Nightmare on Prom Street

In many schools, the administration has required students attending the prom (and often their parents) to sign a contract agreeing to refrain from grinding, bumping, humping and other forms of high-contact sex dancing. Imagine being a parent reviewing forms that insist on "space between the sexual organs ... Whether it is pelvis-to-pelvis dancing or butt-to-pelvis dancing or sandwiching or a grinding chain."

Stop the world. I want to get off. A contract? A contract is a legal understanding negotiated by equals. Since when does this formula apply in the teacher-student, or parent-child relationship? And while the good principal from West Virginia cited above was understandably and correctly shocked, his response betrays an astonishing weakness. Since when do principals ask their students not to simulate anal sex in public dances?

I simply refuse to believe that a school principal cannot issue a mandate -- yes, a mandate -- declaring that any student participating in this kind of behavior would summarily be dismissed from school. Period. Ah, but you can hear the Wobble-Knees already. What, specifically, is this kind of behavior? How do we distinguish between sexy dancing and sexual dancing? How do we know it's indecent, never mind obscene? Are there regulations banning it? If not, who are we to impose our morality on others? The hand-wringing would be endless -- embarrassingly, nauseatingly endless.

And you parents out there who condone this activity: You disgust me. If I were chaperoning one of these dances and a boy attempted to perform this kind of lewd activity on my teenage daughter, I'd have a solution. I wouldn't ask him please not to simulate anal sex on her. I wouldn't refer him to the contract he signed at school. I'd beat the stuffing out of him.

Fuddy-duddy me.