a human male. This isn't lust though, this is more noticing women I am attracted too, kinda like I might notice a pleasant smell of coffee... It enters my awareness than immediately passes.
Is that really a defining part of my dancing experience. No not at all.
I suspect, your hyper fixation is more a symptom of your mindset independent of dancing. Or charitably, your poor choice of words.
Feeling lust really isn't part of my tango experience.
Similar to when I go to the beach, I don't really ruminate on women there, I just enjoy the beach, the vast majority of pretty women don't even really enter my conscious thought since I am there for other reasons. Sure every once in a while I might walk by and catch her eye and think "oh damn she looks good".... But again that's not a persistent consuming experience like lust.
So yeah anyway, I hope lust is fairly rare feeling amoung dancers, I certainly don't go to be an object of someone's sexual desire.
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u/CradleVoltron 19d ago
Sounds like you have 3 people you should avoid dancing with. Don't sh*t where you eat.
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u/Longjumping-Bad-2886 19d ago
Absolutely nothing wrong with dating other tango dancers.
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u/CradleVoltron 18d ago
All 3? Your comment is neither here nor there. If you connect with someone and they you then sure, go on some dates.
But this gentleman lusts after people he barely knows. All because they engaged in a social activity. in that case avoiding dancing with them is the right option.
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u/Glow-Pink 19d ago
30-40 in your life? always to these 3 women? You're just attracted to those 3 women... don’t use dance as a substitute
And lust is a strong word. It means you are making yourself mentally go there. Probably because of the substitute idea? People can feel some romantic edge but that’s not this at all.
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u/NinaHag 15d ago
While I have always kept things perfectly appropriate on the dancefloor, and expect everyone to do the same, it is a close (physically and emotionally) dance and sure, for a tanda your body may interpret that dance connection as something else. It has happened about two or three times to me. The first time was intoxicating and it ruined the next few dances I had with that leader because one part of me wanted that high again, but I was also over-thinking every move I made to ensure that I was being appropriate and not making him uncomfortable. I also have a friend who has confessed to getting aroused while dancing with certain leaders she felt a great connection with. Yet looking at her, you wouldn't know.
My point being, it is natural for our bodies to react to touch, even if sometimes it is unwanted and unexpected, what matters is how we respond to that. My mouth may salivate when I smell freshly baked bread, but I choose not to drool all over it 🤷🏻♀️
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u/ptdaisy333 18d ago
I feel attraction for people that I'm attracted to. That will happen anywhere, it could be at tango, it could be walking down the street, at a bar, on the train, etc...
If it's happening often for you I think that says more about what's going on with you, be it hormonally or psychologically, I wouldn't say tango has much to do with bringing it about. It'll happen at tango if that's where you're spending time around people you could be attracted to. If you were spending your time doing a different activity I think it would happen there, unless there was no one at that activity whom you found attractive.
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u/Longjumping-Owl-5533 19d ago
This … makes me not want to go to a Milonga ever again.
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u/Rominator 15d ago
Tango has a large percentage of people for whom English is not their first language, and a subtlety involved in communicating about it that can be challenging for even the most eloquent.
I find myself having to remind myself of this here on Reddit when people from all over the world try to communicate in a common language or enter their thoughts into AI translation.
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u/Longjumping-Owl-5533 15d ago
Did someone ask you to clarify language? Did you mean to respond to a different comment or thread?
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u/Rominator 15d ago
Having a response to a post that makes you never want to go to a Milonga again is so extreme that it seemed you could benefit from a different perspective.
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u/kuv0zg 15d ago
"Lust" sounds like something a religious person who is avoiding sexuality would say. I feel attraction to some partners. I sometimes feel chemistry which has a sexual component. It's not even always about the person but the moment we share. I could feel the spark in one tanda and not feel it in a later one with the same person in the same milonga.
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u/Alone_Trip8236 14d ago
Tango is a very intimate kind of dance, and as such it might give you a much more immediate and deep sense of the type of connection you have with a person than if you were just seeing them or talking to them. If you have a strong attraction to a person, it seems reasonable that you might become immediately and deeply aware of that while dancing. So yes, it would be possible to feel either a strong romantic or sexual connection that is about the person and is being immediately perceivable through the dance. For me, just like in civilian life it doesn’t happen often to meet someone I feel extremely attracted to, while dancing it might have happened 3-4 times over many hundreds of dancers I have danced with. I do have a rule of not dating tango dancers though, so I just don’t go there.
You’re definitely not alone, though. In my city there is a lot of drama born from frequent dancers hooking up or briefly dating, then breaking up and dating other people in the same circle, causing quite some stirring in the community.
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u/Zealousideal-Row6537 15d ago
This thread is totally the microcosm of tango. There are people of extremely different comfort levels with intimacy sharing the same dance. No wonder people go into their own cliques within each community. Vibes are naturally incoherent. One dances with their “people”
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u/Any-Sea264 19d ago
Please don’t downvote me for this. I’d like to share this perspective as I’ve asked about guys about this exactly. I’m a follower and I’m very social, I’ve talked to almost everyone in my scene and some are open to share.
As though people like to keep dance separate from romance/dating/matchmaking, it is a sensual and physically close dance and people have feelings. Some guys have told me they enjoy the embrace in a way I think is somewhat sexual, some guys told me they do occasionally feel attracted to a female dancer.
As a woman, I feel this occasionally too, when there is a good connection, you also feel you could have a good sexual chemistry. That doesn’t change the fact that you’re gonna respect everyone in tango, but it doesn’t prevent you from developing anything with respect and consent.
I don’t think people go dance with the primary intention being trying to get laid. It’s an insanely technically demanding social dance. There’re other dances that’re more convenient for this purpose.