AMERICAN teenagers are facing school bans on a new style of sexually suggestive dancing called freaking, the first dance craze to have been spread through the internet.

In California head teachers, dismayed that many liberal parents do not see the problem, have resorted to showing them videos which use dolls to portray the children grinding their pelvises together.

Some schools are introducing “no freaking contracts” for pupils to sign before they can attend autumn dances; others are suspending dances known as winter formals until the craze abates.

For the first time in its 90-year history, the National Association of Secondary School Principals is considering how head teachers can legally and effectively ban a dance across the United States.

The organisation has received a large number of calls seeking advice. “Every generation finds a dance or something similar which offends its elders. It’s a rite of passage, but in some instances it goes too far,” said its spokesman last week.

Freaking has leapt from the Latino population, where it is known as perreo, into largely white schools via MTV pop television videos of reggaeton stars such as Ivy Queen.

In recent weeks freaking has escalated through the internet site YouTube, where grainy videos shot at high school dances have been viewed by countless would-be freakers.

Although most freaking is consensual, with up to a dozen young people locked together in a “freak train”, teachers fear it can quickly turn into sexual aggression. Last month Los Angeles police were called to a dance at Los Alamitos high school after a shirtless boy started rubbing himself against an unwilling girl from behind.

The head, Kelly Godfrey, increased the number of chaperones, who now wear T-shirts featuring two stick figures dancing closely together with a red slash through them. It reads “No freaking”.

At Montgomery high school in Santa Rosa, pupils have been given a written warning stating that “dancing that involves touching of the breasts, buttocks or genitals or that simulates sexual activity (is) not allowed”.

Not all teens are gripped by the fever. At Wethersfield high school in Connecticut, students have launched a “Freeze the freak” campaign to persuade their peers to dance “more respectfully”.

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