The Anti-Dirty Dance: Teens Say No to Grinding
More and more teens are "just saying no" to the "grinding" dirty dancing trend
Aug. 16, 2011 -- Jenna Mourey has a singular move to ward off unwanted attention on the dance floor.
"A guy comes up to you, starts dancing on you, you turn around and you give him one of these [weird faces]," she told "Good Morning America." "The trick is you don't say anything the whole time. You stand there, frozen, and don't change your face."
With that, the 24-year-old from East Cambridge, Mass., has launched an assault against "grinding," the type of dirty-style dancing that mimics sex.
"I'm sick and tired of guys thinking that just because I showed up at a club or a dance or a bar, that I want to have their genitalia touching my backside," Mourey said.
The Web site Urban Dictionary describes grinding as, "Basically the boy gets behind the girl, puts his hands on her hips, and they rock from side to side. It's supposed to mimic sex, and the teachers hate it."
It's been popularized in pop culture from racy music videos to movies such as "Knocked Up" to frequent appearances on the MTV reality show "Jersey Shore."
But now there appears to be the beginning of a backlash against the dance move, with young girls, their parents and schools in states from Minnesota to Maine to California, just saying no.
"The positive message is that women and young girls are taking ownership over their own bodies and saying 'this is a violation of my personal space and I'm not okay with it," said Dr. Logan Levkoff, a New York City-based sexologist, today on "GMA."
If anyone is at the forefront of the current anti-grinding movement it's Mourey. Call her Gloria Steinem, for the 21st, wired century.
After receiving both a bachelor's and a master's in sports psychology at Suffolk University in Boston, Mourey took her anti-grinding campaign to YouTube, where she goes by the name "Jenna Marbles," and where her videos have gone viral.
Millions are watching her series of video blogs that creatively instruct girls how to fend off annoying grinders. One posted this year has been viewed more than 9 million times alone.
"I made the video as a fool proof defense mechanism against that [grinding]," Mourey said. "It's disgusting. I don't really want to have fake sex with you."
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