Ballerina, man style

Old prejudices die hard.

We were talking about ballet because Elli is going into ballet camp next week for 5 days and the topic came up of male ballet dancers.  Wendy called them ballerinas but I questioned that.  I figured that ballerina refers specifically to the female and not males.  Wendy asked me what I would call a male ballet dancer, if not a ballerina.  Deep down inside something was shouting "A Sissy!" and collapsing in a heap of bad boy laughter.  I held that to deep inside though since for one I don't want to plant dumb ideas like that in Elli's head and for two any male ballet dancer is ripped enough to beat the living hell out of me and my matchstick arms.  I had no idea what the male version would be, mind you, but obviously the solution to the problem is

To The Internet!


It turns out that the male version is called variously a danseur or a ballerino depending on who on the internet you believe.  It also turns out that boatloads of people ask this same question of google on a regular basis.  Despite all my supposedly enlightened views I still get those gut impulses that would make dumb grade 2 bullies proud.