I Was A Feminist Belly Dancing Tool Of ‘The Patriarchy’

I discovered The Power at a time when feminists were turning into fauxminists. I embraced my sensuality and 'the male gaze' while they self-infantilized and adopted perma-victimhood.

Photo from PxFuel

I blasted Celestria with my finest feminist are-you-out-of-your-damn-MIND face and exploded, “BELLY DANCING?”

“Yeah, wouldn’t that be cool? I want to get Chabi to teach a class.”

Chabi was a new addition to our Society for Creative Anachronism medievalist re-creation group at our Ohio university.

“Come on, it’ll be fun!” Celestria teased.

But I was a feminist, dammit! My recollection of belly dancing’s heyday in the ’60s and ’70s tasted a bit sour, past its expiry date. Shimmying memories of background decoration in movie nightclubs or a half-naked woman dancing for men’s, and particularly James Bond’s pleasure, in From Russia With Love.

It seemed as vintage as the Mary Tyler Moore flip and pencil skirts. And while I didn’t object to female sensuality—Belly dancing?

“I don’t have the body for those costumes,” I replied, getting straight to the point.

“Oh, let’s just have fun.”

It’s good exercise, I rationalized. Without the embarrassing belly-baring costume, and no need to perform publicly, I was in.

Ha. Ha. Ha.

“I’ll teach free weekly classes on one condition,” Chabi said. “You all have to dance for the Mongolian Horde this summer at Pennsic War.”

Dance? You mean, perform?

That struck a level of terror historically reserved for the words ‘Mongolian Horde’, although the SCAdian re-enactment Horde was far more civilized than the original. The ‘Pennsic War’ is a giant medieval annual extravaganza featuring epic battles and even more epic parties at a Pennsylvania campground.

(This is what I did on my summer vacation for the next seven years.)

Perform for the Horde??? Oh what the hell, they’ll all be drunk anyway.

“I don’t want to wear a skimpy outfit,” I said.

“No problem,” Chabi replied. “It’s not period anyway. You’re thinking of modern American cabaret style.”

Like this? Six months later.

I still felt sort of embarrassed and like a traitor about the whole thing.

For the first lesson, Chabi taught hip moves and a simple ten-second routine set to the sexy, throbbing, Middle Eastern sounds of Eddie ‘The Sheik’ Kochak.

An unexpected sexual thrill spread within as my hips swung. I felt strong. I felt confident. I felt, and I couldn’t believe I was feeling this, damned sexy. There it was. The Power.

Moving and feeling like a beautiful, desirable woman flooded me with an extraordinary empowering sexual confidence. I am woman, watch me dance!

The high school wallflower, about as desired as a pop trigonometry quiz, who’d agreed to this adventure never wanting a man to see her making an idiot of herself in a (too much belly)-baring costume suddenly wished her male friends could see her, even if she was only wearing a T-shirt and shorts.

I imagined myself in one of those beautiful costumes. I’d be like those women in the movies! The Power felt anything but degrading. (It also threw self-perception to the wind.)

As I moved and shimmied, I reveled in blossoming confidence.

I’d joined this class on a lark, figuring it would peter out after Pennsic. Now I was all-in, along with everyone else.

"Hot buttered puppies!" The Khan approves

In the months that followed, we emerged like butterflies from a lifelong cocoon of never being attractive enough.

We lost weight. It was good exercise! My roommate Liliana and I belly danced to music on the radio. Anything with a beat! Even The Monkees.

JoAnn’s Fabrics drew excited neophyte dancers purchasing yards of sale fabric for flow-y brightly-colored Middle Eastern circle skirts, caftans and bras. Excited, Liliana and I debuted our belly-baring costumes to Chabi and her partner, who exclaimed, wide-eyed, “HOT BUTTERED PUPPIES!”

I still don’t know what that means but I think it was a compliment!

In the fall I followed my parents’ move to Connecticut. I hated leaving Chabi’s class. I’d transformed from a recovering dork into both a medieval and modern flirt vixen.

