they couldn't get the kids to stop grinding.
This seems like a real supervision problem. I'm not exactly clear on what the borders of 'grinding' are on the dance floor, but probably some of it is stuff I'd think "Don't do that at a high school dance." But it's not rocket science to have teachers there and throw kids out who are breaking the rules, whatever the rules are.
A principal who's cancelling dances rather than enforcing reasonable rules is an idiot.
not exactly clear on what the borders of 'grinding' are
I am also four thousand years old and have never done anything fun in my life. Or so it seems sometimes.
This was the story.
But I think you're underestimating things. Teenagers love nothing more than a battle of wills. I can imagine it being completely impossible to establish a non-grinding environment, because it reduces the dances to every single song getting interrupted over and over again, and the kids are loving running you ragged.
We used to make jokes about having to keep six inches between pelvises (pelvi?) or face the wrath of the nuns, but I can't recall teachers having to physically separate anybody. Mostly it was a slow dance issue. Getting the DJ to stop playing Bryan Adams fixed the problem, along with the problem of having to listen to Bryan Adams.
Of course, the tall guys were lucky. If she's going to get her arms on your shoulders and your shoulders are more than a foot above hers, she's got to be right there or hold herself in an awkward contortion.
3: Throw offenders out of the dance, and send them home. No need to stop anything for anyone who isn't breaking the rules. It'd be work, and you'd get kids pushing right up to whatever limit you set, but if you set the limit at a place where right up to it or a little bit past isn't terrible, then it's not impossible at all.
Cancelling the dances is either collective punishment, which is dumb, or inability to enforce rules, which is pathetic.
I wonder if it's intra-faculty rebellion -- the principal can't get teachers to chaperone to his standards, because they disagree with them?
So you are basically saying that it's okay to ban grinding for being too sexual, though? PRUDE.
It sounds like a good premise for a situation comedy now, but back before most of you were born it was common for people to establish what were called "no rules communes" where people lived together without infringing on one another's freedom in any way whatsoever.
These communes were little laboratories within which the systems of rules which define society were developed from scratch. The experiment I am familiar with discovered that the first two rules of civilized society are "Don't shit on the bed" and "Don't get drunk at 3 am and shout furiously at the top of your voice for the next three hours". The social contract rises from these simple principles.
So anyway, if you begin with "Sex is good", "Love knows no law", and "Kids should be free" as your main three principles, kids will try to find the line. Once everyone is freak dancing, someone is going to have to take it to the next step, which is presumably standing-position intercourse in time to the music. And who is to say that this would be "wrong"?
I sympathize with the principal who would rather cancel dances than play, futilely, Cato the Polyester-Plaid-Sport-Jacket-Wearing Censor of Adolescent Morals.* It's like being a landlord without the attendant prestige, respect or moral authority.
* I may be generalizing from my own high school experience a bit.
That's possible.
I was thinking that the dances are probably barely hanging on by the skin of their teeth, and very poorly attended, and in particular being mostly attended by lower SES kids, and that there's a host of discomfort from those patterns. At least, that was the pattern at my high school
So anyway, if you begin with "Sex is good", "Love knows no law", and "Kids should be free" as your main three principles....
This problem does not arise if your school dances involve only Scottish country dancing. I would like to meet the girl who can grind while doing an Eightsome Reel.
I have no idea what my high school dances were like, because I never went to any (well, I went to the prom). I went to one dance when I was in eighth grade, and that was plenty.
Anyhow the easy solution is just to have an ottoman room where the kids can go one at a time to blow off some steam.
I have a fair amount of sympathy for Cato the Polyester-Plaid-Sport-Jacket-Wearing Censor of Adolescent Manners, and I think filling that role is part of a school's job. Morals, if the kids want to have sex on their own time that's up to them and, to an extent, their parents. If they want to behave lewdly (and I don't much care what the standard is for lewdness, but as Emerson indicates, there probably needs to be a line somewhere) at a school event, on the other hand, that's rude and indecorous, and part of what's supposed to go on at school-sponsored events is some education in how to behave like a civilized person in public.
I would like to meet the girl who can grind while doing an Eightsome Reel.
So would I. Ladies.
When I was young only the couples seemed to enjoy the school dances much, with everyone else standing against the walls, and the only songs they wanted were slow dances so they could cling together. And most of them dropped out of school and got married, and as I have said before, I'm finding that a surprising proportion of them are still married. Apparently they weren't evil and crazy after all.
14: the counter-argument, of course, is that dances are a way to provide a social outlet for kids that is nonetheless safe, and if you cancel them just because the kids are dancing in the manner that they know and enjoy (and which they believe to be entirely unobjectionable and non-lewd), or if you don't cancel the dances but you keep kids from dancing in the manner they enjoy, then you're defeating the purpose of the safe space for socializing and increasing the risk that kids will sneak into grownup nightclubs or get drunk and dance on friends' parents' couches or download that special Grindr app or whatever.
Make them square dances. Or ballroom. It would help the socially awkward non-dancer types participate since there are nicely defined rules for what to do. The wild thrashing about approach to dancing only works for a small subset of the population, and there are plenty of non-school venues where it can be practiced.
[P]art of what's supposed to go on at school-sponsored events is some education in how to behave like a civilized person in public.
I knew it: LB is Gertrude Himmelfarb! Also possibly George Will.
18: Actually, it looks like they tried to teach them swing dancing and ballroom dancing and line dancing and things like that.
there are plenty of non-school venues where it can be practiced.
For a high school student?! Such as?
that there's a host of discomfort from those patterns. At least, that was the pattern at my high school
You should have slow danced with somebody shorter.
18 is intelligent and constructive. WTF are you thinking?
21: Parents' basements? Backseats of cars? Mid-afternoon showings of dreary Eastern European character studies?
There was a town council somewhere in North Knifecrime Island that turned down a local application to open a line dancing bar, having, it emerged on subsequent investigation, confused line dancing with lap dancing.
The wild thrashing about approach to dancing
"Two people holding hands and jumping about all over the room" - apparently the 19th century Chinese opinion of Western dancing.
The Cato speech could be "Excuse me, could you two please go fuck in the bushes somewhere? You're making me uncomfortable, IYKWIMAITYD".
I don't know if kids do consider this kind of dancing to be non-lewd, really. I've got some discomfort with high school grinding just because from what I hear it's so often something that happens non-consensually, where you're doing your thing and then there's some guy grinding all up on you. (Sexist gender assumptions going from the stories I've heard, though I'm sure it works in other directions too.) And from the outside for grind-stomping chaperones, how would you tell? I dunno.
For a high school student?! Such as?
Does the Benighted States not run to "junior clubbing", i.e. opening clubs for a few hours in the late afternoon with soft drinks and a proper DJ, for the benefit of the under 18 crowd? (usually divided into a 13-15 and a 16/17 session).
The son of some friends met a girl at such an event when he was 14. They're getting married this year.
29: I haven't heard of that here -- doesn't mean it doesn't happen, but not that I'm aware of.
What you want to do is hold it in an empty office building with plenty of corridors branching onto offices with unlocked doors and couches. Also essential, serve alcohol at the dance. The grinding thing doesn't quite disappear, but there's not much of it since the offenders kick themselves out of the dance area quite promptly. Or so my high school experience would suggest.
