Dancing Turns Into Another Battle of Sexes

There is a simple reason why the women in the ballroom dance class resist allowing the men to lead (“Armed Combat,” May 18). No matter how good a dancer the woman is, if the man is a poor dancer, he makes her look bad too. And there’s no fun in it.

Ballroom dancing reveals more about men than they know. If a man is a terrible dancer but persists in lumbering around the dance floor with one partner after another (he may not get many “second dates”), there are only two possible explanations:

* He thinks he’s doing it right, in which case he is just dense or, as Charlie Waters puts it, he hasn’t a clue.

* He knows he’s not doing it right but expects the woman to enjoy it anyway.

This ballroom observation is equally applicable in the bedroom, of course.

Waters is not far off the mark with his hints of a “women’s lead movement.” Come the Revolution, the better dancer will lead!

JOAN GRAY

San Diego

For what it’s worth, I think you should also include among those women who would lead those who deny leading while accusing their partners of not leading strongly enough.

Such a one is my wife, who is of an age that must, because of early training, deny she is leading but who has her own ideas about direction of travel that are not easily overcome except by brute force. Of course application of force at that level leads to accusations of intentional harm, stupidity, chauvinism and so on.

Anyway, thanks again for recognizing another of the small battles that make up the war of the sexes.

HAROLD ROBERTS

Hermosa Beach