No More Dirty Dancing — Episode 2: Haven't we heard this song before?

I thought this kerfuffle was put to rest last year but I guess I was wrong.

Just yesterday in the New York Times, Michelle York's article about the resurgence of the "Dance Nice or Not at All" — as the headline of her story read — movement captured my fancy.

Here's the piece, rehashing the same old same old.

High Schools Crack Down: Dance Nice or Not at All

Before Sophie Friedman, 15, went to her first high school dance last year, her friends warned her: This would not be like those in middle school with shy, awkward dance moves.

But their advice did not prepare Sophie for what she saw when she showed up. "It was a pretty big shock,"€ she said. "I didn't expect it to be that crazy."€

Her classmates were bumping, grinding, shaking, arching, teasing and flaunting in a way that made the chaperons gape.

Since then, the moves have become more risqué, so much so that the principal at Sophie's school, Fayetteville-Manlius High School, in a Syracuse suburb, canceled one dance and banned what he called pornographic dancing styles.

"If you watch this stuff, you end up seeing girls playing out, or being forced to play out, sexually submissive roles,"€ said the principal of the 1,600-student school, James Chupaila. "I don't think a public school should be allowing that to happen."

Not surprising, most of the students — who view their moves as nothing worse than what they see on music videos — were outraged. But across the country, more and more principals are taking a similar line.

In September, the principal of Aliso Niguel High School in Aliso Viejo, Calif., ended a dance early and canceled others until he could be assured that students would not be simulating sex on the dance floor.

Since then, the principal there, Charles Salter, says he has received hundreds of supportive e-mail messages from other principals.

"It's not just a challenge here at our school; it's New Hampshire, Virginia, Ohio and Washington,"€ Mr. Salter said. "I've received e-mails from private Christian schools. There's almost a feeling of helplessness."

But students, and even some parents, have heatedly complained.

"People compare it to the fox trot," Mr. Salter said. "They compare it to Elvis Presley. Uh, that was a little different."€

He formed a committee of parents, staff members and students, who came up with a contract for school dances that includes a ban on what is called freak dancing or grinding — and adding a lot more chaperons.

"If I start seeing inappropriateness again, I will cancel dances again,"€ Mr. Salter said. "Students know it's not an idle threat."€

In Manlius, school administrators say they have been hearing complaints from chaperons for two years. "Initially we took the approach that many schools had taken, which was to ask kids to stop," Mr. Chupaila said.

That did not work.

But after a number of students complained of being swept into the throngs of dancers and groped, the father of one high school girl, who is a lawyer, cautioned Mr. Chupaila that the situation was ripe for a sexual harassment lawsuit. By allowing the dances to continue, he said, the district left itself open to a lawsuit for creating a hostile environment.

During a homecoming dance in October, chaperons again tried to stop students from performing some of their more suggestive moves, but the students rebelled.

"If you tell a kid to do something, they do what they want to anyway and probably do it 10 times more," said Emily Bragdon, 16, a junior who was at the dance.

She likes to freak dance and does not see anything wrong with it. "I try to keep it so that if a little kid was watching, he wouldn't be disgusted,"€ she said. "But other people don't keep it PG. For our generation, sex is more casual. It sounds bad to say it, but it's true."

Mr. Chupaila, 60, who admits to doing the twist in high school, has been the object of some withering criticism since canceling this month's dance.

"I think it's kind of ridiculous,"€ Robert F. Byrne, 15, said. "Our administration is refusing to change with the times."€

....................

I dunno: Prohibition worked really well and the war on drugs is a great success so maybe cracking down on teenagers doing what teenagers do is the way to go.

Fayetteville-Manlius High School Principal James Chupaila (below)

did admit to doing the twist in high school but of course this time around — as always — it's a totally different thing.

Right.

David Byrne got it right: same as it ever was.

I want my MTV Turkey.