29: Good God, no. Kids need that time to learn about the satisfactions of ill-paid, unskilled labor.
23: while I admit you could get a pretty ragin' dance floor going at a repertory booking of Dekalog, the other two sound kind of lame.
30. You'll find out in a year or two if it does.
29: I am pwned, but yeah, heck no. Also remember that 95% of dance clubs here are 21+.
Sally's got her first middle school dance (that she's going to) this Friday. I will ask for a report back on the perceived lewdness level. (Actually, I probably won't.)
OT: Would someone please log in at The Hairpin and tell them (i) to read T.H. White's The Goshawk (or Frederick the Great -- six of one, really) and (ii) trapping raptors without a license is a nicely eccentric and presumably Etsy-consistent way to go to federal prison?
Short film about love will get your date in the mood, guaranteed.
33: What about that Romanian movie about abortion? That's a kick-up-your-heels thrill ride if ever there was.
29: There are several teen or sometimes-teen dance clubs in our city, though I think one of them got shut down after a series of altercations that led to a couple of deaths. Some are 18+ and some are for younger teens, I think generally separate. I don't actually know much about this, though.
40. I'm relieved. At least some cities can distinguish between innocent fun and a flaming orgy (it's a license to print money, too).
I am not willing to have my tax money used to enable parasitical teenagers have more fun than I do.
I am not willing to have my tax money used to enable parasitical teenagers people [to] have more fun sex than I do.
I think LB is underestimating things. HS dances are basically a rugby scrum. Teachers ventured as far as they can to stop actual intercourse, but mostly dry humping? It is going to happen.
Maybe off topic, but how did I miss the lyrics of Flower by Liz Phair before now!>!?!?!
At my daughter's hs dance, the boys were dressed very well. The girls wore tiny, tiny dresses.
The dance floor was packed.
The girls were every bit as lewd as the boys.
It did bother me some, but I dont think the schools should take too much of a hands on position...
44.2: Distracted by the droning piano and voice, I guess?
Yeah, I just can't see how throwing violators out of the dance could fail to work. You'd have to be willing to keep doing it until the dance floor was empty, but at some point people figure out what the rules are and either comply or don't show up for the next dance.
47: If attendance is so low that they are worried about it completely falling apart, then they might just pre-emptively cancel things.
At a school with a bimodal wealth distribution, I would expect rich kids to sneer at the dances and the poorer kids to attend, and that could very easily make the entire endeavor feel like it's falling apart.
Also remember that in our helicopter-parent world, schools may not be able to release kids from the dance until time has expired. So it'd have to be more like: "Here you go, have this nice shiny detention. You may rub up against the desk if you like."
The wild thrashing about approach to dancing
George Jean Nathan said that the lovely rhythms of the waltz should be listened to its stillness and not be accompanied by strange gyrations of the human body. Or so I read.
Middle school dances were agony. I think even at the age of 13 I was aware how ridiculous and unattractive 13-year-olds are. My iconic middle school slow dance of misery was "Take my Breath Away" by disposable, forgotten artist from Top Gun. I'd have much preferred a pavane or something but then I wasn't really looking for opportunities to dry hump the people I was expected to want to dry hump.
I think even at the age of 13 I was aware how ridiculous and unattractive 13-year-olds are.
With a few agonizingly beautiful ones thrown in for sheer torture.
I have a friend who had to chaperone dances at the Baltimore hs at which he taught. His personal rule was that he didn't interfere short of immmediately impending penetration -- and he still had to interfere.
Twelve-year-old swim teams are funny to look at. The words "How come all the boys look like marshmallows with toothpicks stuck in them" have been said by a swimmer of my acquaintance. I told her to wait two or three years, it'd start changing.
In response to the OP, no, grinding is not a problem. Who gives a fuck? Sounds way more fun than the old fashioned slow dance turn around in a circle to bad slow rock while trying out some Curitiba groping. Nonconsensual grinding is gross and should be subject to social shaming but thats a different problem and there's the historically available "walk away" option.
Furtive groping. Thank you phone autocorrect!
short of immmediately impending penetration
That should be the name of a new type of lingere.
There might be groping in Curitiba. Seems pretty staid for Brazil, though.
As in "Your options are a brief, a bikini brief, a boy short, or a short of immmediately impending penetration"?
Enough with the lawyer-ese, LB.
Now imagine hearing 59 in a law office.
The girls were every bit as lewd as the boys.
As you should already know, it was Eve who brought sin into this world. Many a fine young man has been brought low by lewd and shameless sluts.
Exactly, Pope! We have the same problem out our way.
In my experience higher SES girls go for the lower SES guys. It may be a cliche but it seemed to be working that way.
I actually don't believe that most of the kids at any school dance are honest-to-goodness rubbing their genitals on one another's bodies in the direction of orgasm. Even when I was a teen, the dominant popular dance moves were rather sexual in appearance (how else does one dance to this?), and I suppose it caused some pain to administrators, but I have a rather difficult time believing that even in these fallen days the kids are orgasming on the dance floor from rubbing their genitals constantly on one another's bodies.
Make them square dances. Or ballroom. It would help the socially awkward non-dancer types
or perhaps not.
That is, "grinding" seems to mean everything from literally dry-humping to bouncing to the rhythms of those threatening African-style drumbeats.
I saw a pro tango contest awhile back and it was a more graceful form of grinding, with actual dancing and shit.
Are you people fucking serious?
Y'all have no problem with multiple minors, in a public place, under official sanction and institutional supervision, grinding crotch on ass and crotch on crotch, and I presume crotch on face to repeated orgasm? In full view? As long as they remain minimally clothed and covered?
Are you for fucking real?
Are you for fucking real?
No, bob. They are trolling you.
67: Grinding interruptus is OK, and the Cato Censor has to have evidence of actual orgasm? That makes the job almost impossible without intrusive searches.
There goes Pops McManus again. Get with the times, Gramps!
Look, I am far from a prude, but if they were 30-somethings in the dozens in the park publicly fucking every day I would at least say there is something interesting and a little disturbing here.
Fuck.
those threatening African-style drumbeats
Don't make me tell my riotously funny viola joke that filled us all with such mirth at new year's.
67: Really? There were more attempts than I wanted when I was in HS decades ago, and more trouble walking away than Halford assumes.
49 makes sense to me - HS peers died driving home high after being expelled from a dance for drinking. Also, what Thorn said.
Are you for fucking real?
Well, given that you live in a country where people are considered minors for purposes of sexual consent until they're 18, motes and beams, mate.
79: and can't have a beer or go out clubbing until they're 21.
given that you live in a country where people are considered minors for purposes of sexual consent until they're 18
Not strictly true.
I certainly have been in parks fucking with people fucking, but usually they take a little cover, are a little discreet.
Come to think, maybe it's me. Why shouldn't a couple or group at the baseball game just tear their clothes off and go for it in the ten row? I ask you? The little kids can learn from observing.
You are right, just a square old fogey.
