Nearly slapped

Motto of the royal Stuarts and the Jacobites

Here's another perspective on those tales of "abandonment".

I have abandoned the guy, walked off the floor, only rarely. I try my hardest not to leave mid-tanda. I make an excuse, as though it's my fault - a dodgy knee, playing up, usually. It's not ideal but with an excuse, face is saved as much as it can be.

But guys can take it very badly and these you remember - warnings I suppose. I made a mistake in a choice of guy while dancing away, after Christmas, enduring two excruciating - "dances" is hardly the word, during which this large and heavy man stood on my toes - twice. I simply could not bear it any more and excused myself as politely as I possibly could. I thanked my stars that that second track ended at a discreet exit point from the floor. I guessed he was the type who, for all his considerable urbane charm, would not take it well and had I had to leave him stranded at a very visible point on the floor, things would have been much worse. Were I to have I considered this beforehand it might have helped me in my choice. I passed him shortly afterwards at his table and made a point of smiling, albeit briefly, but my friends said that after I left the floor his face was like thunder. It's better to avoid getting to that point, because as Oscar Casas says, the milonga is a very visual place.

That is why accepting an invitation needs so much care and why painful lessons are worthwhile. That good piece of advice to stop dancing "whenever you feel uncomfortable" has stayed with me. Oscar talks about Argentines who take advantage of tourists floundering in a strange place and making them feel uncomfortable. He also makes a point of saying that some Argentines don't tolerate it which is nice to hear, although it would be nicer to see more of that in practice. I felt very alone in those Buenos Aires milongas. The men know that, the games are more grown up and until we find my feet we are, potentially, prey.

Quarter of an hour in an embrace you don't want to be in is 14 minutes and 55 seconds too long. That's a very long time. Dancing the last track of a tanda with someone new means "let's see", because even three minutes in an embrace you don't want to be in is much too long. If someone is too proud to only dance the last track, there's your answer about what that dance probably would have been like.

Milonga people know that leaving a partner mid-tanda is just about the strongest message you can send in the milonga. Even if accompanied by "Thank you very much" it still means "That was so horrendous as to be insulting. We will never dance again". Leaving a partner mid-tanda effectively means: "you have insulted me and I cannot tolerate it." How can a dance be insulting? I guess it comes down to the guy invited someone he should not have and that is a risk you take in that role. I say this with some experience: the first woman, I danced with, spontaneously, in a class with insufficient men - she was far too experienced for me - didn't exactly abandon me and as I recall didn't say much, but made me feel so small I didn't dance in that role for another year at least, maybe two.

"The most dramatic time I didn't finish a tanda was at an inauspicious event in the famous Blackpool ballroom.

Blackpool Tower

This was two full years before I failed to do the same in Buenos Aires when I should have. It illustrates how easy it can be to lose your bearings, even your sense of self, in a new place. An older guy I already knew slightly started feeling up my neck as we danced.  I stopped the dance immediately and walked off the floor mid track.  The urge to slap him was almost irresistible. He came to apologise later. I accepted the apology but never danced with him again. That seedy, sleazy town was at least a fitting context for that moment. Argentine tango has, in Britain that "ooh-er" reputation but we who dance know it's not like that and men who behave inappropriately, who try to take advantage of women, who push the envelope, who are, actually or potentially abusive sexual predators, are known about. Either they don't last long or they are avoided by experienced women.

I wish more women and more men stood up to these guys but essentially you have to defend yourself.  Apart from which, if you let guys treat you badly, they will keep doing it, it encourages others to do the same to you.

During my first placement in school before Christmas we were discussing sexual violence in a poem. A fifteen year old then said to me she had been groped at the local fair and asked - asked - if that was sexual harassment. In the UK, 71% of women experience sexual harassment in a public place.

Coercing women, taking advantage of women any way at all on the dance floor is another form of force, imposition and sexual harassment. 95% of incidents of sexual harassment in a public place go unreported.