Janis and Trini,
I'm not sure what is meant by franelear and franela.
This might be partially due to the fact that neither Spanish
nor English are my native languages.
As I understood there are milongueros in BA ready
to provide explanations or even hands-on experience on this matter.
But as I live oceans away from Buenos Aires in the very heart of Europe,
where there are no milongueros at hand to
consult as primary sources, I have to relie on secondary sources.
Doing some googling provided the following results:
Franela: Manoseo sexual.
Franelear: Roce amoroso.
Franelero: El que pasa el tiempo en una casa de tolerancia sin hacer uso de
ninguna mujer.
See: http://www.elportaldeltango.com/lunfardo/f.htm
In my poor English translation this would be:
Franela: Sexual fingering/touching
Franelear: to make out / to hook up [AE], to snog [BE] (see:
http://forum.wordreference.com/archive/index.php/t-74667.html)
Franelero: One who passes the time in a house of tolerance without making use
of any woman.
Having considered the translations my first guess was that franelear does not
necessarily have to do
with dancing tango, it might even interfere with the dancing.
My observation in milongas [hereabouts] is that followers do not appreciate
the
franelear/franela/franelero-thing too much. But there are no reliable
statistics on this ;)
The practice of franelear may occasionally even lead to tango interruptus or
shortened tandas.
One reason could be that there are no workshops taught on franeleo hereabouts
(at least not to my knowledge), so it might not be done skilfully enough. ;)
As I understand this is different in the United States, where franela-skills
are promoted
by teaching in classes or practicas:
Trini de Pittsburgh wrote:
Teaching these franelas (sp?) can also be useful for
getting the woman rotated enough to stay close to the man
during pasadas.
We have all sorts of tango teaching on
tango-pilates-tango-yoga-tango-music-tango-nuevo-tango-tantra etc.
But nobody has ever thought of including the franeleo in the teaching.
At least not to my knowledge.
Still franeleo seems to occur from time to time, not in practicas maybe, rather
in late-night milongas.
And though I have observed there are quite tolerant people in the milongas
I assume the level of tolerance in milongas is probably significantly lower
than in the
houses specially designed for tolerance. But again, this is mere hypothesis,
sorry for not being able
to shed light on this subject.
Anna
--- Janis Kenyon [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
More than a year ago I had a conversation with Carlos
Alberto Rodriguez when
he used an interesting new word for me--FRANELEAR. I had
some idea about
the meaning of the word by his body language and the
context in which he
used it--to franelear a woman while dancing tango with
her. I tried
finding the word in my Spanish-English dictionary to no
avail.
A few weeks ago I bought a copy of the new
Lunfardo-English dictionary for
tango (1). The book has only four pages of words related
to tango beginning
with the letter F. Franelear: to kiss, to caress, to
heavy pet. I
realized I understood what Carlos Alberto had meant,
because I had
experienced what he was talking about.
That lead me to consult the dictionary of Argentine
speech (2) which
contains a broader definition of the word in Castellano.
Franelear.
(vulgar transitive verb). to excite another person with
caresses without
arriving at the sexual act. This dictionary doesn't
indicate the word is
Lunfardo, only vulgar. It is in common use among
Argentines.
Then only a week ago during conversation with a tango
dancer from Milan,
Roberto Angel Puyol used the word. He said just the
opposite of what Carlos
Alberto said while talking about dancing tango with a
woman. He said he
dances with a woman to enjoy the dance, not to franelear
the woman. Very
interesting. I know that to be true about Roberto
Angel's dancing.
So why am I talking about a new word? Two milongueros,
whom I have invited
to take part in the Milonguero Conference, have a
difference of opinion
about it. I have danced with both of them. I have been
the recipient of
franeleando while dancing with several milongueros over
the years. In fact,
my lessons in franeleando began during my first visit to
Buenos Aires in
1996 when Victorio initiated me on things a woman could
do while
dancing with man if she was interested in something more.
I am curious what others think about this topic. I have
no doubt it will
draw interesting comments. Have you tried it with anyone
while
dancing? Did the other person reciprocate in some way?
What were the
consequences? Did you enjoy it? Are you trying to
remember occasions and
with whom you were dancing?
(1) Mataburros Lunfardo/English dictionary of tango by
Sara Melul and
