“Just because a girl knows how to imitate a woman does not mean she’s ready to do what a woman does.”
I hate this video for the same reason any sane person hates child beauty pageants.
Is there something wrong with a child dancing, and expressing themselves through the art of dance? No! Is there something wrong with a grown woman dancing for and with herself (or someone else!) in a sensual manner? No! Is there, however, something wrong with a child dancing sensually? Yes, there is! And that is why I hate this Sara Lopez video.
By talking to people I know and scrolling through the cesspool of the internet that is the comments section, there are two basic defensives of this video. The first is that it is A R T, a most sacred and valuable thing that must be protected at all costs. The hypersexualization of little girls is a small price to pay in order to condition their bodies to be better performers with the end goal of sacrificing them on the altar of the great and all mighty performance art.
This is, of course, total and utter nonsense. To be a skilled dancer, and to be good at tarraxinha, does not mean that you have to or should start conditioning your body and the youngest age possible. I would argue that being a good dancer is being connected to your own body and the space that your body occupies. This can be done in many forms of dance that do not require specifically sexualized movements.
For example, I have a rather robust vocabulary. I gained this vocabulary by talking, reading, and watching movies and plays. I used this vocabulary to talk in a non-sexual way during my childhood and adolescence. And yet somehow, when I was ready, I used my robust vocabulary for varsity level dirty talk without ever have done so as a child.
And at what age does sexual expression become appropriate? When one arrives at sexual maturity. I think that people who are enthusiastically consenting adults should do whatever is it they want with their own bodies and the bodies of other enthusiastically consenting adults. I think that people who have not yet arrived at this benchmark but are exploring this aspect of what it means to be human should, by all means, do so, but not by the public encouragement of an adult or group of adults.
The other argument I have heard is that what the girl is doing in this video is a simple expression of dance, and any sexual connotation is the projection of the dirty mind of the viewer and shame on you. This is also total garbage. Nothing happens in a vacuum, especially art. The popularization of kizomba came with the popularization of tarraxinha for a reason. And there is not a woman or young girl in this world that does not understand that her value in society is determined by her sexuality.
The first time I was catcalled I was eleven years old. This is not an uncommon age for this to happen. I cried because sexual harassment is very scary. I understood exactly what was happening. In a public space, my body is not my own. It belongs to society. To the men who have the ability to talk to me, yell at me, touch me and assault me when and if they want to. Now, I don’t cry. I hardly notice. And this is not me actively trying to ignore the problem. The passage of time has desensitized me to threats and acts of violence.
And I think that what is happening in this video I find doubly insidious because of the fetishizing of innocence. The allure of female “purity” or inexperience is a tale as old as time. Men always want it and women never do. We are taught an obviously false dichotomy that neatly feeds the roots rape culture.
When I see this video I don’t see a young girl dancing a dance that I love. I see a child being groomed by societal expectations. I see someone who is performing without understanding the implications. It’s natural for children to imitate the adults around them. What is damaging is the encouragement and exploitation of a person that is too young to consent to and therefore fully participate in sexual expression.
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