Darshiva
Moderator
I was specifically talking about belly dance in the West, as having built itself a totally different reputation than in the Middle East.
I am one of the first to get annoyed when people accuse all male dancers of being gay! Having danced ballet, jazz, flamenco and ballroom I know plenty of straight male dancers (in fact my husband is one of them). But the only male belly dancers I've met have been gay, and I felt that bd gave them permission to be soft and feminine, (where other dance genres expect them to depict a strong masculine character).
That's really sad. But considering our ever-increasing number of wonderful male bellydancer members here, maybe it's a little bit off-putting to them to have assumptions made about their sexualities.