This was posted in February 2016 to the Milonga Popular/Tango Kollektiv Facebook Discussion group as part of a conversation about seduction in that milonga. (deutsche Version was posted in March.)
The Hug to Break a Thousand Hearts
A tango whose intention is seduction has evidently and globally produced satisfactory and ego-enhancing experiences for man-leaders and intense experiences of pain, confusion, and self-doubt for women-followers (afflicting even the sexiest and most beautiful). Women endure, enticed by intermittent and addictive experiences of rapture and the dream that it could for once be a real love.
(That some women are, so far, having a good time does not sweeten the sea of tears beneath the tango yacht.)
One of the gifts of the period of “nuevo” was a tango intent on maximum virtuosic improvisation. This depended on high-skill women-followers, who for that time had a chance at egalitarian relations in tango.
