I am horrified.

Our public schools have lost control and are condoning simulated sex acts on school property.

My niece attended her Homecoming dance at Nansemond River High School on Saturday. She left the dance early, stating that the music was bad and that she was not having a good time.

During a family discussion on Sunday, we found out a little more. Students had posted videos of the dance on the Internet, and it seems they all do “freak dancing” or “grinding.”

In my day, if you did this on a date, it was considered a sexual act.

I was sickened and disgusted. The “dancing” was what in other circumstances would be called a sexual assault. Apparently, since “everybody does it,” school administrators just watched and enjoyed the show. What I saw being done in the school would have resulted in the participants being arrested for violating obscenity laws if it had been done on the street.

My niece said the D.J. played only music that encouraged this type of dancing, and when he attempted to change the tune, the students booed him, and he quickly switched back to the grind music.

It was not just a couple of students participating, but lines of them — chains of students grinding male groin to female derriere. I saw girls pulling up their dresses and sticking their behinds out to encourage sexual touching. I saw two boys simultaneously simulating the sex act, with one girl in between, and other students cheering them on. It was pornographic.

Am I being old-fashioned? It’s true that each generation has its dance battle. In mine, it was the “bump.” I think, however, that in a school atmosphere, where the adults are acting in place of the parents, students should not be permitted and even encouraged to perform sexual acts on the dance floor.

From what I saw, it was not dancing that was taking place at Nansemond River High School; it was mating. Girls were allowing themselves to be disrespected, to be treated as pieces of meat.

Our high schools are not nightclubs.

I am saddened that my niece was exposed to this. She went to the dance with a new dress, new heels and high hopes. She came home having seen things that used to be done only in private.