76: I still don't get it. I feel like maybe I didn't hear it very well over all the tequila, but I think I made you tell it like three times, which doesn't help.
Honestly in the annals of bad teen behavior a little lewd-ish dancing through clothes (no one is doing this to orgasm) is about the 10 billionth biggest problem. Who. Cares.
Well, given that you live in a country where people are considered minors for purposes of sexual consent until they're 18.
I have pretty much said my piece on this, but before the sexual revolution it was as low as 12. Same as with Prohibition -- when Prohibition ended for everyone else, it was imposed for the under-18s. Sin is a privilege of adults, and while the underage can sin together, any adult with them is a felon. Just one weird aspect of the construction of the teenager.
81: Right. In Kansas, it's legal to fuck a 12-year-old so long as you're married. (God, my home state embarrasses me.)
78.1: Huh. I was sort of unfuckable in high school so I guess I didn't have this problem. My friends were the repressed grinding, mutual massage, strip poker types who all remained virgins well into adulthood.
No, I'm not trolling and I am serious.
Is there a social purpose to public lewdness laws? What is that purpose, if not prudery? If grinding is not deliberate public lewdness, why not?
They can do their grinding at home.
Typical age of consent is 16. 16 is also the lowest age of consent. In California, of all places, it's 18. Talk about political dysfunction!
Things you don't want to see at a school dance.
I initially misread "Typical" in 89 as "Tactical."
92: age of everyday carry consent
bob, haven't you pushed for extensive children's rights in the past?
GET YOUR FUCKING OFF MY FRONT LAWN!
94:It should be clear by now that my primary objection, or question, is about the public nature of the acts.
Good taste? Politeness?
91. No, people shouldn't do that stuff at high school dances unless they can also do the accompanying airborne graphics at the same time.
Does it really matter what these affectionate people do -- so long as they don't do it in the streets and frighten the horses!
Yes, Rob, isn't it obvious that Bob, as ever, is all about the politesse.
Anyway, I think that the question is one of aesthetics. If the kids can dance, then let them do what they want. But if not, send them home. I feel this way about off-color humor as well. If you're good enough at it -- Louis CK, Richard Pryor (rip), Chapelle, Sarah Silvermann -- you get a pass (and millions). But if not, please keep your racist, sexist, homophobic crap to yourself.
98: well, right. If your school dance looks like that then there's a good chance you've accidentally ingested synthetic mescaline, and that's really something you want to plan for.
And I have seen people getting head on mass transit.
I just kinda wonder what it all means if it becomes commonplace and we don't care anymore. I suspect it means something.
"Now, lil Billy, it's impolite to stare without asking permission."
87.2: Well, the stuff that still makes me angry wasn't an indication that I was desired -- it was a dominance display. Part of the problem was that they wouldn't let go until I fought back hard enough to increase the contempt of my fellow students (uncool, you know). Nowadays I'd probably have risked a countersuit for violence.
School dances are semi-public. Adults except chaperones are excluded, and usually outsider teenagers without a local escort.
This battle has been going on since the foxtrot, but LB is right. The school can't afford to be seen just rubber-stamping whatever behaviour the kids choose to engage in, and if that means that they have to censor some forms of dancing, then that's what it means.
And yes, there probably are some racist undertones to the kinds of dancing they're objecting to -- as is always-already the case with any development in American popular culture, which almost invariably involves repurposing forbidden Black things as acceptable White things, or perhaps now White and Asian things -- but then there are also probably (in fact almost certainly) some racist undertones to the way teh kidz are adopting those dances. Anytime I've ever seen a crowd of mostly-white teenagers "grinding" somewhere or other, they invariably look like a bunch of people who've seen black girls shake their booties in a music video but haven't cottoned to their being more to the specifics of that kind of dancing* than just clumsily rubbing your naughty bits together sort-of to the beat. The Caucasian version of this activity really just looks so goddamned desperate and pathetic** that I have to admit I wouldn't miss it if it were banned.
(* And yes, I don't care how sexualized the music or image of Foxxxy Brown or Lady Saw or Nicki Minaj was or is, this is still true. And this doesn't even get into the extent to which the relatively "sexualized" patterns of dance in Africa or the Diaspora may or may not themselves be symptomatic of destructive and pervasive forms of sexism.)
(** Why, back when I was a youngster, at least we were pathetically trying to look cool and aloof and doing the bulk of our groping either off the dance floor or during the slow dances.)
Another vote for 'what Thorn said'. I really like dancing and I don't like being ground upon and getting it to stop is more difficult than Halford suggests. (Actually, in a club where I don't know the person it is easy because I can just walk or dance away. In a high school dance where presumably there are continuing social interactions it is harder to push away from someone.)
The Caucasian version of this activity really just looks so goddamned desperate and pathetic** that I have to admit I wouldn't miss it if it were banned.
In contrast to the other strains of be-tempoed dry humping?
It seems that some of those Goth spikes could prevent grinding pretty effectively.
It's not like I'm an expert, but even the pathetic Caucasian version of "the grind" seems to me to require active participation by both sexes.
Different than the unwanted coming over to "grind on" which let's agree is gross, but isn't what people are talking about banning.
Now I'm trying to remember episodes of MTV's "the Grind."
Different than the unwanted coming over to "grind on" which let's agree is gross, but isn't what people are talking about banning.
Well, that might be part of what the school's worried about.
12 caused me to laugh, non-lewdly.
It seems that some of those Goth spikes could prevent grinding pretty effectively.
Or those big plastic cones the vet puts on recovering animals.
I have been violently and threateningly ground upon in unpleasant ways, but not in high school. It sucks to be in a public place and unable to dance at all because some jerkwad on meth thinks your presence signifies a desire to have his dick bruising your hip. But I'm still inclined to think that a great deal of what is twisting principal panties is regular old booty-shaking, not methhead hip rape.
According to Google "the grind" also refers to an annual slaughter of pilot whales in the Faeroe Islands. Not sure how that comes into the mix.
In Kansas, it's legal to fuck a 12-year-old so long as you're married.
Do you have to be married to the 12-year-old?
But I'm still inclined to think that a great deal of what is twisting principal panties is regular old booty-shaking, not methhead hip rape.
I am guessing otherwise, that it's true grinding ass-to-crotch or crotch-to-thigh or crotch-to-crotch. Teenagers are such dang hornballs, and they're not at work or somewhere they have to consider a longterm reputation as a mature adult.
107: The more informed brands of grind do not involve dry-humping, which is the big difference. When in a club frequented by any form of authentic b-boy or -girl, hip-hop head or dancehall enthusiast, the people dry-humping on the dance floor are, deservedly, objects of pity and derision.
Admittedly of course my sensibilities may have been unduly influenced by time spent with the Raver Horde, whose descendant tribes can still be seen encamped on the edges of the Dubsteppes to this day, and among whom dancing is a performance of pure narcissistic ecstasy that ideally involves no physical contact or even acknowledgment of other people. This is the opposite extreme, and arguably not that much more desirable. But there is a happy medium to be had.
According to Google "the grind" also refers to an annual slaughter of pilot whales in the Faeroe Islands.
This should certainly be discouraged at high school dances. The whales are far too big and stink out the dance hall.
