Decoder Ring: The Fast Decline of the Slow Dance. Rise and fall of an awkward rite of passage.

Includes a brief history of slow dancing, starting with the waltz, which was hugely scandalous 200+ years ago.

Let me read you a quote here. It’s from a July 1816 issue of the London Times about a ball given by the Prince Regent: “We remarked with pain that the indecent foreign dance called the waltz was introduced at the English court on Friday last. So long as this obscene display was confined to prostitutes and adulteresses, we did not think of it deserving of notice. But now that it is attempted to be forced on the respectable classes of society, we feel it a duty to warn every parent against exposing his daughter to so fatal a contagion.