Amelia Barnes/The Falcon

I don't know how to dance. Wait, allow me to rephrase. I don't know how I'm supposed to dance.

We here at Seattle Pacific University enjoy the special privilege of attending a private Christian institution that allows dancing. This activity, due to its sinful encouraging of contact between opposite sexes, has been banned at many other such establishments.

But, despite the leniency at SPU toward dancing, the Christian nature of our school does bear implications.

There is a pervasive condition that has affected each and every one of our lives here at SPU. It began the moment we walked onto campus and will continue until the day we graduate. We've all see it; we've all experienced it.

Awkwardness.

And dancing at SPU has not escaped awkwardness' grasp. One doesn't exactly know what he or she is supposed to do, allowed to do, should do, can do at dances. This usually results in a bunch of people standing around, shifting their weight with occasional bobs of their heads or snaps of their fingers.

Granted, no one wants to see couples having dry sex on the dance floor, but, when the song "Don't Cha" by The Pussycat Dolls is playing, is one really expected to just rock back and forth?

The fact needs to be faced that dancing is physical. Hips are going to sway. Booties are going to shake. Shoulders are going to shimmy. As Gloria Estefan says, "The rhythm is going to get you."

And that is not a sin.

Avery Matro is a sophomore double-majoring in english literature and classics

It is OK to move your body to a greater degree than simply shifting back and forth. You shouldn't be ashamed to bust out the moves that only your dorm room mirror has seen. The desire to dance doesn't necessarily guarantee the ability to dance, but don't let that stop you.

Guys seem to have an easier time with this than girls. Those brave few who venture out on the dance floor are able to pull off the most random moves. A guy can do the funky chicken and it will be hilarious. A girl, not so much.

A guy can shake his booty all he wants and he will merely come off as comical. On the other hand, if a girl shakes her butt all she wants, she receives a rather different reaction.

This double standard plays into the awkwardness that is an SPU dance. When the song "My Hips Don't Lie" is playing, how is a girl supposed to dance, well, maybe not well, but at least enthusiastically and appropriately?

"I do see this type of double standard happening," Donna Isobel, an SPU dance instructor, said.

"Guys are more visual than girls. Girls don't stare at a guy's genitalia and so a guy gyrating is viewed as funny," Isobel said.

Accurate though this is, should we end the conversation at acceptance? In addition to our understanding and acknowledging of this double standard, we also need to challenge it.

"Some choreographers have actually directly addressed this issue and tried to combat it," Isobel added. "Ask the question, 'can a guy be sexy, can a girl not be sexy?'"

Challenging this double standard, however, should not include an in-your-face shimmy attack on hypocritical viewers. Immersion therapy will only lead to increased polarized viewpoints. The way to challenge a double standard--in dancing as well as other issues--is to force people to ask "why?" Why are you judging a person you have never met? Why do you feel self-conscious about having fun? Why do we laugh when guys shimmy? Why do things get awkward when girls shimmy?

I am a hula dancer. For anyone familiar with this form of dance, you know that it involves a great deal of hip movement. Is this because the Hawaiian culture emphasizes sex? No. Hula is a form of storytelling in an oral tradition culture.

Information and understanding such as this is gained by engaging in conversation. An observer who writes a letter to the editor complaining that dancing is causing men to stumble needs to enter into such conversations.

Whether it's doing traditional dancing or alone-in-your-room-with-loud-music-playing dancing, everyone deserves a chance to shine in a non-judgmental environment.

As Men Without Hats sang in "Safety Dance," "We can dance if we want to. We can leave your friends behind. 'Cause your friends don't dance and if they don't dance, well they're no friends of mine."