Do you think that male ballet dancers are more effeminate?

And in order to become professionals, are male ballet dancers required to start this activity as young as female ballet dancers?

(If so, which parents enrol their sons in ballet classes at such a young age?... Would you?... Or would you if he showed an interest in this activity from an early age?...)

While at this, and do you think the same about male figure skaters?

...

(You can add comments about any other related issue that you find pertinent...)

Do you think that male ballet dancers are more effeminate?movie theater

It would serve you well to note that professional football players are often required to take ballet. I doubt they consider themselves feminine - and would most likely take offense at your assertion.

Mikhail Baryshnikov is certainly not effeminate. He was man enough to father four children (one of them is Jessica Lange's daughter).

Male ballet dancers do not enroll in ballet class as females.

I'd go one further and say that it take one HECK of a man, one completely secure in his masculinity (regardless of his sexual orientation) to even go near a ballet class. Far more of a man than one who'd cast aspersions at those who do. Same for figure skaters.

Some are more effeminate (figure skaters, men's singles - not pairs or dancing) than your average football player without a doubt - but some are not - it certainly isn't a requirement or necessarily the norm. Same goes for gymnasts (I was married to one of those - and let me tell you - women LOVE FLEXIBLE, STRONG MEN!)

If I had a son that showed an interest in ballet, figure skating, gymnastics or any other pursuit you might find feminine in nature - I'd certainly give him the opportunity to explore his talents.

Do you think that male ballet dancers are more effeminate?tickets opera theater

I don't know as I would qualify Grace or precision as feminine.
Ask the entire NFL players who took ballet to improve their balance ... let us stop pigeonholing people into categories for our own self agrandizement purposes. The most effeminate man I ever met was a construction worker on a highway project. He was married with 8 kids.
I think they are athletes. You have to be very strong and have balance.
Watch the movie "Billy Elliot." The kid in it (a boy) dances ballet, but he's not effeminate; he's very cute! What about all those women who had (have) a crush on Mikhail Baryshnikov? They would tell you he's all man.
I would enrol my son in ballet classes. I've been doing ballet for more than a decade now, and all the male dancers I know are confident in their masculinity and don't let words hurt them as much, because they expect it. They're more graceful, in touch with their feminine side but not effeminate, more "smooth" with ladies, not to mention extremely fit and well toned. I don't figure skate but I expect that it has similar benefits. (Of course, I'm generalizing here)

Society is impressed when a female is an excellent hockey player or very good at baseball and other male dominated sports, but as soon as a male crosses over, they're teased and called names.

I love male ballerinas, b. t. w., I think they're kinda sexy.
Ever heard of Mikhail Baryshnykov?

Parents who enroll their kids in ballet are WEALTHY PARENTS. It's phenomenally expensive, but great physical and mental training - if you can afford it.

Male figure skaters - here too, most are straight. Both ballet and figure skating/ice dancing are art forms - gay men tend to be well educated and many gravitate towards the arts.

People involved in the arts (creative fields) tend to be less HOMOPHOBIC than cranks posting leading questions on Yahoo G%26amp;WS.
more effeminate than who? other males? Well, i think within a culture that defines things as masculine, feminine, or somewhere in the middle, each person has a fine mix of all portions during different activities throughout their lifetimes. So, at which instant would we be considering? as some may be considered by culture to be more effeminite in this moment than that person but not in the next moment.

In some cultures, dancing is very masculine. It takes a lot of strength and balance to be a ballet dancer. (It takes a lot of strenght and hurts a lot to give birth too. somehow this is considered feminine within a cultural context as well) I think masculine and feminine reasoning is very highly contradictory and made of opinions.

I believe that some ballet dancers, whether male or female or intersex etc may be more effeminate than others, some more masculine and many if not all fluctuating during different moments of their lives.

Also, it depends on the person to know at what time they started. I have a friend, she's been doing ballet for less than 2 years, she is in her late 20's....

If my child showed an interest in dancing, i would enroll them, irregardless of what might be between their legs. I think the look of ones genitals is not relevant to the possibilities one should have open and considered safe to them. Anything else would be sexist, and would perpetuate sexism.

Its just a body, it is just tissues and muscles etc, in different shapes and sizes. The rest, is cultural hype ^_~
1. No, male ballet dancers do not necessarily have more "effeminate" personalities. Many male dancers are gay, but many more aren't: there are lots of professional male ballet dancers that end up marrying and having children with women they dance with in their company (e.g., Sasha Radetsky, Rasta Thomas). And ballet roles played by men are often not "girly" at all: the men are princes, hunters, soldiers. (In _The Nutcracker_, the prince is a soldier.) And many of the most famous and influential ballet choreographers - who have generally more power and control over things than the female performers - have, not surprisingly, been men.

2. Male ballet dancers almost never start studying the art as early as women. Nowadays, ballet is so competitive among women that it's almost required that you've taken class since age 2 if you want to get anywhere near a professional company. Conversely, there is always something of a shortage of male dancers in general, and particularly ballet dancers, so they are welcomed into the field in a way that female dancers are not. Many professional male ballet dancers start studying at age 18 - sometimes even later.

3. Male dancers are sometimes even more beautiful to watch than female: they're capable of impressive virtuosic strength movements like jumps, leaps, and ridiculously difficult turns. Some choreographers, like the Danish Bournonville, gave men central rather than simply supporting roles and choreographed to their strengths rather than forcing them to stand behind the ballerina. (But still other male choreographers - Balanchine, most famously - are convinced that "ballet is woman.")
Some are, some are not.

It depends a lot about the training. Places where there are just female teachers will make the male dancer effeminate as they tend to "copy" the teacher. In other places like Russia, where they have/had male teachers, they are/were not effeminate.

Also you have the case of Cuba, where all boys of the early company were taken from foster houses. These boys were trained by male teachers. There was no gays in that company (I don't know how is that now). And it was amazing the strength they had.

I love male dancers and this new days very few are effeminate in their movements, as there is a new school. What these dancers do, is extremely tough, the training is for life and their mental strength has to be really in balance.

I would have no hesitation to enrol a boy in ballet classes, it is a fantastic profession., I have no experience with figure skating, but I would imagine that is similar.
People are people and perceptions affect reality. Free your mind.
Yes, I do. Male figure skaters don't look that effeminate to me though.
i know for a fact that they are not more effeminate than males that are not ballet dancers. In fact, some of the worst misogynists i have ever met have been some of the male dancers I have had to work with.

Yes, i would put my son in those classes if thats what he wanted. If just as good exercise as any sport he could join, and it trains muscles that many mainstream sports don't. In fact, many sports coaches recommend that their players take ballet and dance lessons to increase flexibility and develop muscle groups that their normal workouts won't. In fact, the exercise received is not much different in benefit to physical development as martial arts.

Yes i think the same thing about male figure skaters.
Who cares really, I think they are pretty hot.