They didn't even play any 90s throwbacks

There are some things in life which appear to be way, way better the second time around. The second time you listen to a fantastic piece of music you are better able to appreciate its subtle complexity as well as the overall musical arc. The second bite of delicious, delicious cake is sometimes even better than the first because you know what to expect - also, it's delicious, delicious cake. There are probably other examples, since the rule of threes is a good writing technique.

So far, I think high school might be another of these phenomena. I like high schoolers now waaayyyy more than I think I did as a high schooler myself. They're just so darn cute. Sure, they do all sorts of mean things to each other - but they're 16, can we really expect much better behavior from them, really? Methinks not. Methinks they're adorable, just as they are.

In other, related news, we chaperoned Patrick Henry High School's homecoming dance this weekend. Hilarity. Ensued. My feministy free-expression-of-sexuality-esque sensibilities make me a particularly poor choice of dance chaperon, it seems, since grindydancing doesn't really seem that unnecessarily scandalous to me. I mean, sure, I'll do a lot of head-wagging at what seems unclassy behavior but...neither Mary nor I could muster quite the unrepentant disgust and ire that many of our colleagues carried through the dance floor like a shield. The thing that bothered us both most, really, was that we could only come down on girls for dance-scandal, since the boys job in The Grindydance was usually just to stand there and get ground allupons. Also, boys were rarely flashing their panties while grinding in microminis.

Since "dance rules" were up to the discretion of the chaperon, ours developed as such:

1. Her hands can't touch the floor
2. Both her feet can't leave the floor
3. No crotch shots
4. No crowd surfing
5. No touching, with your hands, the bikini regions of your dance partner

We did NOT make "no makeyouty" a rule. I don't know what Mary's rationale was, but mine was definitely that hilarity factor coupled with shame will probably squelch the problem before it gets out of hand. And really, if you've never seen a 16-17 year old boy pull his ladylove in for an "I'm grabbing the back of your head like I'm trying to suck your brains out, fo' real I'm a zombie I forgot to tell you" kiss - you haven't known how hard you could laugh.

I know, in a few years, these feelings of "hey, children, you should know about BEDROOM STYLE DANCING" that are sort of bubbling around in my brain will probably take over and I'll be all horrified and scandalized by The GrindyDance as well (and really - it isn't particularly classy... but neither are frat parties or dance clubs, the two types of dance floor these children appear desperately to want to approximate). Some day, these kids will look a lot younger than they do now. But I don't really want to expend a grand amount of my energy being scandalized at awkward, adolescent expressions of exploratory sexuality, really. It seems like kind of a waste of time, as well as a puritan sex ethic I'm fairly positive I don't want to buy into, implications about the death of childhood be damned. Childhood as we now know it is a Victorian ideal anyway - perhaps it's time we let it exist in a more complex realm.

Ms. R - the Principal of our high school, perhaps shares my opinion. She, too, shook her head at a lot of the dance, but it was a head-shake-accompanied-by-chuckle. She's a Running-A-Tight-Ship esque woman to begin with. Maybe Grindydancing doesn't bother her that much because she, too, is a sexually liberated feministy woman. Maybe it's because she's the one the seriously bad behavior goes to, so the grindydance isn't that big of a deal. Who knows?

It just seems like a lot of energy to expend over a little good, clean dirty dancing.