[Sidenote: Dancing not to be eliminated.]
It is more than useless to discuss the question whether dancing ought
to be eliminated from the social life of young people, for it has
physical, social, and aesthetic or dramatic values which will make
dancing in some form or other coextensive with human life.
[Sidenote: Young people and dancing.]
Those who deal with adolescent boys and girls ought to have some
understanding of the facts for and against dancing as it may influence
the sexual control of young people, men especially. It is no longer
sufficient to say, even to the young members of certain religious
denominations, that "good people must not dance because it is wicked,"
for in this doubting age young people will ask first what we mean by
the word "wicked" and then for proof that dancing is wicked. The time
has come when young people must be shown the scientific reasons if we
want them to avoid dancing or to dance with certain approved movements.
[Sidenote: Dancing a sexual stimulant.]
It seems to be an accepted opinion among physiologists that dancing of
any of the types that involve more or less closeness of contact between
men and women in pairs is likely to lead to sexual stimulation that at
times may be consciously recognized by normal men, but probably is not
identified other than as general excitement by most women.
[Sidenote: Danger no reason for condemning dancing.]
The frank admission that dancing may sometimes stimulate sexual
emotions is no condemnation of dancing, as many writers seem to think.
We must know first whether such emotions lead to good or harm. Sexual
emotions are not in themselves wrong from any except a strictly aescetic
point of view. The fact that most intelligent men who in general are
frankly truthful confess that dancing may sometimes arouse sexual
emotion simply raises the question whether such emotions lead directly
to immoral relations with women or whether they lead, as does the best
social life of men and women together, to a higher aesthetic
appreciation of life as it involves the relations of the two sexes.
After discussing this with many--yes, with more than a hundred--men and
women, I am now convinced that dancing may have both results, depending
upon the individuals. Dancing, then, has its dangers, but so have many
other things that go to make up the most complete life. Eating may lead
to gluttony, mountain-climbing may lead to a broken neck, swimming to
drowning, music and art to sensuality, and even love is not without
danger of bestial degradation. Life is full of dangers and we are
constantly striving to reduce them to a minimum. So we must refuse to
condemn dancing because of its admitted sexual dangers for young
people, unless it can be shown that the danger is so great and so
unconquerable as to outweigh all the physical, social, and aesthetic
considerations in favor of the pastime.
[Sidenote: Dancing and immorality.]
That dancing is a strong incentive to immorality is contended by many
writers. A prominent physiologist has said that "the dance is the
devil's procession so far as the young man is concerned." Others have
pointed to the immorality that is connected with the dance halls, and
to the fact that waves of immorality of young men have often followed
the annual balls given in some high schools and colleges. Contrary to
the view which I formerly held, I am now inclined to think that it is
not fair to charge such immoral tendencies entirely to dancing, and
therefore condemn all dancing as immoral. It is no secret of sociology
that similar epidemics of immorality have been known to occur in
connection with Sunday-school picnics, camp meetings, expositions,
political and other conventions, and religious revivals. Shall we
condemn all these along with dancing on the ground that they lead to
immorality? We say "no" because immorality is only an incident, not a
result in these cases. Likewise, I believe that dancing is but one of
several factors that have led to immorality at the time of annual balls
in high school and college. These are times of general tendency towards
dissipation. Regular duties are cast aside, all the hygienic rules for
eating and sleeping are broken, there is unusual freedom of speech and
manners, available alcohol is freely used, emotions and not reason
rules--these are characteristic of the college festivals that center
around grand balls. In short, at such times there is a general let-down
of usual standards and a swing back towards the barbaric festival of
the ancients. It is not surprising, then, that pent-up sexual instincts
assert their force at such times, and dancing, if it occurs under such
conditions is, of course, likely to increase the danger of moral
collapse because it incites sexual emotions.
[Sidenote: Regulation of dancing needed.]
Our conclusion, then, is that it is unscientific to charge dancing with
being the direct cause of immorality, when it has been only one in a
series of events. The facts warrant not condemnation of dancing as
something utterly bad, but rather of allowing dancing to be associated
with conditions that are likely to lead to dissipation and immorality.
Unless some argument other than that arising from the coincidence of
dancing with dissipation and immorality is brought forward, we must
conclude that dancing should be regulated and associated so that the
admitted dangers will be reduced to a minimum. Recognition of the
dangers will lead mature people to see the importance of supervising
and regulating dancing as a phase of the social life of young people.
It will lead to dancing that is improved along social and aesthetic
lines.
[Sidenote: Self-control necessary.]
While improvement of dancing will reduce its dangers, it will not
eliminate the problem of self-control for normal young men. They must
learn to understand their own emotions. They should be forewarned that
others have found danger in dancing. They should know that some
strong-willed men have given up dancing when they found that it made
more intense the problem of sexual self-control, both mentally and
physically. They should know the increased danger if dancing is
associated with alcohol, vicious women, immodest dress, extreme freedom
of conduct, and other morally depressing influences. Such knowledge
along with general sex-education will do much to make dancing not only
safe for average young men, but also helpful along social and aesthetic
lines.
[Sidenote: Extreme dances.]
With regard to the extreme dances of the past five years, those who are
well informed concerning sexual problems know that many of these dances
which polite society has copied from the dens of the underworld are
vastly more dangerous than the standard dances.