Dancing to our own tune; for the past 10 years, gay and straight dancers have been getting in step together at New York's OUTdancing. (dance).

Chris Bates revels in the image of men and men, and women and women, out together dancing cheek to cheek. Years ago he fell in love with swing but was afraid to dance in public with his boyfriend. Then he walked into an OUTdancing class at Stepping Out Studios in New York City. He saw men partner-dancing with other men. "It was an epiphany," he says.

Today, Bates is director of OUTdancing, where rot 10 years gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered dancers have shown that partner dancing can mean Fred and Fred just as easily as Fred and Ginger. "The idea is to give people a place to feel comfortable and safe doing something that's different for them--not only dancing with someone of the same sex but just dancing," he explains.

When Diane Lachtrupp, founder and co-owner of Stepping Out Studios, started OUTdancing in 1992, it was the country's first practical program for LGBT dancers. Since then the notion that anyone can lead or follow has become policy in all of Stepping Out's 80-plus weekly classes, opening the door for mixed and same-sex partnerships of all kinds. As Lachtrupp sees it, choosing to be a leader or a follower has nothing to do with size, strength, or gender: It's "a personality thing," she says. "I don't want anyone to think that men can only lead and women can only follow. We've broken that barrier."

Greg Clark, who has been a Stepping Out student for about a year, follows in OUTdancing as well as in all of his other classes. "I have to be in control of so many things in my life," the Manhattan makeup artist explains. "Letting someone else be more directive uses another part of the brain. You have to use your intuitive sense more to receive the signals someone else is giving."

Clark says the studio has succeeded at making gay men like him feel comfortable. "It's one thing to print a gay-friendly policy in your literature somewhere," he says. "It's another thing to really state it repeatedly in all your classes." He remembers one teacher announcing, "Oh, you guys are lucky this month. Greg's a great follower."

Clark does recall tension with one male classmate: "I could practically see the hair on the back of this guy's neck stand up when he saw that he was going to have to dance with me. He took me aside before class and said, `Hey, dude, I'm a guy, you're a guy; I'm not going to be comfortable.'" Clark replied that he'd just skip over him in rotation, which he did for the entire first class. But the second week, when Clark moved to skip him, the man motioned for him to stay and dance: "Nah, hah, it's all right."

Classes are a "learning experience on both sides of the fence," says Clark. "Most straight guys are not accustomed to that much contact with gay people literally in their anus. That's the kind of bridge between straight and gay that I don't see too often," he says. "Stepping Out's policy fosters that, and I see a change in people. I appreciate that."

Bates too has come a long way since his first awkward days in the studio. These days he and his boyfriend attend lots of country-and-western dance events, where they are often the only two men dancing together. Bates credits OUTdancing with helping him gain the confidence to dance with anyone anywhere. "If I'm being a considerate dancer, I should be able to dance with my boyfriend wherever I want. The most important thing is to be able to go out and dance and have fun."

DuLong writes for Newsday.com and other publications.