Washington Post’s Laura Sessions Stepp raised her reservations about “freak dancing” — or as she aptly described, “teens grinding their bodies together to the sexually explicit lyrics of hip-hop or rap, in twos, threes and chains of four or more. It’s impossible to describe the moves exactly in a family newspaper, but let’s just say it’s a lot more than shaking booty.”
Our Erika, BTW, has written about freak dancing and some in this community also shared some concerns about it. Here is what Sessions Stepp said about the trendy (freaky) dance moves:
First, some perspective: Miguel Muñoz-Laboy, who studies hip-hop culture, says, “Parents should be more concerned about teaching their children to make decisions about drug use and alcohol intake than worrying about the ways their children dance.”
Binge drinking encourages risky sexual behavior, says Muñoz-Laboy, an assistant professor of sociomedical sciences at Columbia University. Clubbing is also a factor, he says, because it promotes excessive consumption of alcohol and hooking up with partners one hardly knows. And there is no evidence that sexy dancing causes young people to have sex early or unprotected.
Those are good points, I think, though not a reason not to also raise concerns about freaking.
How about this: Let’s add to the list of topics we talk about with kids (1) the importance of valuing themselves and (2) the difference between pornography, eroticism and romance.
While I would be embarrassed if one of my kids appeared on a YouTube clip freak dancing, the rest of Sessions Strepp’s column read like an old-fashioned lecture. Doesn’t everyone feel that their time were the good ole days when kids did nothing to upset their parents?
These questions are difficult to raise because as teens, today’s parents weren’t exactly Fred and Ginger on the gymnasium floor. Dances of the 1960s and early ’70s — with ridiculous names like the twist, jerk and mashed potato — were so individualistic we might as well have been dancing with trees. Girls were comfortable doing them, but guys, afraid of looking stupid without someone to hold on to, hung out on the sidelines.
At least grinding attracts both sexes onto the dance floor. Said one young man, “Men like to dance, and women like to have sex. But neither are supposed to show it. Grinding allows them to do what they like in a socially acceptable way.”
But is simulated sex actually sexy? This is where, instead of shaking our head, we introduce them to the idea that dances can be highly erotic by delivering nothing while promising everything.
Despite Sessions Strepp’s disapproving tone, her article ends on a positive note. Some high school students received ballroom dance classes in their PE class and helped lay some ground rules on freak dancing at the prom. The ground rules? No groping, no bending over at a 90-degree angle from the floor and no sandwiches of two or more partners. The principal agreed to the ground rules, choosing not to ban freak dancing altogether.
Sounds like a good compromise.
porn dancing
that’s what the kids around here call it. The girls do the doggy style bend over and the guys go up to their bums and bop around like dogs in heat. It is gross. Nice kids, kids with good grades and girls that have high self esteem dont do porn dancing. Girls who think being sexy is pole dancing and threesomes do it and all boys like it cause just like Rap is not singing so anyone, even the tone deaf, can do it, Freak Dancing is not really dancing, just dry humping in public. So they guys think they dont look faggy or stupid cause they are just simulating what they do every day in the shower on the dance floor. This is a far cry from “Dirty Dancing” or the “Twist”. I dont care what anyone says. Dry humping leads to sex. I know it did when I was a teen and lots of it! Geez, our high school had to ban hugs in the hallways and back rubs cause people were pawing all over each other so much. In fact our code for sex in high school was “Back Rubbing”. No way would I let a boy rub his penis on my bum unless I was into sex.
The Dirty Dog from the 60′s. We should blame
Elvis for this.
Personally, I think other things
are more worrisome.
I guess porn still shocks the hell out of people, but beyond the Lee Press-On nails and fake boobs and other issues of taste, I find sexual behavior to at least have a place in our society and to be a natural expression of hormones.
In fact, I find the notion of purity balls and “chastity promise rings” to be much more creepy than young adults full of hormones simulating sex.
um, really?
this is news? We definitely did the grind-dance thing when I was in high school, so I’m surprised that this is suddenly something to be horrified by. I mean, we could have continued outrage about it, but this is nothing new.
I also have a hard time thinking this is a super-big deal. (Then again, I don’t have teenage kids, so I’m hardly the best authority on the matter.) What impresses me is the way the teens took some initiative to propose some ground rules/self-limitations for freak dancing at the prom. My “for fun” job is as a sexuality educator, and I am far more concerned about the drug and alcohol choices teens make, which is far more likely to lead to unsafe sexual choices than freak dancing.
honestly?
i find freak dancing disturbing…but more so in adults:) teens? well raging hormones and all the other stuff that goes on in teen brains provides at least an explanation.
my dh and i popped into a couple of clubs in vegas ( no, not that kind of club) to dance. 5 minutes on the dance floor and both of us wanted out. we were surrounded by 30 + year olds bending over humping like dogs in heat. women with faces of ectasy as their males humped them from behind. WTF? Get A ROOM!
