What teen girls are made of

"Cribs" by Eliza Appleton, 16

Grinding is the most basic form of dance, requiring no skill or coordination. Multiple kids can rub against each other in a grinding chain, although I suppose that's very middle school. Grinding is sexual yet harmless. It takes you to a different place. Suddenly all you can hear is the music -- the techno, the rap, the reggae -- and all you can feel is the breath on your neck of the person you are with. You know everyone is watching you, you attached to your guy. You hope to god they don't pay attention and that they do.

Your friends come over and whisper, "He's a cutie" into your ear, followed by his friends who say, loudly, "She's hot!" Looking forward to the phone calls after the party ("Who was that boy you were on tonight?"), you focus back on him.

"You're a good dancer."

"Thanks."

You feel the rush of it all, the human part, as the bass fades and you can no longer hear the lyrics: Work that, let me see you drip sweat. I'm really, really hot. It's a natural high, but sometimes a guilty one because of how much your parents would disapprove. Your mother had said, "Inches apart! You shouldn't give up your body like that." You can't even think what your older brother would come out with, but you know you would be ripped away from the guy. Still, that was sexy.

I had a Super Sweet 16 party with 100 of my "closest" friends. This included boys I didn't know well -- most of the varsity hockey team's juniors and seniors, along with some football players -- who'd been invited without my permission by desperate girls. Great, I thought, this is going to be a nightmare. What were my parents going to think about the kids who'd show up wasted? The ones who'll bring alcohol and share it? I could imagine cleaning up after drunks with my upset mother.

"Oh Eliza, will there be dirty dancing? Sorry, will there be grinding?" she'd asked me the day before. Of course there would be, and of course she was going to be disturbed by it. I always laughed at her use of "dirty dancing." How obsolete. "My goodness," she'd said, quite seriously, "I hope you don't do that, Eliza."

Waiting for the guests to arrive, I paced around the club. My party had to be the coolest Sweet 16 this whole year. I wanted my parents and the other chaperones (mostly my friends' parents) out of the picture so they wouldn't bother me about the way we dance. I wanted to have fun. I wanted every hockey player to say hi to me at school. I wanted to hear someone say, "Eliza Appleton is a legend."

Kids started showing up, and I became increasingly worried. Recently at my school there'd been a dance that got so out of control the police came and shut it down at 9:30. Condensation seemed to drip from the ceiling there as people danced, drank, did drugs, and basically sexually assaulted each other. What if the law broke up my birthday party?

Various scenarios were giving me a headache, and I realized it was better not thinking about things I couldn't control. I tried to remain calm: Grinding is not illegal. Then the music played faster and grew more interesting. Suddenly, many girls were dancing like sluts. I, of course, did not, because my parents were watching, and chaperones were everywhere. Boys grabbed barely dressed girls and groped them as they moved in sync. My best friend's father leaned over and whispered to me, "If that 300-pound football player doesn't get off of that little sophomore, I will punch him."

Bang! It hit the parents hard: What would all the sexual dancing lead to? Had they asked me, I'd have told them that it wouldn't lead to anything. Dancing can be thought of as an art, as expression, perhaps even as make-believe sex. Make-believe. The most exciting thing about grinding is being able to tell your friends afterward that you danced with 10 different guys. That you're an excellent grinder and know many ways to do it. Grinding is about feeling good. It isn't harmful, nor is it serious. So why do grown-ups freak out about it so much?

I find parents to be truly funny. I'm sure they were wild and crazy -- smoking weed, doing drugs, having sex -- when they were our age, a lot more than dancing. I learned in my history class that 2,500 years ago, the ancient Greeks worried that their children would come to no good, that they wouldn't work, or marry. I guess human nature, or at least parents' human nature, hasn't changed over the centuries. I can understand parents being concerned, because of physical and emotional dangers, if their child is having sex. But why are they so worked up about grinding? Is it because they fear other parents will judge them to be too lenient? Some parents (not mine) want to appear cool to the kids, and a few even to the other adults. Some are plain-old strict, fearing our fun will lead to trouble. They scare us by telling us not to get too close to boys, not to dance like that -- but then how will we look cool to the kids? How are we supposed to gain experience? How will we learn when to say no, and when not to? It seems to me as though adults are afraid of our sexuality and give us no credit for having good sense and self-control. Some kids may need to be restrained, but most of us know when to stop.

Sex education at my school is geared toward making every physical connection between a man and a woman into a disease. No kissing boys, you'll get mono. No having sex, or you will get chlamydia, syphilis, and AIDS. In one class we had to come up with every slang word for the reproductive organs, including pussy, beaver, stick, wood and 60 more. I wanted to ask what the point is of learning these terms if we're not supposed to use them. Condoms are more than 99 percent effective, but the teachers at my school always say the best way to avoid getting pregnant and STDs is to be abstinent. I guess that's true. But while grinding I'm still abstaining, right?

I think that if toddlers were taught about the world the way we're taught about sex in school, they would never leave their cribs. I know it's important to be informed about the risks that go with sex, but shouldn't we also learn about it in a positive way? At a dance when I was a freshman, one of the chaperones felt she had to have a word with several girls about grinding. "It's like you're giving the boys a lap dance," she said. "They're just using you to rub up against them. What's in it for you? It's demeaning and very inappropriate. It's like sex with clothes on."

The adult missed the point: The good part is that grinding is sex with clothes on. And we girls like it, too. Girls are allowed to enjoy sex as much as boys do, right? I suppose the consequences of sex are potentially worse for girls than for boys -- but then doesn't that make grinding the great equalizer? Venereal diseases are not transmitted through pants!

A week or so after my party, while my father was still talking about the secret drinking and the "dirty dancing" every night on the phone with his friends -- turns out he's a bigger gossip than I am -- I found myself lost, dancing with a boy at another Sweet 16. As I moved with him to the low beat, I couldn't have been more sold on the beauty of grinding. Until I looked next to me to find a senior boy all over a sophomore girl, grabbing her in all sorts of places her parents would be unhappy about. My mom had once asked me if I danced "like a whore." Certainly not like that, I thought. Dancing like a whore is one thing; acting like a whore is something totally different. I winced with some disgust, but then smiled as I sunk back into the rhythm of dancing and realized thank God my parents don't follow me around to parties.

Next page: A separated family, complete with guilt-tripping parents, slammed doors and one sad teen