Latest / Stuff Mom Never Told You / SMNTY Classics: An Unbridled History of Bachelorette Parties

Transcript

SMNTY Classics: An Unbridled History of Bachelorette Parties · Stuff Mom Never Told You

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha. I don't become a
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: stuff I never told you production of iHeart Radio today.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: I wanted to bring back one on bachelorette parties, yes,
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: because I was looking for word like New Year's territory.
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: I was looking through our catalog for something around that,
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: but we've rerun most of it, and I just stumbled
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: upon this one, and I was thinking, you know, there's
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: been a lot of parties lately. We've been talking a
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: lot about parties and celebrations, and this is when when
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: I read the description, I was like, oh, yeah, that
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: is interesting. I personally don't have a lot of experience
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: with bachelorette parties. I have seen the kind of drama
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: that goes into who plants it and who gets invited
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: and like or that goes down. We've a lot of
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: my group of friends have like kind of done that,
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: very like wishful maybe one day if we ever one
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: of us gets married, this will be what it is.
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: And just don't be offended if I choose this person
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: or this person. Honestly, I don't want to plan once
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: or whatever. Um. And then I did crash a bachelortte
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: party once at my twenty one birthday party where I
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: was a cool white drunk and drink responsibly and it
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: was like the end of the hangover, you know where
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: you're looking through your pictures at the end of the night.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: It was me at their bachelorette party, but they had
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: a good time. I learned about it. There you go. Yeah,
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: I've done a lot of bachelor parties actually, because I
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: had a lot of friends that got married very young
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: and even in college. I think I planned to in
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: my yeah undergrad years, at least two, if not more.
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: Odd one included a I had gifts all over Athens, Georgia.
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: I did a whole scavenger hunt, so before we even
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: got together, I grabbed to all of our presence, hit
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: it in different businesses, like people that are trustworthy to
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: keep the presence. And she had to do specific things
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: which doubtly back I'm like, oh my god, that's so awful.
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: That was me. I would hate you hate me for
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: doing that, because I think she had to sing to
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: somebody to get one thing, she had to do a
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: dance with another, she had to do oppose for another,
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: like the weird things um that I was like, that
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: is really inappropriate, but it worked as college toness, this
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: is what happens when you're a twenty year old doing
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: a college throwing a bachelor party and we don't drink.
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: So that's what we did. On one, I made the
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: crossword uh word search on one. Whoever got the first
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: one got a prize. UM did one. It was one
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: that I had to do with a person, a friend
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: of theirs. Did not go well. We were not friends
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: and they were very rich, had their parents money, and
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: was upset that I would not get equal. I was like,
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: that was not the plan. We were not doing this.
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: So yeah, we definitely lost touch with that person because
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: of that. It was a whole ordeal. It cost a
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: lot of money, is what I figured out. It does
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: it does I, Like I said, I haven't really been
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: involved in a lot, but I've seen a lot of
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: the fall out, like what you're talking about of like
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: these dynamics being revealed, people like with who have a
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: lot of money being like we're gonna go do this,
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: and everyone else being like I can't afford to do that,
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: like all of the like who's the closer friend, who's
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: a better friend? Lowsome drama. Yeah, and in fact that
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: same person was not originally a part of the conversation,
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: but got offended because she felt like she was close
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: to them, and so we had to add her in
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: and then she messed it up. The dynamics. The dynamics,
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: I tell you, well, I would love to hear from
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: listeners if you've had a good bachelorette party experience. I've
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: seen and her tell that they exist been good ones. Okay,
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: I mean it sounds like you're very creative. You put
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: a lot of planning in there, did you did? Um?
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: But okay, the the history of the bachelorte party is fascinating,
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: So let's get into this classic episode. Welcome to Stuff
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: Mom Never Told You from House stuff Works dot com. Hello,
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: and welcome to the podcast. I'm Kristen and I'm Caroline,
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: and today we are talking about bachelorette parties. Last episode
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: we talked about engagement rings, and the previous episode we
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: talked about gay marriage. Yes, we do have marriage on
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: the mind, not because either one of us is about
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: to walk down the aisle, but because the way we
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: know of, yeah, that we know of, but because it
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: is wedding season and surprisingly, bachelorette parties have a very
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: interesting history and very stuff. Mom never told you ish history,
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: that's right, And I let me say I was totally
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: surprised that bachelorette party history is so brief. Yeah, I
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: mean it's it's kind of a new thing. The bachelorette
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: party that you think of today is pretty new. Um.
