Short answer: No. For longer answers from women, keep reading
By: Bill Stieg
It's a fact of life in nightclubs today: grinding.
There's grinding with your girlfriend, and there's grinding with someone you hope might become your girlfriend, at least for that night.
Men, it's not working. If it does work, make sure you're carrying protection.
Here's the scenario: A guy approaches a woman at a club or bar dance floor and presses his pelvis against her in a suggestive way (suggestive, hell -- it's pretty explicit), hoping she'll respond in a friendly way.
A researcher in Canada actually studied this phenomenon, which has become increasingly accepted over the past decade or so. Dr. Jonathan Huber, M.D., of Queen's University College in Kingston, Ontario, found that about three in 10 women think it's okay.
Good luck finding those three. Men's Health's own spot survey of attractive, intelligent women found near-universal disgust with the move.
"This is my biggest pet peeve and I think it started in middle school," said Kerri, 24, of New York City. "I cringe when I see men doing this at a bar. Ick!
"Grinding a girl from behind is like having a big, slobbery dog hump your leg. It's embarrassing, a nuisance, and just uncomfortable. Please don't do it. Ever."
Dr. Huber, a resident in obstetrics and gynecology, published his results in the Canadian Journal of Human Sexuality. He surveyed 143 women ages 18 to 28 at five Canadian bars.
About seven in 10 found "sexually overt approach behaviors" not acceptable.
Dr. Huber told Men's Health he and his team spent 100 hours investigating five types of sexual advances: two kinds of grinding (front-to-front and from behind) and buttock, breast and genital groping. He said they saw "a lot of ass-grabbing"; but little breast or genital touching.
Fully 84 percent of the women surveyed had been approached by a man grinding her from behind, he reported.
"The sexual script may be evolving to include more overt sexual touching earlier in the script," he told The National Post, "whereas the touching decades ago only came in at the end of the story."
The women who didn't like it still "accepted it as something that just happens [at singles bars]," Dr. Huber told the newspaper.
And it's happening more and more -- and in some other places, too, said another New York woman: "Guys have even tried to sneak little grinds in crowded subways -- it's pretty desperate and gross."
One Canadian woman told researchers, "Grinding is just dancing." Women who objected called it "rude," "too personal," and "pure lust and horniness."
Which is pretty tame compared with what Men's Health found.
Sandra, 35, says it happens subtly on the subway and overtly on the dance floor.
"I find it maddening and have been known to ask loudly, 'Just WHAT the hell do you think you're doing?' to embarrass the perp/perv. Most aren't ashamed of their actions."
And she acknowledges that some women don't mind -- "why else would men continue to do it? They have to get a positive response at least SOME of the time."
When asked what her response would be, Kate, 25, of Philadelphia, joked, "How many drinks have I had?"
"Usually it's fun and flattering and not unenjoyable," she admitted, "and it's something I'll do with a guy for a song or two -- then high-tail it out of there.
"Sometimes, though, if you're at a club, you're looking for meaningless makeouts, and it's late, a cute guy grinding up on you might just get some. My initial reaction to the study and the approach was, 'Oh, gross.' But in practice, the direct approach can work -- if it's the right bar and the right girl."
Huber concurs, telling Men's Health: "If you look at the dancing only, the success rate is fairly high. Talking to the guys, they think of it as shotgun approach. Bad response? Just move on to the next one. Talking to a girl is too much of a time investment."
Helen, 22, of Iowa City, called the practice "rampant, especially in college towns. I'll be on the dance floor with a group of girlfriends and guys just come up and start grinding, with no invitation whatsoever. It's creepy."
It's also an indication of desperation, Helen said. "They'll go from group to group until they find girls who are cool with it, which makes it even creepier, since they're on the prowl. If a guy is looking just to get some, this might work if the girl is just looking for the same.
"But I think that for most intelligent women, it's a turn-off. And really, the guys who I see doing this most aren't usually the smart, attractive, funny ones; it's the ones who don't have any luck with more mature methods of approaching women."
Cristina, 26, of New York, calls it "rude and presumptive."
"This is actually one of the reasons why I was initially turned off by the club scene a few years ago," she said. "It was all about guys --usually neither good looking nor charming -- approaching you from behind. No 'Hello, my name is Steve' before you're abruptly introduced to his Johnson from behind."
It's been around for more than 10 years, she says. "Now at 26, that sort of dancing is invitation-only, reserved mainly for friends and my boyfriend."
"If some random guy came up behind me and started grinding with me, I'd want to slap him," says Lola, 22, of Atlanta. "If you want to dance with me, approach me head-on and make eye contact first. We'll see where things go from there. But let me decide how close I want to get with you before you invade my personal space."
Kate, of Philadelphia, said it doesn't happen everywhere: "Grinding happens at big clubs where they play a lot of pounding hip hop, not bars or smaller loungers that blast Madonna and Prince. And chances are, you hit up the big club if you want to meet creepy dudes."
Kerri, the 24-year-old from New York, says there's another part of the explanation: "I think my generation is the first generation not to know how to dance. It's like all the uncoordinated people decided that because they're bad at dancing why not do a motion that looks like sex standing up because surely they'll be good at that. Sorry, no dice. You still look ridiculous."
Sandra added: "But I am also surprised when smart, accomplished and independent women I personally know shrug off this kind of advance and it doesn't really bother them. 'It's just something guys do.' That's a sign that although they may not appreciate the approach, they view it as socially normative behavior. Call me old fashioned, but I still see it as sexual harassment."
Alison, 22, of Allentown, said if she feels "the lurking presence of some random guy behind me, I might turn around and dance with him."
But she's "not a fan of random guys touching me while I'm dancing, let alone coming up from behind and pulling some kind of sneak attack on my back end.
"I have only used a jab to the trachea once, but that was an extreme case."
Tim Perper, who wrote a 1985 book called Sex Signals: The Biology of Love, which talked of quaint moves like hair-tossing and eye contact, told the Post, "We're coming out of a century of rather muted public sexuality . . . The kids have rediscovered what has been around since ancient Rome."
Source: http://www.menshealth.com
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