Anti-Grinding

Not everybody loves the concept of grinding - numerous teachers, parents, and others concerned about its sexual nature want it purged out of certain events with dancing, in particular events hosted by schools.

Children Learn A Lot from Teens, Including Grinding

Children’s brains are like little sponges - they absorb everything they hear and see around them. We parents try to be better role models than the oversexualized media. But teens can either be good or bad role models depending on how they act.

Well, how do children feel and what do they think when teens do “the nasty” in front of them? They are likely capable of imitating them, as the two videos show. (If you are offended by such content, watch with personal discretion.) One features a child as young as 5 getting behind an older sister who thrusts her bum in front of him. Another one (once featured on a comedy show) features a different set of elementary school children doing the perreo and the Sanchez and a five-year-old freaking with his mother or aunt. (See “What Is Grinding” for more details.) Having watched the two videos myself, I concluded that media is not just the underlying reason they dance like that, but I conjectured that they must have seen their siblings and family members “do it.”

Although those two videos were filmed in nations where this type of lewd dancing is perfectly acceptable to children, here’s the  question: what if the younger set in the English-speaking nations picked it up from their teenagers, not just TV or the Internet? That’s something to consider when you allow teens to dance in that manner in your schools’ proms, formals, and other events with children that involve dancing. Have your students and children watch either video and ask how they would feel if their younger siblings, cousins, or future children “do it.”

Crazy mexican Kids Grinding on each other.

Lil Kids In Peru Grinding While Adults Just Watch
Uploaded by TheFlamm. 

USA and Canada, We’re Not Alone!

The perreo became so popular in Latin America that moralists are shocked by the moves of that reggaeton dance. In Puerto Rico, senator Velda Gonzalez fronted a campaign against that music genre. She describe the dancing as “overtly erotic, sexually explicit, and degrading to women.” (Freaking is one of a handful of dances in which women take the lead.) Cuba seems to agree with Puerto Rico - not only that music is un-Cuban, but it contributes to the decline of face-to-face dancing such as the salsa.