Sorry I've taken so long to get back to you on this.

Just to be clear, my reaction isn't a judgement thing about burlesque-- well, mostly not, at least. there's always a bit of stigma from my upbringing that informs things in subtle ways, but...

While I still haven't untangled all of it, I think I can break my reaction down into three main components:

• There's something about being a passive, public spectator of erotic performances that makes me uncomfortable. Suffice it to say that there are... other situations in which I can quite enjoy watching eroticism, but the experience is not something I'm comfortable sharing with the random person sitting next to me, which leads to...


• Being part of an audience for that sort of thing really triggers my knee-jerk "don't do what the crowd is doing" response, and I find myself actively not *wanting* to get turned on-- and when I do I alternate between feeling taken advantage of and feeling like I'm a total sketchball taking advantage of the people on stage so fast it makes my head spin. I'm aware that neither makes sense when held up to scrutiny, but they're both still there.


• And the last big reason I can point to is just that, for me, sex doesn't mix well with other things when I'm a spectator (being a participant is a different story). To put it bluntly, if I want to be turned on, I can look at porn. If I want to watch someone dance, do a circus act, or whatever, I would prefer to just watch that. When combined, the two are more likely to distract from one another than complement one another for me.