Re: [TANGO-L] Randy Does Rio, Part 6

[Richard deSousa <Mallpasso @AOL.COM>]

Hi Randy:

When I was down in Buenos Aires last November I danced with some grandmothers
at various milongas and I'd have to say some of them are very good dancers!

El Bandito de Tango




In a message dated 7/25/2005 08:18:24 Pacific Daylight Time,
randycook95476  @YAHOO.COM writes:
"Dancers for Hire"

I am seated at a table at one of the weeknight
milongas in Ipanema, resting and watching.  "How
sweet," I think to myself.  "All these young men
dancing with their grandmothers!  Good dancers, too,
these boys.  So gentle, so considerate, so smooth!"

Then I realize what is going on.  "Dancarinos para
alugar," Paulo calls them--dancers for hire.  He won't
allow them in Xango because he says they "sicken" the
milonga.

I feel a little sick myself, now that my eyes are
open.  I think of the streetwalkers in Lapa who hang
around outside the samba clubs, looking for
middle-aged single men whose inhibitions have been
loosened by drinks and "chorinho" music, and are now
ready to pay for other pleasures...

I do a head count of the sparsely attended milonga in
Ipanema.  There are the old women, the young men, a
few couples, and me.  I've done my share of dancing
with the elderly ladies.  It wasn't much fun.  It felt
like work.  And in the restroom, the young man washing
his hands at the sink looked the other way when I came
in.  I paid R$12 to attend this milonga.  Perhaps
someone should be paying ME.

I ask myself if I am being too judgmental.  "Imagine
you are a woman in your seventies.  Your children
seldom come to visit.  You've never developed a
passion for the arts, for charity work, for gardening.
You can't sit around watching the 'novelas' on
television every night.  Your husband left you with
plenty of money.  Why not take a few private dance
lessons, inquire discreetly where you can find a
dancer for hire, go to the clubs, spend your evening
with a handsome young man--so much more polite than
your grandson--and feel like a young woman again... or
at least like a woman?"

I can't answer my own question.  In the case of the
streetwalkers of Lapa, I've been told that a night's
trick may be all that stands between them and
starvation.  Sexual exploitation based upon economic
inequality is clearly evil.  But if it a case of
picking up a little cash in exchange for making a
lonely woman happy for a few hours, I don't know what
to say.

I only know that I don't feel like dancing anymore
tonight, and on the taxi ride home, I feel very sad.