LOL!
I totally agree that freak dancing is more disturbing among adults (…and I say that as one who has very occasionally engaged in this sort of behavior as an adult with friends.)!
Yeah,
there was a fair amount of this going in some settings when I was HS. And huge word on the drugs and alcohol. Plus, if they’re dancing, they’re in public. You know they’re safe. I’d certainly rather have kids freaking at school or in my backyard than drinking themselves stupid in the woods, which was the “cool kid” thing to do back in the day.
being honest here
the idea of Jess doing this when she’s a teenager is disturbing – my protective Mommy heart instintively doesn’t want it. But on the other hand, I can defintely remember being a frustrated, angsty, hormonal teenager. Very frustrated. Thereis this inherant pull in me, on the one hand wanting to “protect” my daughter (from what, I do have to keep asking myself), on the other acknowledging that there is a very primal thing going on here.
So here’s where I’m standing. I’m hoping that I can raise Jessica to have respect not to do “porny” sorts of dancing and to be aware that with video/camera phones, the thing you do once on a dance floor could be captured and spread around very easily and that what felt good at the moment may ilicit very different feelings the next morning if it’s on everybody’s telephone screen. But on the other hand, I can’t deny in any teenage girl having those sorts of feelings and desires – it’d be impossible and unnatural to do so.
What do you mothers of teenagers think? How do you handle it?
I’m in the thick of
teenage girl stuff here ….and just finished with teenage boy shenanigans….
I’m landing pretty much where you are Rachel. If I recall correctly, I, along with my peers, was full of lusty pants when I was a teen. Though I don’t recall freak dancing, our media and larger culture wasn’t saturated with images that encourage and bait behavior like this.
Truly I think both my kids would not be super wild in this area, but would be more likely to want it not curtailed and let others, if they so desire, engage in freaking. It is what many do – like it or not.
The one place where I remember landing a bit on the other side – wanting to “control” that type of dancing – was thinking about whether or not all kids would feel comfortable being at a school dance where this was pervasive. I think that rather than have bona-fide, (no pun intended hahaha) rules, the chaperones of such dances (school staff and parents) could try to tamp down outrageous dancers in a nonchalant way.
I think there is a backlash when kids are over monitored and over controlled….somewhere there is a middle place – though it’s often hard to find.
as a teen dance chaperone…
all the kids do is move to the middle of the crowd to get their “freak on”. really no way to monitor it unless you want chaperones throwing themselves into that throng…no chaperone wants to do it and if some parent did, i’d be a little worried
again better than adult clubs where no urge to hide..quite the opposite.
if that’s the case
though, how is it noticed as a problem? I have heard that it’s a bit like a mosh pit…
My bottom line for this moment is I am so glad that I am almost done with teenage hood and all its attendant issues.
:>)
I know I’ll also say I miss it when it’s totally gone. Sigh.
move it inside the pit..
well you know teenagers..always testing the limits. so a couple of them try on the fringes, administration moves in …so they smarten up and go to the pit.
i just don’t chaperone…that way i am not annoyed
Yup
I have stayed away from chaperoning too — I know where my strengths and weaknesses are – at least in that venue. LOL
did you check out the link
i posted up on the weekend thread? it’s extremely interesting. a documentary titled who does she think she is centering on the struggle and conflict of women’s roles as mother, artist, woman, wife, etc. It looks to be a great project that is launched as film and should, I hope, makes its way to Berkeley or Oakland for a showing….
will check it out now!
thanks karen.
teenager in the 90s here
And yeah, there was a bit of the bump and grind at our high school dances. Nothing like the “girls-touching-the-floor-and-boys-grinding-behind” thing, but pelvises touching and the like. I didn’t indulge mostly because I thought it looked gross, I hear the gossip and whispers in the halls about couples who did do this, and frankly I was intimidated by the undertaking. I was definitely uncomfortable when this went on.
I think one thing that our teachers/chaperones did was to a.) keep the lights on for most of the night and b.) one teacher always brought his massive, Maglite flashlight with him. If he saw something he didn’t like going on, the couple was hit with this massive spotlight-like flashlight and a stentorian “knock that out!!!” It generally did the trick.
