On polite dancing

Monday evening, May 25th

It's about 11.30. The Memorial Day weekend is come and gone and I type this in the back of the dark-green Cadillac at about 65 miles per hour on Route One in Delaware. Jessy is asleep in the other side of the seat. We closed the ice-cream parlour at about 9.00 and were able to leave right from there with our bags and prom gowns and everything. We're both still in the Colonial gear-- Jessy has loosened her stays (she scarcely needs them anyway) and we're both barefoot, which is common for us anyway.

Daddy and Mother and the little ones are staying at the beach house tonight-- Lisa will miss a day of kindergarten and return home tomorrow. Jessy and I will have school at 7.45 as usual-- Roger will drive us. And Dottie will manage the ice-cream parlour as it goes into that weird schedule between Memorial Day and the end of school, when hours are shorter and the staff are less available till they know what their summer will bring.

I face the next few weeks with some degree of anxiety. I recognise that Stephen respects me, even likes me, for what I did at the prom, which I believed at the time and still believe was only simple human courtesy. Vanessa's moronic date doesn't have that concept. He is like what I assume too many people are nowadays, especially in America-- crass, selfish, without any understanding of the larger issues in life. In fact Vanessa is probably only just like him, though I don't know her very well and maybe that's unfair. But Stephen is different. We all understood why he was elected prom king-- he deserves it for being an all-round nice guy who is smart, entertaining, and mannerly. He is what we should all want to admire about people our age. And it broke my heart when Vanessa's date, a guy whose name we don't even know, stepped on his feelings like that. It's the king-and-queen dance! No one ever said they are a couple! And what is it about dancing in this country that makes people believe it's always about romance? Don't people realise there are many, many, other reasons to have a dance with a guy? Since I have been tall enough to look like a woman I have danced at formal affairs, with guys my age, even younger boys, and also older men, other people's fathers, my own father-- is that about romance? Dancing is just a social activity, it's what you do when you're at a party, especially a formal one. Sometimes-- as it's been with me-- it's been political. Sometimes there are men you simply cannot decline-- to be seen with them makes me look good, makes my family look good, makes my father look good, and may get something accomplished. I have said this to people before and someone actually said it makes me a kind of prostitute-- but when my dad has told me I have to dance with this man or that man I have just got up and done it, because I knew there was a reason. And yes, even since I was about 14, about half of them have propositioned me-- may I say here that most of those were Americans. The British men I have danced with would never have presumed to ask. They recognised it was a dance. And the French men-- I shall not say here, but by no means did I feel awkward round them either. The Frenchman places his hand a little too low on your hip, more like on the top of your bottom. Exactly once did I reposition a guy's hand, but I was a little too immature then, and I came to accept that it's just how they are. The Englishman places his hand on your side, at the bottom of your ribs. It's very proper. The Japanese man does too. The American doesn't know where to put his hand-- he tends to take your lead. If you put your hand on his shoulder, he puts his on your back and pulls you closer. If you put yours on his arm, he puts his on your side and keeps a distance. He seems afraid to look like he's trying something, because inside he really wants to be be trying something, but living in denial about his true motives he has to go to all this effort to make it look like he's not trying what he's really trying to come up with a way to try. He is a teakettle nearly boiling over, and stupidly he holds down that little cap as though that can even work, and the whistle comes out in some other way, usually in the look in his eyes. He looks at you like he wants to possess you, to consume you. When I see that look I just want to get out of there.

And I have danced with many men of my father's generation who were fathers themselves, and they will ask me about school, or about my college plans, or about whom I'm dating-- like the way any father would. When I don't care to talk too much about that I will ask the man about what he does, how he likes his profession, what his goals are, you know. Men like to tell us about that. They think we are impressed. I am usually not impressed by careers and accomplishments and goals and such-- it's only a courtesy to start a conversation that makes him feel comfortable. What impresses me is when a gentleman can have a dance with a girl who is not his daughter or his date and be able to look her in the eye and converse about something of substance. We don't want you to look down at our chest, we don't want you to hold our bottom, we don't want to hear any sleasy pickup lines, and we don't want to look like you possess us. What makes us respect you most is when you respect us. And you've a far better chance of having us want to go off to somewhere private with you if we respect you-- because what girl would go off with a man she doesn't respect?-- and would you really want that girl?

I am resolved-- the very next time Stephen asks me to dance, I will accept.

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