"Throughout western Europe, despite much official counter-effort, there is a strong and persistent association of ballet with homosexuality. Like many such notions, this one is unexamined and misleading: my proposition is that, although the audience of connoisseurs may contain a high proportion of gay men, the roll-call of male dancers presents another story. Insiders explain it to me like this.
"Being in constant intimate contact with beautifully honed and tensile bodies, stimulated by music and choreography of sensual intensity, and excited by the adrenalin rush of performance, ballet dancers are not surprisingly creatures who spend much of their professional lives on high sexual heat. However great the artistic spirituality involved, what we are talking about here is an animal process of courtship and arousal.
"The result is obvious: to put it bluntly, dancers, male and female, are in such a state of readiness that they will grab at anything in a skirt or trousers, leotard or legwarmers, to relieve their itch. Labelling the male-on-male contacts as homosexual or bisexual is missing the point.
"This has not penetrated the consciousness of the man on the Clapham omnibus, where the popular prejudice in relation to male ballet dancers remains a staple of stand-up comedy and schoolboy sniggers.
"Not so in Russia, where ballet is considered a noble profession and the male dancer is honoured and respected...
"Under the communist regime, homosexuality carried the risk of prison or the gulags and was, therefore, simply not discussed, publicly or privately. Strict censorship also meant that any vulgar jokes about bulging pink tights and mincing gaits never had channels through which to circulate..."
Rupert Christiansen,
Why Nobody Is Sniggering At Russia's Men In Tights, The Daily Telegraph.
This is a textbook example of how journalist's so often get away with writing absolute nonsense.
Every single sentence can be followed by the comment; "Bollocks!"
Mr Christensen seems to be suggesting that ballet dancers are practically rutting onstage.
While this may be true - and I'll have to take his word for it - it doesn't explain why so many male dancers from Nijinsky to Nureyev are gay offstage, when they're not "on high sexual heat."
And the assertion that there were no anti-gay jokes under the Soviet regime is, well, laughable.
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