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: I actually I threw a bachelorette party a couple of
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: years ago. How it was, it was kind of depressing.
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: I'm going to tell you, well, I think the important
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: thing and I feel like etiquette guides tell you this.
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: When you plan a bachelorette party, you have to plan
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: it with the bride in mind, which seems obvious, But
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: if your bride is like a total party girl, you
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: should have a big party type of thing, we're a
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: pub crawl or whatever. But if your bride is quieter
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: and maybe just like the girls getaway kind of bride,
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: maybe you shouldn't plan a pub crawl. Did you plan
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: a pub crawl? Yeah? Yeah I did. And uh, the
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: the fellow women who you know, we all had dinner
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: first and then we started the pub crawl. They all
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: just started to like disappear. So by the time we
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: were at like the third or fourth bar, it was
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: pretty much just the bridesmaids and the bride. And let
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: me tell you, she was not having good time because
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: she was basically I don't know if she's feeling bad
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: that all those ladies left, but I think what she
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: really wanted was like, let's just drink with my girls
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: and you know, have some champagne and a good time.
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: So we got a cab, we went back to the hotel,
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: we drank some champagne and put on a stupid eighties
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: movie and that was the most fun part of the night.
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: That sounds fun, Yeah, yeah. I planned one last year,
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: in fact, for one of my best friends, and it
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: was a lot of fun. It was very cold when
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: it happened, and we did a pub crawl as well, um,
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: which uh ended with us almost being asked to leave
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: an establishment, not because we were so rowdy, but because
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: I bought everybody whistles and even though we knew some
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: of the people who were working at this bar. Uh.
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: And that's really the only reason we didn't get kicked out,
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: because you know, we wanted to make an entrance for
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: for the bride to be and I could just see
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: the bar nope, go out, turned around, yeah, and whistles indoors,
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: not a penis shaped whistles. They were not penis shaped whistles.
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: But we did have um oh we did. I made
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: cocktails for everyone beforehand, and there were penis stirs, cocktail stirs. Yeah,
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: we kept it classy ish. But speaking of that penis paraphernalia,
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: that kind of stuff is very new to the bachelorette culture,
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: and according to a prominent bachelorette scholar, yes there is one.
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: It says a lot about our sexual moray's and gender equity.
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: But first, a brief historical word on bride'smaids, because surprisingly
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: there's not a ton of history on bridesmaids. There's this
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: idea that it goes back to ancient Rome when some
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: brides Toby would have been accompanied by a ton of bridesmaids,
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: all dressed identically to try to trip up any evil
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: spirits that might try to whisk her away, or kidnappers
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: you might try to whisk her away. So bride's maids
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: were I guess sort of like bodyguards at first. Yeah,
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: but that whole spirit superstition carried through for quite a while,
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: all the way through the nineteenth century England, because if
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: you look at some Victorian era wedding photographs, you can't
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: even tell which one is the bride and which one
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: is the bride'smaid. Yeah, and that's why I don't understand
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: why people get upset when I just wear wedding dresses
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: to their weddings. You know, sorry, I look so good
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: and white. But you're just doing it for the bride.
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: I think you know you're protecting her. I don't actually
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: do that. Just to clarify, um, but bachelor parties have
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: ancient roots. The often sided historical precedent to the modern
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: day bachelor party is fifth century BC Sparta Sparta, where
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: soldiers would hold a dinner in the groom to be
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: his honor and toast him. But yeah, I mean it
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: didn't stay that classy for long. Things things did get
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: a little rowdier over time. In six i'd never I mean,
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: I don't know why I would have heard this, but
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: I had never heard this. Uh p T. Barnum's grandson,
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: Herbert Barnum Seeley through a stag party that ended up
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: getting rated by the cops because of rumors that a
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: belly dancer would be making a nude appearance. Yeah. And
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: in nineteen the term bachelor party is used for the
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: first time in a Scottish publication Chambers Journal of Literature,
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: Science and the Odds to describe a jolly old party.