I have to say
that the thought of seeing one of my kids doing this sends a shiver up my spine. I honestly don’t remember any dancing that was remotely this suggestive going on when I was a teen. We hardly ever even touched except on slow dances.
Still, I think like Rachael I will want to encourage self-respect in my kids and hope that they don’t fall to pressure to dance a certain way [or do other things] that they don’t want to do. Then I will hope that they genuinely don’t want to do this.
I mean, chances are, this won’t still be the thing to do when my kids are in high school, right?
Whaaaa?
These questions are difficult to raise because as teens, today’s parents weren’t exactly Fred and Ginger on the gymnasium floor. Dances of the 1960s and early ’70s — with ridiculous names like the twist, jerk and mashed potato — were so individualistic we might as well have been dancing with trees.
My mom was just at the teen years in 1970 (14). I’m really curious, are most parents of teens in their mid to late 50s? Because most of the parents I know with teen kids are 40…maybe 45, and the 60′s were way before their time.
54 this month..
with a 17 year old teen. yup many of us had our kids later. think woodstock ( but with my top on) and that’s the kind of dancing i did.
freaking? well my first impression upon witnessing was pretty bad. the full on view of a girl bent over, hands touching the floor with a boy grinding his penis into her ass was…disturbing. not something we did, but hey. and certainly not something we’d EVER consider in front of our teachers.
my reaction was this was great for the guys … it was hard for me to not think it was using the girl. still hard for me to sort that one out. honestly, i gave up. drugs and alcohol in my view fuel much of it and that is a much bigger problem.
a lot of us
went to school and worked and didn’t think about kids until our 30s. We were one of the first “you can have it all” generations. So yeah, there are a lot of us out here that were born in the 50s and 60s.
Sorry
didn’t mean any disrespect. It’s just that none of you guys seem my mom’s and inlaws’ age (both of my and both of Dh’s parents were born in 1956). All of my friends’ folks are the same age, so I didn’t realize there was so much variation.
I wasn’t offended
I hope I didn’t sound snippy!
I dont want my daughter felt up
That is what it is all about. The boy cops a feel. These days girl take it up the butt or do oral sex for the boy. It is to impress. Porn is not shocking but degrading to women everywhere. One study showed 90% of men and women who work in that industry were sexually abused as minors. 65% were HIV positive except for the gay porn industry cause they use condoms. Watching people procreate is one thing but porn puts women in degrading situations and thinking it is mainstream does nothing but perpetuate it. I find it chilling that women think it is okay to behave like objects and think it is okay for thier daughters to be treated the same way. People dont find porn shocking, but find a laissez faire attitude about the mistreatment of women shocking. Porn and freak dancing put women in subserviant positions. Is this all we amount to in the 21st century? Is this what we want for our daughters? Women still have to act like dimwitted whores to impress a man. That is so sad. Sorry, my daughters will not be allowed to participate in keeping women on the lowest rung of society. As long as we keep ourselves down we can never be thought of as equal.
sort of my reaction..
n/t
here we enter into pro-porn feminism and
anti-porn feminism and what a morass! (no pun intended).
I don’t think all porn is degrading to all women.
What may be degrading to one is merely bad taste to another, or still, a huge turn-on for the next person.
I don’t think we can assume all girls freak dancing are be degraded or used, or that it’s always bad to want to be sexually wanted, no matter the age.
I recall wanting to have sex, wanting to be sexually wanted, wanting to have sexual power as a teenager, and these three were all wrapped up in an untidy mess. I wouldn’t deign to unpack my male counterparts motivations, as I’m sure they were equally messy. But I wanted them all the same.
I’m weary of anything sexual being freighted with such negativity.
i agree not all
freak dancing is for only males. which is why i said “sort of agree”. however, having a teen girl and having chaperoned 2 teen dances leaves me wondering.
so for the easily offended please stop reading NOW. my view is the face to face dancing prior to freaking seemed to me to be sexually more equal. a bit of grinding by both, meaning sexual satisfaction potentially by both.
the most disturbing part of freaking is the girl with hands on floor and boy humping her butt. or boys, and unknown boys at that, coming up to girls from behind and grinding their groins into their butts. no asking. perhaps i have a limited view of sexual pleasure.
i worry that this IS a part of the whole violence against women highlighted by our media and our girls are getting sucked into.
i struggle here.
determining whether
the girls are doing this for attention, for approval from males, in order to be liked, etc. is difficult, and I agree with you; my lefty feminist self wants to believe that the girls are acting this way out of their own agency, but I know that’s not always the case.
It worries, me, too, that girls would do sexual things in order to be popular, to gain favor, in an attempt to be liked or feel love.
