Arapahoe High School has banned "grinding" at their dances (in particular the upcoming Homecoming Dance). Which, for some reason, made both the Denver Post and local network news.
+Kay Hill attends there, and said there was an assembly and all that. While the DP story indicates no reason given for the policy clarification (it was already policy), the school corridor scuttlebutt was that there had been an inappropriate (as in nonconsensual) grinding incident at the Back to School Dance a few weeks back, which prompted this particular thang.
Since Kay wasn't planning on attending Homecoming (both Band Season and nobody she's going with right now), it's fairly academic (so to speak), but she was more than a bit miffed to find out this whole thing is her high school's new claim to fame. At least until the next news cycle.
Arapahoe High School bans “grinding” at homecoming dance
Arapahoe High School has changed its dance policy to ban “grinding” as it kicks of its homecoming week
Yet another frivolous rule initiated to demonstrate that your life is controlled from the cradle to the grave. Sexual contact between couples on the dance floor goes back longer than most of us can remember and does this committee really think they are going to change student behavior. Grow up!!!!
+Alastair Batchelor While there's a lot of moralizing about grinding in general in the video, my sense is that the bigger issue for the administration was the non-consensual contact, which seems worthwhile.
Per the daughter unit, there was conversation amongst the studentry as to whether forbidding consensual contact on the dance floor would make consensual contact off the dance floor more or less likely.
+Dave Hill Certainly as far as non-consensual touching of any kind goes, I would certainly agree, but I would have thought that would understood by all and everyone. I don't understand why it is necessary to legislate with reference to that. Are the youth of today so undisciplined that they need laws to comply with common decency. My contention was more in relation to contact when dancing which is and always has been normal.
From what I remember of the young women of my younger years, if some male started that nonsense against their backside, they would turn around and smack him across the mouth.
+Alastair Batchelor That's certainly the course of action I suggested to my daughter.
That said, I can also understand if woman in question didn't respond that way immediately, even if surrounded by others. If completely unexpected, I can imagine it would be a shocking / daunting experience. That she said something, and that it prompted the administration to action (in terms of re-emphasizing the rules, at least) is to everyone's credit.
It's easy enough to say that "common sense" should be able to apply as to what is right and what is wrong and what is decent — but if that were the case, dances wouldn't need chaperones, and I know that tradition goes back longer than you or me. And, of course, sexual assault in various forms is hardly something new.
(And, yes, some contact while dancing has been allowed for many years, though in varying degrees depending upon the institution — "Leave room for Jesus" can still be heard in some quarters.)