Why Have Men In Ballet Gotten Away With Abuse? Hero Worship Plus Supply-And-Demand

“It’s like a cult,” says Alexandra Waterbury, the accuser at the center of the New York City Ballet nude photo-sharing scandal, of the deference that was given to the bad behavior of the likes of George Balanchine, Jerome Robbins, and Peter Martins. As for why women don’t speak up and male dancers get a pass — as one former NYCB dancer puts it, “Women are a dime a dozen.”