i got an email a few days back from a friend asking for any ideas about how to plan a dope bachelor party with no booze, strippers, or drugs. for a lot of people out there, that may defy the definition of "bachelor party". i haven't been to, nor planned many bachelor parties myself, and i really only know of a couple that were clean, sober, and hooker-free (as in without hookers, not that the hookers were there for free). the only idea i could pass on to my friend was to go out to a place like dave and buster's (it's this restaurant slash big arcade for grown folks) with a bunch of dudes and play skee-ball and video games. maybe that suggestion was helpful, or maybe it was lame (though anybody who doesn't know how fun it is to make a fool of yourself by struggling through several rounds of dance dance revolution to loud house music is probably lamer). either way, what's actually important are the thoughts that his question inspired about the whole concept of a bachelor party.
in responding to my friend, it occurred to me (perhaps for the first time) that before we plan a bachelor party, regardless of how clean we'd like our fun to be, we might want to consider the social implications of such a tradition. in doing so it's useful to consider the tradition as most commonly practiced, i.e. the drunken debauchery and pseudo-supposedly-semi-permissible-
or-rather-begrudgingly-accepted infidelity that usually accompanies it.
personally, i'm having a really hard time with the whole "infidelity is just part of life, everybody cheats, just don't get caught" thing. i'm overwhelmed by how many songs on the radio, and movies and television shows, portray people two-timing and playing each other as if it's only disrespectful if #1 - you get caught and #2 - it's her (or his) friend. i refuse to condone the disdain and degrading view of women demonstrated by men who believe it's okay to engage whoever they want sexually whether they're single or in a marriage or other committed relationship.
regarding women as objects to satisfy the sexual whims of men is NOT what it means to be a REAL man.
by the same token, i find it difficult to continue to have respect for women who feel it's alright to treat men essentially the same way. i'm not quite sure how we allowed the selfishness (looking out for #1) so lauded by an individualistic culture to embed the "grass is greener" syndrome so deeply in our consciousness. it seems like i'm straying a bit from our original purpose, so maybe we can explore infidelity in another post. moving on...
where did the tradition of bachelor parties come from? if anyone knows please share, if i weren't so lazy maybe i'd do some research, but it's not an entirely necessary detail to follow our train of thought. regardless of how it started, we can use our own experiences and the views we've heard in various forms of mass media as an indication of the some of the lingering effects the "bachelor party" has had on the male psyche.
how often do we hear guys speak about marriage as a stifling trap, a last resort, or something you only do because some woman finally forced you to settle down? how often do we hear about the merits of sowing our wild oats before settling down? is a bachelor party for celebrating marriage? or is it really mourning the end of living single? why do we have to party with women besides the bride-to-be? if we don't have alcohol, or lewd and licentious behavior at the bachelor party, does it still have to be all men? if we're celebrating marriage why don't we do so with friends of the bride and groom all together? if we're mourning the loss of independence, do we really love our future spouse? if we truly value marriage and see it as a sacred institution, and believe in the equality of women and men, should we blindly carry on this party tradition (raw or radio edit version)?
i wouldn't dream of trying to answer all these questions at once, or on my own. we can see this as starting a conversation about some of these ideas, share your thoughts and reactions. and considering how intimately matters of gender are to our lives we can be sure that we'll explore further in later posts. holler. period.
Good post, causing some introspective reflection.
ReplyDeleteWell, Wikipedia (not that I think it's a scholarly source...) says that this tradition started in ancient Rome... and we know what happened to that civilization....Anyone read Gibbon's Decline & Fall of the Roman Empire?
ReplyDelete"A world, dimmed by the steadily dying-out light of religion, heaving with the explosive forces of a blind and triumphant nationalism; scorched with the fires of pitiless persecution, whether racial or religious; deluded by the false theories and doctrines that threaten to supplant the worship of God and the sanctification of His laws; enervated by a rampant and brutal materialism; disintegrating through the corrosive influence of moral and spiritual decadence; and enmeshed in the coils of economic anarchy and strife -- such is the spectacle presented to men's eyes, as a result of the sweeping changes which this revolutionizing Force, as yet in the initial stage of its operation, is now producing in the life of the entire planet." (Shoghi Effendi, The Advent of Divine Justice, p. 47)
ReplyDeleteA - great springboard. Here's my experience, which I used to kick off my latest blog entry "...what to do when we want to keep things on the straight and narrow? I’ll simply share that for mine, it was just a party. I was at grad-school, most of my friends were women, and so they organized a party to celebrate my impending marriage, complete with performances of well-wishing (Nepalese engagement songs) and homemade gifts (grad-school budget!). I gave a slide show of family pics of me and my sweetie and in all it was a really nice time that as a Bahá’í, I felt did justice to my moral grounding, and bucked tradition in a positive way..." (still trying to figure out these pingback things... read the rest of my entry here: http://writtenintoreality.wordpress.com/2009/05/21/on-gender-actually-the-men/ )
ReplyDeleteExcellent post - completely got me off track from what I was intending to do online (which, by the way, was to invite folks to the Tuesday Night Shuffle at our house tonight).
ReplyDeleteI've been thinking about this in terms of the "bachelorette party" thing that I've been seeing lately - which appears to me to be a reaction to the bachelor party - something along the lines of "well, if guys can do it, we can do it, too" and being as debauchey (I know not a word) as men are expected to be.
So I wanted to propose a new tradition - which is something like what we did before our first baby was born - that of the community encouraging and welcoming the couple (either individually or separately, as neither way is wrong) into the stronghold of marriage. This can be a special ceremony with prayers and discussion - a friend of mine celebrating her upcoming marriage by inviting nine of her closest women mentors to pray and offer advice - or a celebratory party with music and dancing (which I suppose is what a wedding is...).
The point is not to forget the sacredness. World cultures have for centuries marked the stages of life with ceremonies, honoring the spiritual aspect of our physical nature. And suddenly, in the past 100 years, we've chucked our divine nature out of the window (who needs God, anyway?) and decided life is about get what you can while you're alive. Please. A little weak.
Let's get back to those roots, and embrace our world heritage. And I gotta go because my 4 month-old is trying to nurse my husband... Love you!