Nonconsensual grinding is gross and should be subject to social shaming but thats a different problem and there's the historically available "walk away" option.
A tougher option to exercise than you might think. Adolescence is a very weird and confusing time and asserting yourself can take a certain amount of confidence and peer support. See also: date rape. "But she didn't start screaming 'NO' and kicking me in the balls!"
Oh hell, you can find the last page of Brave New World yourself.
I suspect what happens when the private becomes public is that a broader spectrum of the private and idiosyncratic is devalued. BNW.
I definitely don't want America to turn Japanese, where everybody, in the privacy of their bedroom, fucks with their clothes on. That's disgusting.
I'm not sure how Minnesota's laws are enforced -- fornication is still a misdemeanor -- but apparently a 14 year old (but not a 15 year old) can legally have sex with an 11 year old, and an 11 year old (but not a 12 year old) can legally have sex with an 8 year old.
My guess is that enforcement is discretionary, based on an unwritten code and the officer's whim.
I could say that I was further pwned by 103 and 106, but instead I'll add that perceptions of the walk away issue are (shockingly!) colored by gender.
apparently a 14 year old (but not a 15 year old) can legally have sex with an 11 year old, and an 11 year old (but not a 12 year old) can legally have sex with an 8 year old.
So long as either end of the daisy chain stay far apart.
The new Human Centipede movie is even grosser.
102: Funny you should say that...
Is that an onion on your belt, or are you just glad to see me?
||
I would fucking love to see that son of a bitch Lose California to Romney in the fall. I think he either wants to, or else he wants to show that he can do absolutely anything and the base will still grovel to him.
Cecilia Munoz, Secure Communities Program, organized Hispanic community despises her, Obama promotes to policy-making level.
|>
I definitely don't want America to turn Japanese, where everybody, in the privacy of their bedroom, fucks with their clothes on.
WTF, are the dry cleaning companies all mobbed up or something?
They don't have tetrachloroethylene in a way that we could understand.
132:Uhh, temperate climate, no central heating, paper walls.
Actually, the old story was that the public baths made nudity non-erotic, but the few baths now only exist as tourist attractions and nostalgia.
I definitely don't want America to turn Japanese
We are. I think we are. I really think so.
I haven't hard that about the Japanese. Maybe it's just the ones Bob watches who screw with their clothes on.
Premise indicator words: because, as, for, since, given that, for the reason that.
That's not how it works in the Japanese movies I've seen. They may not be as arty as yours, though.
135: I laughed, but after I can't get that song to stop playing in my head for ten hours, I might not be happy.
Bob's talking about the Presbyterian Japanese.
I've only seen one Japanese movie. A detective in olden-day clothing kept dropping huge stones on his penis and seduced/raped a woman into giving information. I haven't watched another.
Nonconsensual grinding is bad.
I did not venture into the scrum, but what I saw on the outskirts appeared to involve easily as much grinding by the girls as the boys. And the teachers that came back from interferring were as much about the girls' action as the boys.
Of course, that doesnt mean that there wasnt some unwelcome grinding on girls.
I am with Halford though. There are a lot more important things to worry about than grinding. Like how many girls are going to get pregnant after the dance. Much more important issue.
117: You are absolutely correct in the precisely one school of which I have knowledge on this topic. Not even a little bit "booty shaking," entirely full-on crotch grinding (mostly what is interfered with is girl fully bent over ass up, boy grabbing her hips and grinding into her ass; no one bothers with smooshed together crotch-on-crotch slow dancing).
I'd like to hear the viola joke.
I assume there is but the one in all the world.
... the Raver Horde, whose descendant tribes can still be seen encamped on the edges of the Dubsteppes to this day....
Nice.
Don't our decadent Western clothes involve too many zippers and elasticated parts?
140:Hanzo the Razor! Sword of Justice!
The best worst one had the rope cradle where he spun the woman in circles. Terrible offensive evil movies.
Shintarō Katsu was also Zatoichi in 25 movies.
Moby, you should try at least one other Japanese movie before giving up. I suggest something from the 70s with Sonny Chiba.
(mostly what is interfered with is girl fully bent over ass up, boy grabbing her hips and grinding into her ass; no one bothers with smooshed together crotch-on-crotch slow dancing).
I guess what I'm having trouble is is seeing how the former is any worse than the latter, or any more obviously nonconsensual. That crotch on crotch slow dancing to Whitney Houston or whatever that was common among the whiteys of my youth was pretty dang sexual and gropetastic.
Those Hanzo the razor movies really are pretty amazing. They were playing on IFC and I loaded up my DVR with them for a while, provoking a comment from the GF.
Don't our decadent Western clothes involve too many zippers and elasticated parts?
Zere are no treecks: zere ees only -- 'ow do you say? ah, yes -- ze enthuseeasm.
146: For a more modern, less rape-positive Japanese period crime movie, he might try Takeshi Kitano's remake of Zatoichi. Bonus dance sequence!
That crotch on crotch slow dancing to Whitney Houston or whatever that was common among the whiteys of my youth was pretty dang sexual and gropetastic.
And we turned out fine!
Statistically.
146.1: I am relieved to learn that it isn't such a trope that it could have been any one of a number of characters.
149: IFC is where I saw it. My DVR is filled with Batman, Avatar, and Kung Fu Panda.
95: Ah, yes, that reminds me of the legendary phone call made to the dean of the college I went to (some decades ago, he has since died) complaining about students fornicating on the front campus lawn.
His response:
"I very much agree this is inappropriate behavior. If I've told them once, I've told them a thousand times: Fornicating on back campus only!"
My DVR is filled with Batman, Avatar, and Kung Fu Panda.
Sixties Batman, Batman: The Animated Series, Batman: The Brave and the Bold, other?
Hmm, apparently the story is already documented:
http://windsofchange.net/archives/005261.html
157: I think the later two only, but I'm not sure.
girl fully bent over ass up, boy grabbing her hips and grinding into her ass
Ah memories of DCon II.
mostly what is interfered with is girl fully bent over ass up, boy grabbing her hips and grinding into her ass; no one bothers with smooshed together crotch-on-crotch slow dancing
Well, the problem is obviously the safety hazard.
Actually, that's the problem with swing dancing as well.
(I went to such a dork school that my friends and I actually did dance line-reels. We went through a whole Sir Roger de Coverley phase that lasted a couple of years. Yes, it was the theater crowd shut up.)
It's the "lasted a couple of years" that gave rise to the "whoa."
I think "a couple of years" makes a "period" (cf. Picasso's Blue Period) rather than a "phase."
Over more than one school year. The second school year, though, it may have moved slightly underground. (Not the cool kind of underground; the self-consciously dorky underground.)
And for all these years I thought of JM as being in some sense "cool". But no.
Be nice, John. Even Steve McQueen nods.
It was a dork school. I was considered pretty cool.
It was a dork school.
Somebody else want this one? Moby?
I don't know Yiddish. Is this one of the Yiddish ones?
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OK, where's our resident expert on all things Japanese?
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172: Don't make me invoke the pre-emptive "Racist" again.
172:
When I looked around, each corner had posters that printed 'fucking sale'.
