My vagina has better things to do than to cover your lack of preparation.

[parasitegirl]

I’ve got your finger “symbols” right here, missy.
Cross-posted from my FB costume page because I can't access LJ at work.

I’d never think to start an event listing for, say, a fencing convention with:

Drop your cocks and grab your socks, fencing is coming to the Meda Convention center and, let’s face it, we’re bored this summer. Now, I don’t know if the saber or lance or whatever is a symbol of phallic inadequacy for all fencers, and there is no reason to stop masturbating on my account, but it seems like there is something fairly Freudian about the whole thing….

But, I guess that is why I don’t write for the Dallas Observer.

Nikki Lott, who does have the writing chops the Observer seems to want, did start off an event blurb for the Yaa Halla Y’All bellydance convention in Dallas this way

Vajazzle your jazzler, belly dancing is coming to the Grapevine Convention Center, and let's face it, anything that takes place at a convention center is worth attending. (Even if it's a Flicking Your Bean seminar.) Now I know you don't actually show your vagina during belly dancing and there's no real reason to get it all dolled up, but it seems like you'd want to do something special if you're going to go to the trouble of baring your midriff and sharpening your zill skills. (Zills are finger symbols!) And if you are going to do all that, Yaa Halla, Y'All is the way to go….

http://www.dallasobserver.com/events/yaa-halla-yand-146-all-belly-dancing-festival-2277215/ 

Dear Nikki,

Thank you.

Sometimes I am so wrapped up with training, teaching, enjoying and studying this art form that I forget the important thing…my vagina. I’ve been so focused on the musicality of my, um, finger “symbols” that I’ve neglected to remember that this dance form, like so many fields dominated by women, can be reduced to giggling about my ladybits. Just because I don’t display them, doesn’t take them “off the table” as it were.

Usually we dancers have more subtle issues in regards to how Middle-Eastern Dance is portrayed in the media. Often writers display their own ill-informed ideas about it being a dance intended for seduction by talking extensively about our “writhing hips” and “suggestive costumes.” They wink in the direction of Oscar Wilde’s literary invention of the dance of the seven veils…and then we’re in the uncomfortable position of refuting vague implications in ways that inevitably leave some of us in the comments section refuting what isn’t actually being said outright (that we are strippers, desperate housewives, wanna-be seductresses) in a manner that causes many to wonder if we doth protest too much.

But you, thank you, do not bury the lead…and by lead I mean, yes, our vaginas. You gleefully reduce us to those bits as your lead-in to the event. If you were not a fellow vagina owner (and, may I presume, user) I would think this a crass attention getting ploy to deflect from sub-par writing and a lack of any respect or even wiki-research on the subject…but knowing you’re a V-sister, my lips (wink) are sealed about your “bag” of tricks.

I can only hope that someday the favor is returned to you. That with each accomplishment, with interest you explore, with each interview you have in your life, there is always someone ready to announce you loudly, and proudly, as someone whose every move should be seen through a vagina filter.

-Ozma of Japan, Instructor, dancer, costumer…but most of all…vagina.

Comments

[suzycat.livejournal.com]

WHAT.

Yours sincerely, Suzycat/Zumarrad, subeditor, sometime academic, dancer, and cunt.

[parasitegirl.livejournal.com]

The link to that event was shared OVER 326 times on FB so far. Join the international response team!

Dallas Observer has a fb page as well...and while I don't usually watch porn on my iPhone I am enjoying the reaming so far!