Knowing I behaved in this way, having such unflattering motives, doesn’t make me proud, but was a step on my sexual road, nonetheless. I can’t find it in my heart to berate young people for not being at a stage of maturity that I’m at in my life.
not berating…
hopefully having the discussion. i find myself again and again going back to susan faludi’s ’91 book Backlash.
Yes!
It seems so one sided. Girls are having it DONE to them, or are simply a prop oftentimes in this form of dancing.
I’m not offended by dancing that is sexual. I’m offended by the almost tacit way of thinking that assumes that females aren’t sexual in and of themselves, but are just counterparts to male sexuality.
thanks..
i feel this deeply in my gut. and i don’t think it is about berating teens or i am just the current example of the older generation wringing my hands over teen sex. the truth? i want my dd to wait, but i know very well sex is now in her hands, not mine. she has the facts and i think understands not only the physical stuff but emotional too. what she does on the dance floor is now up to her.
but damn…what i see in the extreme form is hard… so hard not to view as degrading to women. it pisses me off..plain and simple. i am angry at what looks like degradation and i am angry that it is somehow being passed off as some kind of female empowerment. i just don’t get it nor do i buy it.
I don’t think of myself
as particularly prudish. I’m more than aware that young people are sexual beings and I’ve really not had a difficult time accepting the my children’s sexuality. Much of what I see now, though, does seem very one sided. Its not about a shared sexuality, but rather about a male-dominant sexuality. The girls are there to “service”. Well, where do their sexual needs fit into that picture? That’s why I don’t really like most pornography. Its so very male-centric.
Yes yes!
I’m offended by the almost tacit way of thinking that assumes that females aren’t sexual in and of themselves, but are just counterparts to male sexuality.
I find this annoying as hell. But I want to believe the possibility that it could be coming from both ways.
I want to think that, too…
but I don’t see it. I see a thousand ways that girls are being taught to please males and frankly, I’m not seeing messages coming from the other way.
Now, having sons, I will say that I’m not hopeless. And no, I don’t believe all males are just out to get what they can with no regard to female needs. I think some, if not most, are interested in pleasing, but I’m bothered that girls are being conditioned not to ask.
Hee hee
I recall wanting to have sex, wanting to be sexually wanted, wanting to have sexual power as a teenager, and these three were all wrapped up in an untidy mess. I wouldn’t deign to unpack my male counterparts motivations, as I’m sure they were equally messy. But I wanted them all the same.
I agree. Why all the hating on the porn. DH and I watch it together (TMI, I know) and both get a kick out of it.
Also, I don’t like the idea of “not letting my daughters keep women down…” mentality (no disrespect meant to summer day), because it seems to demonize the daughters’ sexuality, you know.
Maybe
Whether or not we have a problem with porn or freak dancing in theory, maybe the real issue is that it shouldn’t be acceptable at school functions.
I know this sounds OT
but I was in the doctor’s office reading “Good Housekeeping” recently and every single article was about 1) losing weight, or 2) cooking.
Does anyone still read this stuff? Because it was awfully depressing and objectifying. To me, it read: Be thin, get to hubby’s heart through his stomach, and STFU.
I thought of it while reading this thread because some of this dancing sounds practically anonymous — interchangeable guys humping a girl from behind, and all she needs for this privilege is a f—able a*%.
Her face doesn’t matter.
Am I really off base to see it that way? If you can’t see her face, then its sort of like denying her personhood. One behind is the same as the other. One woman in your house cooking your dinner is the same as the other, too, I suppose.
not off base..
this is exactly how i see it too.
I agree with you
Being as how I’ve been out of the country, too old to have been indulging in this and not the parent of a teenage girl, I’ve seen very few examples of this. In fact, the first time I saw an example of freak dancing was in a Justin Timberlake video – he does exactly this, in which his female dance partner touches the ground and he does the intense bump-and-grind on her bum. What was worse was the fact that the camera angle totally missed her face and focused on her bum. It felt very confronting to me, in the way that you say, Teresa; she was faceless.
I do not like freak dancing, and I hope to goodness that when Jess is that age, I’ve been able to equip her with the self-esteem to not want to indulge in that, and that she’s in the supportive environment in which school/function supervisors are making sure that a group situation doesn’t get out of hand. I don’t think this makes me anti-sex, anti-teenager or whatever.
I also wonder if it’s that anonymous
because I remember every move one made in high school was calculated. There are probably girls these boys don’t approach and vice versa. I doubt the boys see any female and act this way. There are certainly options and lines drawn and both parties are doing more than porn dancing when they make these selections.