When I was young, we used to avail ourselves of my grandmother’s
basement to gather together for some sanctioned socializing with
the opposite sex. This being the early '70s, we were a part of the
first generation of Americans who did not know how to dance — as
defined by the Arthur Murray tradition where there are actual steps
to be learned — and the music we hopped around to was certainly
not conducive to doing so anyway.
But every so often, at the hands of our female friends, a slow
song would make its way to the turntable and we would engage in
what my aunt referred to as the “Y Dance.” The girl would place her
hands around the neck or shoulders of the boy who, with painful
consequences for the tall ones, would reach down and hold the girl
by the waist as they shuffled aimlessly around in circles. Noting
their posture and proximity, my Aunt Cele asked, “Why even bother
to dance? Just go into the corner and neck!”
I recount this semisweet memory because the issue of teen
“dancing” is, shall we say, heating up. Some school official and
parents have objected to the charming practice of what is called
“grinding,” which the Associated Press cheerfully
describes as, “a style of dancing where the girl leans forward
and the boy puts his pelvis against her backside and thrusts.” In
my day we had a few outlaw cases of grinding, only they were done
front to front and most often led to a slap in the face, or in my
case, a knee to the offending area.
Modern day grinding is a lot worse to look at than read about.
But one need not take a ride down to your local high school gym to
observe this vulgar phenomenon. Just try, as I do, to simply watch
a Sunday afternoon ballgame and you will be regaled with all manner
of bumping, grinding and sexually explicit behavior. It has become
as synonymous with sports broadcasts as beer; just recall the 2004
Super Bowl.
What shocked me about the “outrage” over the Janet Jackson
incident is that no one seemed bothered by what preceded the
infamous wardrobe malfunction. Had Ms. Jackson’s “dance partner’”
performed his act in an office setting, he would most likely have
faced sexual harassment charges and possibly arrest. Yes, I know
Ms. Jackson was a willing participant, and that is the problem.
America’s continued immersion into hip-hop culture — in which
the degrading treatment of women is a dominant theme — together
with the hideous heavy metal music endurable only by pimply 13
year-olds that accompanies many sporting events are disturbing
trends. If these immoral and soul-killing music genres are
celebrated by leaders and mainstream advertisers, how can our
children not be influenced?
Back in the day, as they say, parents saw the coming of the
sexual revolution — a conflict which has left many victims in its
wake — but their attempts at stemming the tide of the “if it feels
good, do it” brigade were met with sneers of derision and war
chants of, “never trust anyone over 30.” Those who foresaw the
consequences of letting the sexual genie out of the bottle were
dismissed as religious fanatics; a practice that continues
today.
But, as with most sins, the one begets many others. Sexual
promiscuity has led to the ever-increasing spread of the promotion
of women as sex objects, child rape, pornography,
sexually-transmitted disease and abortion as birth control. Add to
the mix that homosexuality, once the bane of every civilized
nation, is now accepted as a norm, and you have a society in which
the weakest among us are constantly at risk and one whose culture
is severely wounded.
There is much hand-wringing over the way women are treated in
other countries. In fact, the only way to get certain segments of
Americans concerned with the spread of Islam is to point to its
degrading view of women’s rights. But how are our mothers,
daughters, sisters and wives perceived in a culture that appears to
couch their value in mainly sexual ways? Or our children as
disposable “accidents” of casual sexual dalliances and worse, as
objects of lust?
The disconnect in our society is that we can stem the tide of
sex crimes without examining the role of sex in our culture. The
notion that the age old construct that sex in of itself, without
the tempering hand of traditional marriage is harmful, is rejected
out of hand by those who benefit financially and even politically
by its promotion as some kind of liberating act.
So will the graphic simulation of anal sex on the dance floor
continue to be performed on our daughters? Only until we find a way
to get the genie back into the bottle.
