Body policing Controlling youth dance practices in Post World War Two Belgium

The “law to protect the morality of young people” that was passed in 1960 banned people under eighteen years of age from “places where people dance” in Belgium. This article analyzes the political, social, and media debates that accompanied the vote on this law. It examines the way that dancing became a social, moral, and legal problem and how the dancing practices of the young became the symbol of young people whose bodies and sexuality continued to bother experts, social reformers and moralists.