Well, I look at the article title and the pictures and instantly know that someone cannot be trusted to keep to the most basic and important facts.
STudents graduated as certified dorks ready to go on to dork college.
In my world dorks are exclusively and only big, loud, clueless guys.
When I first started teaching I wrote this email to my friends after the first dance I sort of helped chaperone b/c I had some other task to do in the hall that night:
"I think freak dancing is thus named because it freaks adults out, and it has made me feel very old, very suddenly. There is something deeply anxiety-inducing about watching teenagers tightly packed in a large square array, alternating genders, like proteins in a crystallography experiment, vibrating in almost perfect sync with a rhythm that's firmly centered about the hip-joint. I estimate the array was about 8 on side, thus approximately 60 kids were all grinding each other's crotches in drumbeat unison. This anxiety might be partially due to the fact that I just read Nick Hornby's "Slam!", about some of the potential consequences of teen sex , and nowt I feel like I MUST STOP TEH TEENS FROM HAVING TEH SEX RIGHT NOW. "Not possible," sighs the other teacher on chaperone duty, "but yes, we have to try." Or as a senior recently quoted in the schoolnewspaper's exploration of the lack of dancing rules said
(paraphrasing), "Since there are no rules, the teachers just stand around looking disgusted. The rule seems to be, don't get pregnant on the dance floor." I think we're not quite disgusted so much as deeply stressed---we can't see past the outermost layers of the vibrating body crystal---god only knows what kind of mischief is going on in the
depth of the pack. Every now and then the assistant principal school attempts to wade in and break it up, cringing whenever he runs into his own brood. Thank god I'm only back up on that---I think I will never volunteer to be the main chaperone at a dance. Oddly enough, the kids who can actually DANCE are mostly dancing by themselves, on the edges of this vibrating crystal."
Later I did chaperone a prom, and the same thing happened again. To break it up would have been to cancel the dance, effectively, but after everyone got all dressed up, rented the limos, and paid for the tickets. The best part was the skinny Asian exchange student who was clearly mystified at the start of the experience. Two extremely helpful and perfectly nerdy guys and one *very* helpful and perfectly nerdy girl carefully explained to him--complete with gestures and miming, since the music was too loud to talk---exactly how he should grab the girl's waist and thrust upon her waiting bottom. She waited patiently with a friendly, encouraging smile. Soon they were part of the crystal. Once I came to see it as something more akin to the Borg collective than sex, I didn't mind and the school's decision to keep chaperoning duties focused on cases of actual harrasment or other harms made a lot of sense.
Well, it's more like a mating ball than a lek, but unless there's actual mating I'd call it a pseudo-mating-ball.
In these schools beta males mimic females in order to sneak into the alpha male's harem and mate?
172:I ain't got nothing. I looked up the relevant kanji at the end of the article. Halpern Learners 2084, surpass, transcend, ultra, super etc...."Cho-" and "koeru" in romaji. Homophone with 2085, but nothin.
Obviously, I could try backwards with "fu" "ku" "fuku" or whatever, but that does not appeal.
I see no characters on the signs.
Ask elsewhere.
The dances that I've chaperoned (high school students whose parents paid too much for summer enrichment programs a college credit that won't transfer) featured a lot of crotch-to-crotch grinding. Since all of the adults in charge were between 19 and 23 (at 25, I was one of the two outliers), we felt confident breaking up any particularly worrisome couples by rushing in between them and dancing as dorkily as possible (without going in to a reel, that is).
Once the kids were checked in for the night, of course, most of the staff went out clubbing, engaging in the same behavior they had just tried to break up.
In Taiwan I would see English words used graphically without much connection to the English meaning, the same way that Chinese is sometimes used wrongly in tattoos and other graphics..
Once I came to see it as something more akin to the Borg collective than sex
See BNW last page, I say. Nothing good will come from this.
I think freak dancing is thus named because it freaks adults out
It is indeed deliberate public lewdness, and it must be stopped before the little fuckers start cramming into phone booths or eating goldfish. Taser the rugrats and teach them to obey.
New Sport! Taser one corner or end (what do I know) of a freak dance and see how far the current travels
That's not a sport. That's a science experiment. (The answer: Not very far.)
This thread is not making us look very cool, in the aggregate. Can no one tell a pleasing tale of salad days of grinding and salad nights of stealing police cars or something?
I won a dance contest at a classmate's sweet sixteen grinding with a friend. No cars were stolen, however, in the course of our victory celebration, though I did find $5.
181: I'll put a picture of us rehearsing up on Flickr.
New Sport! Taser one corner or end (what do I know) of a freak dance and see how far the current travels
Hmm. .I don't think we would have needed something as extreme as a Taser for some edifying amusement. . .
I won a dance contest at a classmate's sweet sixteen grinding with a friend.
Reading that sentence makes me feel very, very old.
172:There might be something going on under the white lettering on the posters, but it isn't consistent, and you start going calligraphic freestyle on kanji or kana and I am just out of here.
"ck" is not a kind a thing I ever see in romaji, nor "fuc" "fu-ki-n" might be something, but this I don't get.
I am not an expert on Japan or Japanese. I am barely an amateur on Japanese movies. I was sure it was intended sarcastically.
However, Sifu tweety (172) is definitely a gratuitous and superfluous asshole
Once we have demystified grinding our worlds will be impoverished to that extent and we will be forced to seek new forms of titillation.
190: So the answer is "a fair distance" is nobody lets go?
As ajay said above, Scottish school dances when I (and I presume 'we', I don't know how old ajay is) feature Scottish dancing, by which I mean the Gay Gordons, Dashing White Sergeant, Stripping the Willow, etc. All those non-suggestively named dances. It's not actually as bad as all that. The disco interlude we had at our school dances was by far the most excruciating part of it if you weren't one of the select 'in' few.
All I know is that a person, with the right camera in the right place at the right time, could make a whole lot of money off this. This stuff would sell to those "for" and those "against."
Curse my morals and scruples!
Certainly the best episode of Buffy ever.
The best episode of Buffy would be five minutes of that English guy telling those kids to shut up and study.
"Stripping the Willow" just sounds painful.
Finally to 172, as the resident amateur in Japanese movies, I can say that when they were allowed onscreen, which was about 5-10 years before America, the Japanese understood English words like "fuck", "shit", and "piss" quite well, thank you very much.
but what caught me by surprise was that none of the people around me seem to understand the profanity....from the article
bullfuckinshit, racist
Stripping the Willow is one of the better dances. Some people really throw themselves into it, though. Bruises, etc.
Here's an embarrassing video of some prim old teuchter looking fuckers doing it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1E2ZAfT63g
Usually it's a lot more unhinged.
Double sixsome! St John's River! And one that we had to make floor diagrams to learn... Shrewsbury Lasses? Can't remember the name.
206: Christ, ttaM, what about a NSFW tag? Bare knees!
My guess is that Japanese are able to identify American profanity for what it is, but respond it with relative indifference, the way that someone might know that "maudit hostie" is pretty serious to Quebecois, but not really care.
206 looks like square dancing minus cowboy hats (cue Scotch Irish reference). I'd rather grind.
