Wearing tops made of layers of Saran Wrap or dressing as pimps and prostitutes, students at Bend High have used school dances as a venue for self-expression for years.

But it was how they were dancing – not their clothes – that finally ripped open a discussion among parents, students and school staff about school dances last week.

On March 13, school officials cut short a Sadie Hawkins dance due to what they called inappropriate dancing. Their problem was with freak dancing, a dance style that some parents see as a gateway to sex. The decision came at a time when the way students behave and dress at school dances or at school is alarming to some school administrators and parents.

”I think it’s a bigger issue,” said Dave Kerr, assistant principal of La Pine High School. ”I don’t think it’s just dance. It’s that whole concept of where the line is drawn.”

Whether it’s outrageous or not, freak dancing isn’t brand new. The style of dance has been around for years in which ”the boy stands behind the girl and the girl’s bottom rubs against the boy’s crotch. The second involves the boy placing his leg between the girl’s legs and she rubs her crotch on his leg,” according to a Bend High newsletter.

Breonna Fagen, 16, was one of a small group of students asked to leave the Sadie’s dance because of what she was told was inappropriate dancing. The Bend High sophomore wondered if the adult chaperon who tapped her on the shoulder was joking. She had been dancing that way for years.

About 20 minutes later, school officials shut the dance down after more students continued to ignore the publicized ”no freak dancing” rule.

”Yeah, it’s sexual,” Fagen said of the dancing. ”But it’s not like you’re going to go have sex with them.”

Many other students feel exactly the same way and say freak dancing isn’t an issue for them at all.

”There are far worse things that are happening out there than dancing this way,” added Toni Fagen, Breonna’s mom.

She may be be in the minority.

In an unscientific online survey conducted by The Bulletin earlier this week, 68 percent of the 315 people who completed the survey on high school dances said they were concerned with the sexual way students danced at the Bend High event. And these are the kinds of people who are speaking up and telling the schools it’s time to draw the line.