To ask if the world has gone mad!?

[jonesyyy]

Somebody I know has just posted a video on Facebook of their 3 year old "twerking", wtf

What goes through people's minds!? Can't believe what I've just seen.

Reported the post and it doesn't go against Facebook guidelines. Madness!

What did you say to them before you reported them?

I agree, it sounds awful although obviously from the child's POV completely innocent.

What did you say to them before you reported them

The video would be reported not the person who posted it.

The world has gone mad without a doubt.

The worst thing is the parents actually encourage this behaviour and other people find it funny.

I've seen similar, just think some people are idiots!

Sounds like my friend, she gets her dd to do all those kind of dances, she puts on all the music videos for her and gets her to copy, she thinks it’s cute but it really isn’t!

Oh this is being taught at libraries I think....not kidding. Part of drag queens storytelling.

So the whole of cultural African dance moves are unsuitable for children?

What makes a dance sexual?

Ponoka, stop being an idiot.

Of course twerking is sexual - just look at Nicki Minaj's 'Anaconda' video. It's got fuck all to do with 'Cultural African dance moves' and everything to do with the sexualisation of women's buttocks and the sexualisation of black women and the mysogyny inherent in a lot of rap and r'n'b today.

Twerking is definitely sexual, I can't see how it isn't tbh

I agree with you in one sense because I don't think people should ever put their kids on social media. It's a total invasion of privacy.

But I think your reaction to it being twerking specifically is OTT. Twerking has a reputation for being a sexualised dance, and sometimes it is definitely used for that purpose nowadays. But it's actually a dance move that has origins in ceremonial dances in West Africa.

We tend to see it as a sexualised move because white pop stars like Miley Cyrus use it for that purpose. It's a really good example of white people misappropriating aspects of a black culture, and then the culture itself being blamed for the negative associations it then has.

There's nothing more inherently sexual in twerking than there is in some ballet moves, but I doubt a video of a 3 year old doing a grand jeté would have caused you any opprobation. For a kid, it's just a fun dance move. It focuses on a wiggle of the bum, but so do loads of dance moves kids have been doing forever.

My niece goes to a baby Zumba class where she's always wiggling her bum in one way or another. She loves it. Her instructor isn't telling the kids to do this because it's a sexy move. It's because dancing is an art which uses the whole body, and is really fun for kids. I think it's ok to see the innocence in that and not worry that because adults sometimes use dance in a context which is sexual, we should be worried about kids dancing in a context which isn't.

Loads of kids like to dance by wiggling their arse, are you sure it's not just kid dancing?

I get that kids love to wiggle their bums and all but this kid was actually twerking with her leg up and the parents were laughing in the background. All just a bit strange to me.

It doesn't even sound like twerking? Both feet would be on the floor for a twerk.

@denirosknee it's what I understand to be twerking. Didn't look like anything else.

There was a post in feminism chat yesterday which linked to a London library (I think it was Brent council?) which had a drag queen in teaching young children to twerk. There was quite a lot of criticism on Twitter about it, to which a local Councillor took offence and reported the criticisms to Twitter for "abuse" (it's apparently homophobic or transphobic or whatever to object to taxpayers' money being used to fund middle-aged men in drag teaching toddlers to twerk).

How can this shock you?!?

We tend to see it as a sexualised move because white pop stars like Miley Cyrus use it for that purpose. It's a really good example of white people misappropriating aspects of a black culture, and then the culture itself being blamed for the negative associations it then has.

What bollocks. What sheer bollocks. So no black artists have evr made a video with black women in bikinis or sawn-off shorts trerking in their faces?

You are so woke it's painful.

There's nothing painful about having consideration for the feelings of others. I will never understand why some people think 'woke' can be used as an insult.

What bollocks. What sheer bollocks. So no black artists have evr made a video with black women in bikinis or sawn-off shorts trerking in their faces?

I never said that. If you want to have a fight with a straw man you're welcome to, but I don't see how it's going to achieve anything.

The way black people use aspects of their own culture is up to them. As I made clear in my post, twerking is used at times in a sexual way, by adults.

But twerking is generally viewed as purely sexual or explicit by people who don't know the origin of the dance or the culture it's rooted in. This is in no small part down to artists like Miley Cyrus using it explicitly to signify how edgy and sexual she is.

And white people viewing their own historic forms of dance (ballet / tap etc) as sanitised, artistic and suitable for children, but forms of dance which originate in black culture (twerking) as crude, sexualised and inappropriate is problematic.

There's nothing sexual about a kid doing a dance where they waggle their bum around, just like there's nothing sexual about a ballet move that involves doing the splits and showing the world your open legs. There are lots of ways to use the body that aren't sexual. Dance is an amazing form of self-expression. It's good for kids. I don't think OP's outrage is justified.

Would you have reported a kid doing the can-can?

I feel like everyone’s gone insane. Twerking looks like a sexual movement. Moving the pelvis and bum in such a way that would be a sex act. How can anyone say a toddler twerking is normal dance?!

I wouldn't want strangers to see my child twerk. Not because my children or the dance itself is sexual (kids aren't getting off on it) but because in the mind of some people this is sexual and/or an invitation. This is an unnecessary risk for my children to be exposed to.

If you've ever been to West Africa and been treated to some kind of cultural programme, you've seen really small children twerk. It's very cute, it's part of cultural dance and I, personally, did not find it sexy.

You're pearl clutching. I'm sure if she'd been shaking her bum to the Birdy Song, you'd have kept it together.