That’s beautiful. You have managed to perfectly reflect my feelings, too.
And all those “whoooos” sure give you a headache after a while, don’t they?
Straight (mostly, I have a slight curve), white man here who loves to dance and is damn good at it. SO and I go often. We’ve even taken Latin dance lessons (a whole lot of fun and the music is terrific).
And, no, I don’t have “white man’s overbite.”
I’m straight, white, male and I enjoy dancing.
But most don’t.
They don’t because they are too uptight and self-conscious to relax, let go and follow the music wherever it takes them, and enjoy it as a form of physical self-expression. They think there’s something distinctly ‘uncool’ about it, whereas what’s really uncool is never being able to enjoy dancing.
They don’t because they have been brainwashed by poor schooling and warped social values into thinking that you can only enjoy something if you’re good at it. Which is nonsense. They need to get back in touch with their sense of fun and develop some love for living.
They don’t because they don’t realise how easy it is to learn to dance moderately well, so that you begin to enjoy the relationship between what the music’s doing and what your body is doing.
They don’t because lots of cultural factors tell men that status is important, and maintaining high status involves not looking like an idiot, and they think they will look like an idiot if they try to dance.
What more of my straight, white, male friends should wise up to is that in almost all places where people are dancing, there are women. And women can always make the connection between 'If he knows how to move on the dance floor, then he probably knows how to move elsewhere… ’ . And it’s usually a fair connection. After all, some things that women enjoy in life call for at least a moderately good sense of rhythm, and the dance floor is a fine place for showing you either have it, or are at least willing to try and willing to learn! And secondly, if a man is so physically uptight and self-conscious and joyless on the dance floor, why should any woman expect he’s going to be much fun (or much use) in the bedroom - when free and un-self-conscious enjoyment of physical self-expression is so important?
Someone once said that dancing is the vertical expression of a horizontal desire, and I think that’s a fine, fine thing to bear in mind. Look guys, women are reading the signals all the time anyway, so what message do you want them to receive? Option 1: “I’m lousy at anything that involves physicality and I don’t want to learn to be any better”. Option 2: “Come over here, look, enjoy, and let me make you feel special, and seduce you, without even saying a word or touching you”.
So to my fellow s w m non-dancers, I say… it ain’t that hard to learn, you won’t lose status, it’s ok to have fun in life, it’s enjoyable and women can read the signals.
It seems from the responses to this thread that there are two questions being asked:
1) Why don’t straight white males like to dance;
2) Why don’t straight white males know how to dance.
I am straight, white and male. I am also an accomplished musician (blues) – I sing and play guitar and harmonica, and am often complimented on my complicated foot percussion. I probably have better rythmn than 99% of the population.
I ain’t no Astaire, but if I find myself at a social event with a woman who wants to dance, I can get up and give it a go without making a fool of myself.
But I don’t get the least bit of enjoyment out of it.
It’s got nothing to do with feeling self-conscious – if you can get up and sing some of my music in front of a barroom of strangers, you don’t embarrass easily.
So why don’t I enjoy dancing, even though I don’t seem to be unable to do it?
I dunno – I would guess that enjoying dancing (or football, or music, or fine art, etc.) is something you have to learn – even ‘born dancers’. And that many (though not all) straight white American males are never taught to enjoy it?
Most of the time, I am sane enough to realize that dancing is really nonsenically pointless. I get so bored standing in a crowd moving back and forth, swinging my arms. It doesn’t look good on me, or on anyone else.
Unfortunately, a club DJ will throw on “99 Luftballons”, and I lose all sense of reason and twirl out onto the floor in an uncounscious euphoric daze, convinced I’m a dancing god with moves that would put Adam Ant to shame. Oh I’m white…I’m so white…
What’s that mean? I’ve never heard that expression before.
Go to any even featuring dancing and you’ll see examples of “white man’s overbite.” Its a Billy Crystal term and it refers to white guys straining hard to dance and sort of biting on their bottom lip with this intense look on their face. You’ll know it when you see it.
Hahahahaha! OK, I get it. 
FTR, I can’t validly participate in this thread since I love dancing, can do it well, and am not straight. I’m white and male, though.
As long as we’re on the subject, though: I am told very often that I’m a “really good dancer” or that people “love the way I dance.” However, people almost always append that with “…and you don’t dance like you’re gay. I thought you were straight!”
I have no idea what that could possibly mean, or whether I should be flattered or offended. 