Apparently the Sir Roger has a Strip the Willow segment in it. Our version was faster and more bruising. More like moshing.
Yes, 178 is fantastically great.
I went to a wedding that had a ceilidh at the reception, about 5 years ago. It split the room - the friends on the bride's side were a horde of crazy home educators from around the country, all completely over-excited to be seeing each other in person, and throwing ourselves into the dancing with gay abandon, and the friends on the groom's side were a bunch of rather more repressed Sheffield locals who remained seated and couldn't quite hide the "who are these idiots" looks on their faces. It was great.
I have been at a club where not only was I grinding, I was the only person grinding.
Re 211
Oh yeah. Even at school as self conscious teenagers there was way more wild abandon. I've been to more punked up ceilidhs since where it is more like structured moshing.
I hated the dance classes at school but have had a few good drunken nights where the steps mysteriously came back since, though.
Next UnfoggedUK meet up ....
(which should happen - we need to meet Paren.)
213: My mom threw a 70th birthday party for my stepdad with a dance band and the same split took place - many on my side of the family/friends hadn't seen each other for a while and cut loose (no grinding though) while my stepdad's more staid family members looked at us like we were Martians (and indeed a few live near Mars, Pennsylvania).
214: I'll bite. What were you grinding?
Can no one tell a pleasing tale of salad days of grinding and salad nights of stealing police cars or something?
At the first unfoggedcon catherine, sommer, and I think a third person, all of whom were attempting to get me to dance (vainly), instructed me to at least stand up so they could thrust their rears at me.
The Scottish Country dancing looks like great fun. I pray that Bonsaisue does not read this comment, because she would likely make me go do that somewhere.
I'm sorry, third person, that I apparently can't even remember who you were.
This video of Irish céilí dancing is pretty similar to what you see at weddings & so forth (warning; bare knees of men in bad shorts.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZ-0JGLEm_c&feature=youtube_gdata_player
She waited patiently with a friendly, encouraging smile.
I just wanted to highlight this part of 178 again.
I suspect this is a very useful skill for women.
nosflow are you my brother in non-dancing?
I'm sorry, third person, that I apparently can't even remember who you were.
Could you describe her butt?
My guess is that Japanese are able to identify American profanity for what it is, but respond it with relative indifference
I gather the title Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me was considered much more risque in the UK and other anglophile locations.
Yeah, "shag" and "bloody" have no power in the US.
I'm sorry, third person, that I apparently can't even remember who you were.
I can help you with this. It was either "him" or "her," assuming it was a third person singular, and that it was, in fact, a person and not a thing.
I grew up near Shrewsbury and some of its lasses, and never knew about this tune and/or dance till this evening. It's not local. Also: Shrewsbury Biscuits are more boring than wikipedia makes them look or seem. They're not local either, really.
This thread is not making us look very cool, in the aggregate. Can no one tell a pleasing tale of salad days of grinding and salad nights of stealing police cars or something?
Huh, I knew this place was missing at least something without me around.
We got away with a lot of sexual acts in high (er, make that middle) school dances. Thinking back, we can't have been as sneaky as we thought we were being.
I did get caught once getting a girl off on the bleachers. It was quiet around us, but her short skirt didn't provide much cover clear across the gym.
Never stole a police car in school. One might have ignited near me for no apparent reason, once, but I'm sure that was just coincidence.
We weren't so much the cool kids as the "voted most likely to spend the next year in juvie" types, mind.
218: oh, I was grindin' all up on my date, but she mostly stood there genially puzzled. In truth, everybody should have been gettin' nasty, as this was the featured artist, but they were a bunch of wan echo park hipsters.
My son the high school senior has strong views on this subject, and may be induced to share them (after the hockey game he just left to play). All 3 high schools in our generally liberal town have banned dances, because they couldn't make a ban on grinding stick. Not to worry, entrepreneurial students, including my son, have been arranging dances off site, beyond the reach of the principal's writ.
The prom is not banned, apparently. Yet. But all the other school dances are fundraisers for the prom, so no one is sure how this will work out.
Where oh where is Kevin Bacon when a small town needs him?
s'biscuit ?
High school salad nights of stealing cars? Not me -- certainly not -- but I wound up hanging with a theater crowd who thought it was terrific fun to steal tires and roll them down steep hills at 1 a.m., and generally engage in what we'll call mischief. Actually I think it was more like 7th grade; by the time I knew them, they weren't exactly going to apologize for anything, but granted that there were more interesting things to do most of the time. Stealing is so middle school.
Where oh where is Kevin Bacon when a small town needs him?
I saw him at the gym before Christmas, if that helps, but he has aged into the uptight-minister demographic.
All 3 high schools in our generally liberal town have banned dances, because they couldn't make a ban on grinding stick. Not to worry, entrepreneurial students, including my son, have been arranging dances off site, beyond the reach of the principal's writ.
This seems like the ideal solution.
well, tierce, they say it was written down in the 18th c., it might have become passé in its home town (or been written in England by someone invoking rural nostalgia, for all I know).
I know I'm late to the thread, and haven't even read it all, but is grinding really so popular that a set of people feels the need to arrange alternative dances?
I guess I'm surprised. It's got to be a resistance to the man, right?
I misread Carp's comment as discussing a ban on "grinding stick" and I thought, wow, that's an even dirtier thing.
238: I knew Bacon's Footloose costar Lori Singer's older brother when I was in college. She was crawling around on the floor at the time so I didn't get to know her well.
241 -- I am assured that it is that popular.
I think the resistance has value to both parties.
243: You knew the Beastmaster?!?!
ttaM, the Scottish dance groups in the US seem divided between the Royal Scottish Country Dance Society branches and everybody else; the RSCDS is seen by the elses I know as too organized and prim and fussy, all about the turnout and afraid of leaping. Also, possibly their choreography is considered pastiche, although I can't judge those arguments. Do they have any actual presence in Scotland?
A little looking about says that the (implied) not-prim dancing survives in Scotland in the military and aristocracy. Richard Powers, the Stanford dancing one not the novelist, says that dances get codified as a lower-middle aspirational endeavor. (The competitive ballroom people want to codify the Lindy, for instance. Nutcases.)
...I forget where I was going with this, but I loved noodling around on the YouTubes of international dance adoption; boot-scootin' in Japan and Belgium, strathspeys and cotillions in New England, tangos in Seattle, Korean breakdancing. Longways through history, as many as will.
245: No, though I have met him. It was an older brother still. I didn't know he went into the movies.
244: We need some words from your son on this.
Castock says that there are many kinds of grinding, and white people don't know how to do it anyway, and other people say that it's just one among many forms of dancing of interest, so: what's the story?
I have no idea whether you can ask your son whether it's (just) all about the hott sexxor, or words to that effect.
Actually, Lori is older than I thought. She was entering first grade at that time. Her brother referred to her as a baby.
I must say an Emerson-Beastmaster connection was unexpected.
I'm sorry, third person, that I apparently can't even remember who you were.
APOLOGY NOT ACCEPTED.
250: Seriously. Emerson, in my mind's eye you are transformed, magnified, clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful.
