From Aristoi, by Walter Jon Williams, 1992.

...

"The fascination of the tango," he said, "at least the earlier, Argentine version, before the French got hold of it and made everyone dance like robots, is that it combines an extreme sensuality with an extreme emotional distance."

...

"...Argentina was a masculine frontier culture," he said. "In some places men outnumbered the women five or six to one. This relative rarity gave the women enormous power, which they didn't hesitate to use."

...

"Argentina was also an immigrant nation," he went on. "The men were isolated not only from women, but from their native cultures. The result was a terrible loneliness, and a terrible melancholy."...

"The old social order had women subordinate, and that was turned around," he said. "Women picked, chose, and discarded---or were perceived as picking, choosing, and discarding---their partners based on standards of momentary advantage. The discarded men consoled themselves with prostitutes, who offered solace but were even more mercenary, stealing whatever they could. And so the tango originated in brothels, danced between people who were desperately lonely but who couldn't trust each other, whose most earnest desire was for intimacy and trust but who dared not offer either."

[ Editorial Comment: This was extracted from a fictional work, but sounds so

neat it ought to be true. :-) ]