[suzycat.livejournal.com]

As a subeditor, bellydancer and possessor of a vagina I feel uniquely qualified to comment on Nikki Lott's high-larious little promo for Ya Halla Y'all, which I believe is a belly dance event that has run for years, if not decades, in Texas. I was very glad to see that Nikki put a "Lott" of thought into her piece. Har har! In fact, I feel fellow dancers who have focused negatively on Nikki's emphasis on the vagina have been misguided. It is clear to me, from her use of the phrase "flicking the bean", that Nikki is at least as interested in the mighty clitoris, that proud and visible seat of sexual pleasure, as the secretive vag. There is nothing I enjoy more than seeing links between masturbation and my favoured dance form, for let's face it, belly dancing is very pleasurable and requires no partner. But more importantly, since belly dance mostly involves women, it is important that people do not forget for even a moment that we have genitalia. Non-penile genitalia. Sometimes I go for an entire 20 minutes without thinking about my bits, and that is clearly wrong.

I am however deeply offended by Nikki's incorrect use of the word "symbol". Zills do not look at all like fingers. They are not so much representative of the finger that flicks the bean, more miniature CYMBALS worn upon the fingers. And I would not want to flick my bean with them for it would hurt, not to mention totally ruin the tonal quality. Please rewrite with greater attention to spelling. Thank you.

[parasitegirl.livejournal.com]

YOU SHOULD SHARE WITH THE CLASS!

[suzycat.livejournal.com]

I did. I sent it to their newspaper. LOL. I shall put it on their FB page too. Why not?

[parasitegirl.livejournal.com]

You should, we need more combat funny.

[suzycat.livejournal.com]

Bugger, too long, and FB is being weird on my page.

[parasitegirl.livejournal.com]

It might fit as a two-part comment to my note, with the comment that it has been sent into the Observer as well :P

[haflagirl.livejournal.com]

Ozma.... Genius.

As for the Observer, I don't even have words. Wait.. is "ew" a word?

[parasitegirl.livejournal.com]

Thanks. I tossed a link up on the Dallas Observer page. I also sent a link to the author with the note:

Vagina Dialog:

You don't know me. I live in Tokyo, have a vagina, and bellydance...and even >I< have read your event listing for Yaa Halla Y'All. It's going around.

I'm not going to bother writing to your editors, but you might want to brace yourself for the number of domestic and international dancers and musicians who might. I did take the time to write my reaction in case you, and your vagina, are interested.

[kinadancer.livejournal.com]

PLEASE tell me you sent this!?!?!

[parasitegirl.livejournal.com]

I linked to it from the Dallas Observer FB page and sent a link to the author and I'm fairly sure it's getting passed around FB.

[mahsati-janan.livejournal.com]

Wow - I don't even know where to start with how bad that event listing really is. Do you think the event organizer would be able to say anything (or have her lawyer say anything) about this author publicly linking extremely inappropriate actions and images to this event? If this was about me or one of the events I sponsor, I know I would be pursuing all available legal avenues and writing to all of the local papers.

[parasitegirl.livejournal.com]

I don't know...seeing that the DO link has been shared about 340 times on FB...I'm pretty sure all parties know about it.

[mahsati-janan.livejournal.com]

Agreed - I am sure they know about it by now. I hope there is some sort of legal or at least ethical argument (if people will listen) they can make to get an apology out of the paper. Shared on fb and passing it along.

[sageincave.livejournal.com]

Wow...that's some truly obnoxious and offensive writing on the reporter's part.

[dozen-son.livejournal.com]

You are my hero!!!

[alonewiththemoon]

Your response is perfect. What a horrid piece of tripe, to reference more body parts.

[anastasis.livejournal.com]

I think I love you.

[parasitegirl.livejournal.com]

That's what happens when you view me through Vagina-Tinted-Lenses!

In the first FB thread about this Dallas Observer preview (which has since been altered, but the original went to print) someone dismissed the original author as a lame comedian who would be better off writing for Cracked. I thought of you and informed the thread that, no man, I KNOW writers of Cracked and didn't want them insulted that way.

[anastasis.livejournal.com]

Yeah wow, THANK YOU. I'd be slaughtered if I tried to hand in something that unresearched and nasty. Also, 'flicking the bean'? Not enough words for how EW that is (the cutesie phrasing, not feminine self-love in general!)

article

[tajidancer.livejournal.com]

Great comeback writeup!