Men Who Ogle Belly Dancers

Prior to January, 2001, there used to be about a dozen "groups" on Yahoo that served as a gathering place for men whose erotic fantasies centered on belly dancers. They filled the photo album sections of these Yahoo groups with photos of belly dancers, most of which were taken from dancers' web sites without their permission. They used the message board primarily to make arrangements for exchanging illegal homemade copies of videos featuring belly dancers.

Eventually, some activists from within the dance community provided the right kind of information to Yahoo to document the fact that the primary activity of these groups involved theft of intellectual property (copyright violation), and based on their efforts Yahoo shut down all these clubs.

That has touched off a series of interesting discussions within the dance community. Some of the questions that have been part of the debate:

• Does it do any harm if men collect photos of attractive belly dancers that they can ogle?
• What if those photos are collected by going to dancers' web sites and copying them to post elsewhere on the web?
• What if the men go to shows featuring belly dancing and shoot their own photos, then post those on the web for their colleagues to admire?
• What about online discussion areas where the primary dialogue consists of making arrangements to swap homemade copies of videos featuring belly dancing?
• What about men who discuss their erotic fantasies involving belly dancers?

Here are my own thoughts...

First, I don't see any harm in men who admire attractive belly dancers. I've been known to admire attractive shirtless construction workers. It's human nature to admire attractive individuals of the opposite sex (or, for gay folks, of the same sex), especially when they are engaging in an athletic activity that showcases their abilities.

I also don't see any harm in people bringing belly dance into other fetishes, as long as their activity involves only consenting adults. I periodically receive e-mails from women who enjoy a bondage lifestyle, and the book Dancer of Gor by John Norman has inspired many of them to embrace belly dancing for use in their private lives.

However, I do have a problem with theft. Stealing pictures from dancers' web sites and posting them in a Yahoo group without first getting the dancers' permission is a Bad Thing. And making homemade copies of dancers' videos to swap with friends is a Worse Thing. Of course, not all fetishists are thieves. But I know from lurking in certain Yahoo groups that there are many who do this.

If someone snaps a picture of me when I'm doing a show, it wouldn't bother me if they posted that on a personal home page. I figure that goes with the territory of performing in public. But if they wanted to charge people money to view it, I would want to be paid a cut of that!

I don't have a quarrel with men who might want to gather in an online setting somewhere to exchange sexual fantasies featuring belly dancers. Although I don't intend to promote that kind of discussion, I wouldn't be offended to stumble on a site somewhere that did.

The main behaviors by some men who have a fetish for belly dancers that do bother me are:

• Theft, as I described above. This cheats dancers out of the right to earn an honest income from their hard work!
• Masturbating in public while the dancer is performing (yes, it has happened). Please, purchase yourself a video of an excellent dancer along with a jar of vaseline and do it in the privacy of your home!
• The kind of obsession that leads to stalking and possibly violent behavior.

Fortunately, such obsession is rare. I don't think being a dancer increases my vulnerability to it--the newspapers are full of stories about men who obsess over a normal, everyday woman they've met at work, through a friend, etc. and carry it through to violence. As dancers performing in public, we might bring ourselves to the attention of such characters, but I'm not going to let the risk turn me into a shut-in. I'll just try to behave in a way that minimizes the risks.

And I realize that not all men who are turned on by belly dancing are thieves or public masturbators. They do exist, but I know they don't represent most people.

So, all of this is a long way of saying that in general, I don't have any quarrel with men who admire belly dancers, but there are certain behaviors by a small number of them that I do have a problem with.

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