Because I suck at it - actually, I’m not even sure I suck. Primarily it’s because I feel self-conscious and stupid while doing it, and because I HATE dance music with a fiery passion. Listening to it for very long makes me feel like my brain is starving.
I thought that commentary only applied to tango? (At least in the mind of the original speaker; I think it applies across the board.)
You forgot one. One that has been mentioned several times in this thread. They don’t because think it’s stupid. I don’t need any sort of societal brainwashing to help me decide that dancing is not the right form of self-expression to me. In fact, if you’re just reciting learned dance steps, I really can’t see how it qualifies as self-expression at all.
Uh, maybe because men actually enjoy sex?
Option 3: “There is one particular physical activity I detest due to the sheer pointlessness of it, but that doesn’t mean “I’m lousy at anything that involves physicality.””
Really, now. To assume that everyone who doesn’t want to dance is just self-conscious is silly. To assume that all those people also detest all physical activity is ridiculous.
This may come as a great shock, but not everyone has the same idea of fun as you. Indeed, it would seem that the majority of SWMs don’t.
I will refer you to my previously recorded thoughts on the matter.
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=41419&highlight=dance
Glad I’m not the only freak. I’m white, straight, male, American and I like to dance. And I’m pretty darn good. At least the ladies think so.
It wasn’t always that way. Back in junior high I was the selfconscious guy who wouldn’t really move at all. Then one night at a school dance, I just decided that I didn’t care what they thought of me. I just started moving with the music and I haven’t stopped since. I was the president of the ballroom dance club in college and I can also freestyle pretty well.
I think we’re seeing two distinct types of answers as to why straight, white males don’t dance.
**1) They don’t enjoy it even though they are perfectly competent. **
This I can understand. Not everyone enjoys everything. I might be good at basketball if I tried it but I don’t really enjoy it so I don’t.
**2) They don’t enjoy because they think they suck and feel self conscious about it. **
These are the poor men that we must educate! You don’t suck as much as you think and the more you do it the better you get at it. If you’re at a club, you don’t know any of those people, so who bloody cares what they think! Get down with your bad self! You may look a little silly but we all do. The point is to have fun and move with the music. You can find rhythm easier with more practice. You think you look silly during dancing, imagine the faces that you make during sex. And we all try and do that as often as possible. Though maybe not in public. Or at least not often. 
In Argentina, young men are taken aside by the older men before they ever meet a young lady. They are taught three things: to smoke, to drink, and to dance the tango.
And yes, women may like to dance…but if I meet a woman dancing, she’s going to expect me to do it more than that once, you see. So there’s no upside to meeting women dancing. You’ll just have to do it more!
I now have a bizarre mental picture of dozens of all-male, May-December Argentinian couples tripping over each other’s feet at December tries to dip May on the dance floor.
Does it really matter that it has to be a white male? How about just straight men who orginate from northern Europe eh?
That may be true for some people, but you are missing the point others are making. THey don’t find it fun. I’m sure there are things that other people enjoy and you don’t, despite having tried it numerous times. So how does it make you feel when they tell you to keep trying, because you are obviously uptight and can’t just enjoy it, despite the fact you obviously don’t enjoy no matter how you try? That’s how some people feel when it comes to dancing.
I’m straight and white… but I don’t always hate to dance… but I’d rather have a girl ask me to dance instead of always having to ask the girl… it gets old!
Straight, white male who always used to hate to dance. Now, I don’t mind so much, even though I still suck. Partly, I used to get bored. (Maybe I am getting dumber, it doesn’t seem so boring now.) I prefer talking to a woman, is that so bad?
When I was a teenager (late 70’s), there were two forms of popular music: music you could dance to (disco), and music you couldn’t dance to. Disco sucked, and we all knew it. The alternatives were punk, classic rock, “new wave”, etc, much of which was written so that you couldn’t dance to it. I preffered music that was not danceable. Consequently, I never learned to do it, and I never did it, nor did our friends. I think that is when being able to dance became “gay”. It has stuck around a while, because that is how socities are, and white men form a society.
I don’t agree that dancing is any indication of activities more often practiced horizontally. I have dance with women who couldn’t dance, I’ve never been to bed with a woman who couldn’t screw.
The most completely satisfying physical relationship I ever had in my life was with a 6’5 osteopath who was also a ceroc teacher. Boy did that guy know bodies!
If I ever find anyone I can dance with like him, I’ll have a good idea the rest will follow.