I’ve had some ugly encounters on this listserv regarding cultural practices which they condemn based on the cultural and religious prejudices. I offered urls of youtube videos to go to so they could see that the dancing they regard as vulgar, sexual, eroticized, etc. is simply the way people dance. Condemning that is like condemning White people for jumping up and down when they dance or dancing on their toes. (I’ve actually had Black people ask me why the White girls in school would dance on their toes, b/c the music was Black and Black people dance with their feet planted and use their bodies, esp their hips). To some degree, all dancing is erotic, so when sex is forbidden in a society, forbidden by the religion or the ideology, then any fun activity that recognizes man’s (and woman’s) inherent sexuality is deemed “evil”. There is nothing I can do about that.
However, for less compromised minds, there is still, due to our culture, the idea that using your hips in dancing is suggestive. I have in the past sent several you tube urls to the list so people could see Christian choirs where the women and men bend over and twist the bottoms or move their hips in a way that we now denominate “twerking”. I fully expect someone to look at one video, declare it an anomaly, and go about their merry way convinced that everyone in the world shares their cultural/religious traits.