On how the vintage dance scene treats young women

[purchasemonkey]

   This is going to be a potentially controversial and polarizing post. Most of it will be behind a cut. It will be poorly organized, because I'm at work and have real work to be doing, but it's weighing heavily on my mind, and I want to say something.

I wrote the following in a comment on another's LiveJournal:I would not let my daughter be part

Comments

[deirdremoon]

I am an infrequent peripheral vintage-dance-goer, so I haven't seen the trend as strongly as you have. But I believe you, because I've seen it in other fandoms too. Granted, I was already a fairly poised 21 when I started, but yes, it's heady at that age to suddenly find a group of men who clean up nice, talk pretty, and not only agree to dance but are better than me at it! Glee!

That said: at that age, I was looking for a boyfriend MY AGE. At most, I practiced verbal fencing with older men, and learned as much about evasion as seduction. For some young girls, the problem is self-correcting. For the ones most in danger, I think the problem isn't just the suave older guy, but the lack of self-confidence in the girl herself-- and that makes her prey to predators in any circle. Having "older brother" types in the crowd to watch out for the younguns is wonderful, and useful, but you can't be there when she's walking to her car, either.

This is all a long way of saying, I agree with your observations, I don't think you're being chauvinist by expressing the concern, and the ways YOU want to treat the younger dancers are great. At the least, you are an example of a gentleman that the girls can compare the slimy ones against and find the others lacking.

I agree.

[capnkjb]

"...I think the problem isn't just the suave older guy, but the lack of self-confidence in the girl herself..."

^ this ^

Re: I agree.

[kid_lit_fan]

Me, too! I was 20 when I first did Dickens, the first place I noticed this phenomenon. I was not susceptible to older men, because they just weren't appealing to me. I was naive in a way that made me not notice that people wanted to have sex with me, rather than in a way that made me too likely to fall for the first person who said I was pretty (when you're that weird girl in HS, it can be heady to get attention from someone who appreciates you, or acts as if he does. But, for me, it was like my dad saying I was pretty.)

It was not lost on me that some men, my age and older, were more interested in 16-year-olds.