About a year and a half later, Chabi encouraged me to explore ‘bellygrams’ for parties. I didn’t think I was good enough. I performed at medieval events, but felt like I knew only just enough to be dangerous.

“You’re good enough,” Chabi assured me, having seen me dance again at my second Pennsic War.

It was Gisele, not Giselle, but whatever.

So, I terrorized forty-year-old (on average) birthday boys in a tri-state area for the next fifteen years. Fifty+ was my favourite demographic. The older men got, the less they cared about looking silly. They’d rather have fun and dance with me.

A witless tool for The Patriarchy

It’s ironic I received as little feminist pushback as I got in the sourpussed ‘80s. Some women made snide comments suggesting my activity was hurtful to women. I couldn’t hate their judgmentalism. I’d felt exactly as they did before Celestria dragged me into this. I explained and, hopefully, educated.

But most women’s eyes lit up when I danced, and wanted to learn “after I lose a few pounds.”

“That’s how you lose a few pounds!” I replied. “We all did!”

In the ‘90s, feminism and I broke up, citing irreconcilable differences over female power (I argued it existed), agency (I argued women had it) and responsibility (I argued it comes with power as a matched set).

Feminists didn’t talk about ‘patriarchy’ much yet, but I was sometimes challenged for being a ‘tool for sexism’. Women were still afraid of power. They wallowed in chronic victimhood in the face of imagined ominpresent predatory males. Women who embraced the male gaze unflinchingly were a subconscious threat, a reminder that not all women accepted victimhood. I never felt I was a ‘tool’ of something degrading, maybe because SCA men treated all women, of all body sizes, so well.

Belly dancing directly contradicted feminist puritanism, bred in part by earlier counterculture feminism. It lacked a sense of humour, as I found when the biggest women’s libber in my feminist literature college class caught me dressed as a Playboy bunny for Halloween.

Feminism had pulled off numerous genuine victories, real accomplishments that made the world more equitable to women in the thirty-odd years I’d been alive, but my ex just couldn’t admit her own success, and she just got too — tight-assed. Embarrassing.

Why was it the more empowered women became, the more disempowered many seemed to feel? I began calling myself an ‘egalitarian’. I still believed in equal rights, but I could no longer utter the f-word with pride.

While feminists marched to Take Back The Night and support Anita Hill, I used my side hustle income for flashier costumes and accessories than the handmade attempts of my early, low-wage temp job days. I also travelled to Europe.

Belly dancing today

My sister in The Power Kaleena Lawless runs her own business, Luna Belly Dance, in New Brunswick. I asked her who’s discovering The Power these days.

Kaleena began learning/dancing in 2009 and describes a scene I remember from days of yore: Sylph-like bodies, skimpy costumes, rows of quarters rolling down one’s perfectly-toned belly (bleah, always seemed like such a cheap carny trick), and “executing deep backbends, their arms weaving like serpents to hypnotic music.”

Egyptian dancer from a 13th century New Kingdom vase. Public domain image by unknown author on Flickr.

Ah yes, I remember a gorgeous long-waisted dancer named Sasha in New Haven for whom the crowd hissed when she moved—because she was so sinuous, a human cobra.

Today, Kaleena says, her classes draw both older and younger generations, for different reasons—the gals past forty seek movement, confidence, and a supportive community. “They revel in dressing up, putting on makeup, and reclaiming space in a world that once told them to shrink.” Oh yes, that magic moment when you turn forty and become invisible.

Except when you’re a belly dancer. You simply can’t ignore this!

Kaleena “Luna” Lawless

Images provided by Kaleena

I’ve seen older dancers, and heavy dancers, mesmerizing an audience. She slithers like she’s the most beautiful woman in the room, and she is, regardless of what she looks like. She radiates the inner Power that transforms a faded office clerk or an overweight, depressed mother into an attention-commanding, supremely confident sparkling temptress. All eyes are on her. Men wonder what she’s like. Women want to be like her.