I knew the Beastmaster when he was nobody. Or met him, anyway. Or at least, was in the same room with him. So now I have to figure out what a Beastmaster is.
I remember him as having been described by his brother, who was very goodlooking himself, as quite vain.
we've had this discussion before and dsquared's contention was that if adults were taking video of his teens grinding at a dance he'd be more worried about the teacher in question than the students. I don't think lucrezia has aged enough to possibly change his mind.
51: being an attractive 13-year-old is not actually awesome. it just makes grown-ups hit on you all the time (hi, my best friend's dad!) and your classmates decide you are slut for no reason, even if you've never actually even made out with anyone. it's much like being the first girl to develop boobs (who I assuredly was not); that girl gets endless rations of shit.
I tried to get neb to dance, but was not the third party in question. I failed also.
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I see that Balloon Juice is doing a Book Club discussion of Corey Robin's book on conservatism, with Robin attending in comments. The book has been much in discussion about and around.
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248 -- Hockey game still in progress. I'll convey your request, though, once he gets home. FWIW, he usually dances with a bunch of different girls at these things.
being an attractive 13-year-old is not actually awesome
My poor 15-y-o niece is lovely, alas, and she's developed too. She defends herself well but finds it tiresome and often seems mournful. As far as I know adults are leaving her alone.
The first girl with boobs in my son's class just got married married and works in labor law. Life goes on.
I don't know how much the awfulness is inevitable and how much it's the result of our fishtank schools, which throw a whole class of 14 year olds to the sharks every fall.
Castock says that there are many kinds of grinding, and white people don't know how to do it anyway, and other people say that it's just one among many forms of dancing of interest, so: what's the story?
My memory is that it was more or less ubiquitous when I was in high school. There were occasional slow songs at the dances, for which the usual dance was a sort of quasi-two-step, but for the more uptempo stuff grinding was pretty standard.
258: Weird. Um, that's all I can manage to say. Um, so nobody knows how to dance any other way? I'm completely confused.
I DON'T SEE NOTHING WRONG WITH A LITTLE BUMP AND GRIND.
Actually, a song specifically addressed to teens!
In Hawaiian pidgin (creole) "grind' means "eat". "Wanna grind a banana?"
Completely irrelevant to the present topic.
"Push-push" means "fuck" or "sex".
Um, so nobody knows how to dance any other way?
No, some people do. I, for one, actually went to cotillion and learned several real dances. This turned out to be much less useful than you might think for high school dances, because no one else at my high school had done that.
That's all beside the point, though, which is that a dance is a social event and the way any given person dances at one is going to be heavily dependent on the way other people dance. There's a definite tendency toward everyone dancing the same way, and at least IMO that tends to mean grinding.
It's not really very confusing, Parsi. They do it because they like it.
That tends to mean grinding at high school dances, that is. In other contexts the social dynamics point toward other dances. At rock concerts, for example, it was moshing. Personally I preferred the grinding.
I mean, don't people generally prance around and get their individual grooves on, with arm and hand waving and various kinds of turning around in circles and strutting and wandering, and stuff like that? That's generic dancing (tailored to one's own taste, obvs), to my mind.
It's true that it might not work for certain kinds of music, and I'm recalling that high school dances are pretty partnered up, which I remember now being a liability.
I mean, don't people generally prance around and get their individual grooves on, with arm and hand waving and various kinds of turning around in circles and strutting and wandering, and stuff like that?
At high school dances, no. In most of the contexts I've been in since then where there has been dancing, yes.
don't people generally prance around and get their individual grooves on, with arm and hand waving and various kinds of turning around in circles and strutting and wandering
Good lord I hate white people hippies.
In 8th grade PE I learned to polka, schottische, two-step, and almost waltz. IIRC we were told to just two-step if waltzing was too hard.
Some of the country kids liked it (there are still polka dances around today) but us cool kids thought it was just too corny. But I didn't like the cool dances either, so I'm very nondancingish.
Teofilo is our indigenous informant today. Treat him with respect rather than condescension.
271: I'm just filling in until Charley's kid shows up.
I'm the same age as teo and my high school dances did not feature any more grinding than the average boring wedding reception. There were always a couple of the popular/asshole/cool kids doing that and the general mood was "why are those people here, it would make more sense for them to be somewhere more private".
What most people did was face each other or stand in circles and sort of dance individually. Not ostentatiously. Then during the slow dances all of a sudden there was full-body contact.
This was a prep school, though.
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255:
Corey Robin at the BJ
Conservatism is a reaction against emancipatory movements of the left. It opposes those movements not primarily because they make people equal in a material sense but because they enable men and women to stand up to their superiors, especially in their superiors in close quarters (the workplace, the family).
Got it, Corey.
Another capitulation to Capital by the New New Left seeking privileged positions for identity groups in the restructuring. I should have known.
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the way any given person dances at one is going to be heavily dependent on the way other people dance
Unless you're in A Charlie Brown Christmas.
This all reminds me much more of middle school than high school. Though maybe that's because middle school had dances during school hours (can this be right? I feel sure that they were, but it seems... odd), and I think I skipped every high school dance except senior prom, which I remember very little of except for its bizarre location and my girlfriend's really excessively coiffed hair.
Someone should have linked to this song earlier in the thread.
I kind of want to quote a Japanese acquaintance's Facebook post complaining about Language Log's post on the "Fuckin' Sale" sign, but it contradicts bob's opinions about Japanese culture, so it must be wrong.
OT: This House of Lies series on Showtime looks, sans sound, like a parody of a hip, "edgy" sitcom.
279:Was that a fucking argument?
I had an observation above, that "fuck" was used in Japanese movies of the late 60s, and the characters knew what it meant. Was that supposed to be my "opinion about Japanese culture?" Who the fuck can tell from your comment?
...
I thought of asking Robin how his reactionary modernism was different from Roger Griffin's definition of fascism, but if Robin is one of those "Liberalism is all about Executive jobs for Ivy Graduates" who the fuck cares what he thinks.
Easy on the clutch, bob, you're grinding metal.
I am older than Teo and way older than anyone in high school now but the dances at my high school were all about grinding. The popular kids, boys and girls (and including my sister) had competitions to see how many people they could grind with over the course of an evening. The less popular (coughmecough) could only look on in envy. But they made up for it when they were old enough to go to bars.
I don't know what the teachers did but it seems like they turned off the main lights in the gym, left the strobes on and then stayed outside in the hallway by the coats and collecting tickets.
The songs that were out then, the songs suitable for dancing were so dirty or at least explicit. I mean Tootsie Roll wasn't but there were specific moves. Hmmm, what else? Let's Talk About Sex. The one AWB posted above (which I had totally forgotten about, thanks!). Poison. I can't think of any more now but I was just having this conversation.
The one non-grinding song I remember was Bohemian Rhapsody that had had a resurgence. That one we head-banged to.
Push It. Rumpshaker. Baby Got Back. Bust A Move. Wild Thing.
I don't even know how you could dance in a hippy fashion to any of these songs.
Wild Thing.
The Troggs version? That's hippie-dancing catnip.
my concern is always just with whether the girl in question is into it or can step away if not. it seems like there's actually rather a lot of non-consensual grinding in this fallen world. otherwise I can't think I care all that much.
my high school dances did not feature any more grinding than the average boring wedding reception.
