Blog — Patricia Badin · Twerk Paris

Sexualization, the Sacred
and Colonization

Who decided that Twerk was vulgar?

Let’s ask a simple question. When a Black woman twerks, she’s called vulgar. When a white woman makes exactly the same moves, she’s called liberated, bold, avant-garde.

This is not a coincidence. This is not a matter of taste. This is a matter of power.

Before They Taught You to Feel Ashamed

Before colonization, the movement of the hips in African dances was not obscene. It was connected to fertility, the sacred, and healing. Sensuality was not a spectacle — it was a spiritual force.

These are centuries of history that no one ever told you.

And Then the Missionaries Arrived

They banned ritual dances. Destroyed sacred objects. Taught African peoples that their bodies were shameful, their movements sinful, their sensuality primitive.

And we, descendants of these peoples, internalized that gaze. We began judging our own dances through the eyes of those who colonized us.

But Not All African Dances Are Sacred

There are sacred dances, reserved for initiates. And there are vernacular dances — dances of celebration, joy, and community, accessible to everyone.

Twerk, Mapouka, Punta: dances of communal celebration. It was the colonial gaze and the entertainment industry that either criminalized or hypersexualized them — depending on who was dancing.

So Who Decides?

It is centuries of the white gaze on Black bodies that decided for us what is acceptable, what is beautiful, what is vulgar.

My work is to deconstruct all of this. Not to over-sacralize Twerk. But to restore its complexity, its depth, its history.

« Moving your hips is not an act of provocation. It is an act of memory. »

— Patricia Badin · B’ATTITUDE Twerk Paris

Patricia Badin has been teaching Twerk in Paris for over 10 years. She gives Talks and workshops on the cultural and political history of Twerk across France and Europe.