“Younger generations,” Kaleena says, “are drawn to body positivity and cultural history.” She says many in the tightly-knit community aspire to return to the dance’s roots by performing in Egypt one day. She says they “discover the subtleties of being sensual rather than sexual.”

That’s what Chabi said forty years ago. Belly dancing is sensual, not sexual. It’s the difference between, “Hi cutie!” and “Wanna f—k?” <insert beep>

I’m happy to hear women are choosing this uber-feminine, and uber-feminist self-expression, an art form that strikes me as positively demure compared to the crass, vulgar exhibitions of pole dancing and OnlyFans.

Not a one of us in Chabi’s class had a great bod except for Anselma, a thin, pretty blue-eyed blonde who wasn’t, ironically, very good, who caused too much drama, and got kicked out by Chabi.

Kaleena says when she first started dancing that she battled an eating disorder and, though skinny, ongoing body image struggles. “Belly dance became a gateway to self-acceptance. As I gained healthy weight, I learned to love the jiggle that came with a softer, more feminine figure. To my surprise, the dance became easier and my movements looked more natural and fluid.”

Historically, belly dancers were almost never ballerina-thin. The standard of female beauty was typically zaftig or even obese. Fat wives or concubines were a status symbol; a sign that you were rich enough to feed and pamper your ladies. Beauty is defined by what’s difficult to achieve and what that signifies. Most people in past epochs suffered from chronic malnutrition or lack of abundant food, so skinny bodies were a sign of poor health and likely inability to properly bear a child.

Women “find empowerment in the coy flirtation of dancing from the womb space. That’s where you’re dancing from,” Kaleena reminds them. “Their eyes widen as they realize they are, in essence, learning a mating ritual, one that reveals the intricate patterns their bodies are capable of creating.”

One of the roots of belly dancing is exercising a young girl’s muscles that will one day enable her to give birth.

I ‘got’ the sensuality of The Power on some deeper level even when I was three or four. I lost that joy somewhere, maybe when I turned into a teenage dork where a certain boy reminded me every single day how hideous I was.

Sensuality is almost extinct in today’s contradiction of sexual puritanism and OnlyFans exhibitionism. Men are terrified of women, knowing them only from porn, or because they’re afraid of getting #MeToo’ed as a creeper if they dare introduce themselves.

Female sensuality/sexuality comes with many choices, complex and faceted. Some women argue they’re empowered by pole dancing. They too, possess The Power.

Other women find it degrading and downright embarrassing. I understand that too.

Belly dancing taught me to care less about my imperfect body, to sew my own garb and to self-choreograph. It taught me how to flirt, how to play the doumbek and how to break down music. I performed in a troupe for a year. I learned how to dance with a sword — always a crowd-pleaser. I taught others, and watched my own butterflies emerge from their cocoons. I was responsible for that. Me! The wallflower!

I excited little girls when I danced, I inspired other women, and sometimes men, and I made adults laugh and feel happy, including a terminal man in a hospital just days before he died.

Learning to belly dance is one of the most feminist actions I’ve ever undertaken. It’s on my list of the top five most life-changing decisions I’ve ever made.

I was no tool for anything.

Je ne regrette rien.

“In an age where twerking, whining, and pole dancing are mainstream, belly dance is hardly shocking, but maybe it should be. Not for its past associations with scandal, but for its power to connect us to grace, sensuality, and femininity in a world still debating what that even means. Regardless of identity, this dance reminds us what it feels like to move as a woman.” - Kaleena Lawless

Music & sound effects:
Beep from FreeSFX
Arabic music free, no artist, Pixabay
Egypt Jelly Dance - Thomas Meier, Pixabay
Belly Dance Desert Nights - Tech Oasis - Pixabay

This is a June 2020 repurposed article that originally appeared on Medium, which is one of the most victimist-infested, ‘Patriarchy’-obsessed cesspools of woke fauxminism anywhere. I understand they’ve gotten even worse. You can find the original on my website. I rewrote this for the older, more sophisticated Substack crowd. I had a little editing help from Google Gemini, but all verbiage is mine!