Missed this the first time. What? Really? Just the young people, or everyone? Does it replace the chicken dance?
Not the Troggs, Tone Loc
Also, this song is a classic.
286 -- I'm quite sure that the authorities are not acting in these cases to punish non-consensual contact. It's the mutual enthusiasm that's got them all worked up.
My memory is that it was not at all difficult for either girls or boys to avoid this stuff if they didn't want to participate. The people who did it were generally really into it regardless of gender.
The songs that were out then, the songs suitable for dancing were so dirty or at least explicit. I mean Tootsie Roll wasn't but there were specific moves. Hmmm, what else? Let's Talk About Sex. The one AWB posted above (which I had totally forgotten about, thanks!). Poison. I can't think of any more now but I was just having this conversation.
This makes me wonder if there was a correlation between the rise of grinding and the movement of hip-hop into the pop mainstream to the extent that it would be played at school dances and so forth. If so that makes the Elvis comparison particularly apt.
I think I've gone to two "dances" (in contrast with events where dancing is present but not a major focus, although I haven't been to many of those). One was after junior high graduation and I don't remember much. I think at that point I felt done with the school, was changing districts and knew I'd only keep in contact with a small number of friends, had no interest in dancing anyway, was bored, and just passed the time until it was over.
The other was a "mixer" type thing at the start of a language program I was in. I hadn't had time to meet many people in the program by then - I suppose that was the point of the mixer - got there about when it started, at which point it became immediately clear that it was really a dance thing, it was too loud to talk comfortably, I didn't recognize any of the few people I had met, so I left.
I've led a very exciting life.
Hip-hop hit the pop mainstream when I was in high-school, early Nineties, at which time "the Running Man" was still fashionable as a dance move. Annoying grinders did not become the norm -- at least not so I noticed -- until "hip-pop" was getting old enough to start going to seed, late Nineties and early Oughties.
293: Fair enough, but 283 seems to indicate that grinding may have caught on somewhat earlier at least in some places.
Oh, and there was no grinding at the junior high dance. This was early 90s, sort of a suburb (but directly connected to the urban core, not one of those outlying suburbs).
294: The Bohemian Rhapsody reference would certainly seem to indicate early Nineties, but if so then I'd guess the locale was either a) at the "bleeding edge" of the redneck curve, or b) intensely multi-ethnic and a place where "grinding" was happening in its non-pathetic, pre-Ke$ha forms.
("Pre-Ke$ha" is a term of art, of course. She's just a reasonably current manifestation of a cynical music industry trend that far predated her.)
206, 246. This looks more realistic.
dsquared's contention was that if adults were taking video of his teens grinding at a dance he'd be more worried about the teacher in question than the students
This is of course right. Also, 119 is funny.
A little looking about says that the (implied) not-prim dancing survives in Scotland in the military and aristocracy.
From "The General Danced At Dawn" (which read, it's terrific):
"As you know, gentlemen, there are two forms of Highland dancing. There is Highland dancing as it is performed when ladies are present; and there is Highland dancing."
296: Not sure what the 'bleeding edge' of the redneck culture is but I'm totally interested (because that's probably true).
This was mid-1990s in a suburban town in Eastern (real Eastern, not Ontario) Canada. It was 'mixed ethnic' in that we had both black and white people at the school (There is actually a long history of black people in my area because they were settled here during/after the American Revolution so we may actually have been more 'ethnic' than other areas in Canada).
Non-pathetic and pre-Ke$ha? Of course! Dirty dancing was a great way for kids that are scared of their bodies and sex to start playing with some of the possibilities in a relatively safe space. I think that these 'off-site dances' would actually be more concerning to me than high school dances because you don't have teachers nearby, in case. Or bouncers for that matter.
One thing I definitely remember is that moshing hadn't yet arrived in our town. That didn't show up until I was going to shows in undergrad (late 1990s/early 2000).
I went dancing in a redneck bar last Saturday. With a group (6 couples) of friends who'd been XCing by moonlight. Regulars (more of a snowmobile crowd) were doing a light two-step, although one young couple were quite skilled. Men in my group weren't as interested in dancing, so several women got up and hippie danced.
Mumbling about hippies and Volvos was heard.
Even us sticks in the mud got out for a couple of slow ones.
No grinding was seen.
Next UnfoggedUK meet up ....
I'm in!
nosflow are you my brother in non-dancing?
I am!
And I'm sorry, Jackmormon. I thought it was probably you, but I thought it might be worse to speculate that it might be you and have it come out that it was not you.
Alright everyone, I'm here to settle this. My Dad (CharleyCarp) has called me in to shed some light on this grinding subject.
It is apparent that dance and self-expression evolve. Through out all of history there has been dance, and all of it has ties to absolute and raw emotion. In the early days, before the prim and proper, group dances and tribal orgies were the keystone in boundary-breaking behavior. Tribes that had these dances (often drug induced) were able to build bonds and culture, especially language, faster than those that did not. So really, it is evident that the dancing rituals are beneficial to society, and the raw emotion is good for the individual. There is absolutely nothing wrong with it.
Much later, in the era of prim and proper, such things were absurd. The waltz was ground-breakingly sexual and a scandal at its introduction. As we move forward in time, we are actually regressing to our more beneficial and more primal state during this medium of expression. The Tango, more sexy and more sexual than grinding I might add, was gain a step closer to the older ways. And again, in the roaring 20's, the Charleston offended all of the old folks, and the flapper was disturbing to the same people.
And now we have grinding. Some see it as dry humping, other as sex with clothing on, but more still just see it as having fun. I don't even think about the fact that I'm basically having sex with the girl in front of me. It's all about the music and the event and the coming together for a fun evening with hundreds of friends and friends to be. The whole dance scene has devolved into this primal humping, but that has made it all the better.
These dances still are apart of our culture, which is hardly static, and they still provide a place for boundary-breaking behavior to occur.
The fact that schools, including mine, are cancelling dances because of the way we enjoy them is just insane and unfounded. Why the hell would you end our fun times (that generate a lot of money for the school) just because we celebrate togetherness in a different way!? It really makes little sense to me.
Every time I imagine the people who complain about these dances I picture a sheltering suburban mom that has sheltered and sanitized her her kid to the point of social retardation. These are the same people that go on the Morning Show and Oprah to talk about how urgent the blowjob parties (Guys all stand in a circle while a few girls make the rounds) and meth-dealing car-stealing planning sessions that we kids have.
This is MaCarthyism round 2 and it needs to stop.
Commander Pancakes, you are an eloquent defender of our ecstatic yutes.
It's clear without even reading the comment: Commander Pancakes should lead us, come the invasion by the Luftwaffle.
Unless "Pancake" isn't some kind of dance where two kids hold each other a bit tip close while a third kid steals the car of concerned adults.
a bit tip
Ouch. I'll stick with grinding.
I don't even think about the fact that I'm basically having sex with the girl in front of me. It's all about the music and the event and the coming together for a fun evening with hundreds of friends and friends to be.
I'm imagining this as mouseover text.