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: So we have we we've got that whole culture already
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: established by and then in four pop culture wise, we
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: have the first movie devoted to this pre wedding debauchery,
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: appropriately called bachelor Party. Yeah, but it's Tom Hanks, so yeah,
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: I've never seen it, but you know it's gonna be sweet.
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: It is gonna end up sweet. Um. But but the
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: whole idea though, as to why bachelor parties have this
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: extensive history, is that we have long accepted that men
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: want to sow their wild oats, and they are more
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: at liberty to have sex before marriage. And Tom cat
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: around and and do as men are want to do.
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: That whole notion that that it's simply in men's natures
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: to be, you know, sex fiends, right, I mean, I
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: think the idea and and uh that that bachelor party
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: scholar you mentioned, Beth Montamurro, brings it up that there's
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: an idea that men are really giving something up, yes,
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: when they get married, whereas women are gaining something incredible
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: like a life. Finally, I have a life because I
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: have a man, and so that that is sort of
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: what all of this hinges on, because men get to
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: have that rowdy bachelor party to say goodbye to their
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: days of freedom, when in however, they tend to get
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: bridle showers. Well, yeah, I mean because for a long, long,
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: long time, throughout that history of you know, the extensive
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: history the bachelor party, the economic aspiration for a woman
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: was limited to being a wife and mother. So it
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: makes sense that the bridle shower has been the go
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: to thing for so long that it actually goes back
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: to sixteenth and seventeenth century Holland. And the origin story
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: is that there was a woman who wanted to marry
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: a poor guy, and so neighbors showered her with household
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: gifts because her father was like, no, you're not going
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: to marry this poor dude, and her neighbors were like, oh,
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: we shall help you. We will give you this ye
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: old kitchen aid Nixon I know, and unfortunately can't do
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: a Dutch accent, but um. In the late nineteenth century,
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: bridle showers became routine for wealthier women in the United States,
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: which were focused around preparing them for their housewife e duties.
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: This was also around the time that you have the
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: cult of domesticity and the rise of consumerism, which melded
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: together nicely. Well. Yeah, around this time also you have
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: things like hope chests and trousseau's which the bride's family
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: would fill with linens and and dishes and stuff so
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: she could bring that into the marriage. I actually have
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: a friend whose little sister her parents had been filling
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: this hope chest for her for years, but the parents
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: didn't do it for my friend because they were so
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: convinced that the little sister would get married and the
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: older sister would not. Why would they be filling a
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: hope chest to begin with? What did they put inside
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: of a very traditional southern family? Uh? Literally like uh,
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: stuff from the grandmother to get passed down, so like
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: fine china, fine silver, fine linens, all of that stuff.
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: My mom does have a silver tea service waiting for me,
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: and it has been waiting for me for years and
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: almost any time I see her, she asked me if
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: I want to want to take my silver tea service
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: home and I and I am putting it off. Yeah, well,
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: my mom says that I have a mink coat waiting
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: for me. WHOA, yeah, I said that I'm going to
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: attach a barehead to it and put it on the
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: floor like a rug. There you go, doesn't even need
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: a bearhead. Just go ahead and toss that thing down
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: and call it a day. But that that idea, though,
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: of women filling the hope chest is because traditionally men
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: were expected to buy the house in the land, whereas
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: women would provide the soft goods. And before traditional bridle
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: showers where you might bring gifts for less wealthy women,
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: they were kind of sweet traditions. I think of the
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: a lot of women getting together to do things like
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: so the new monogram on sheets and linen's maybe get
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: together to help make a new quilt for a bed um.
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: Lots of these different kinds of again very domestic oriented
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: pre wedding traditions for women, but it was one structured
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: of course, around men as the breadwinner and the head
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: of household. There was even one game that was I
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: guess more taking place in the first half of the
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: twentieth century where a hostess would hide trinkets in cakes
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: that would be given to any unmarried women who would
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: attend a bridle shower. And these trinkets would symbolize what
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: their future husband's professions might be, so kind of like
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: a precursor to playing mash Yeah. Yeah, fingers crossed for
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: the steth of scope lord. All right, Well, today of
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: modern brides still have those bridal showers, even though there's
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: kind of a shift in how we view them, even
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: though it's more like just based on tradition versus I
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: really really want a bridle shower where they feed me
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: cucumber sandwiches and tea. What are you saying you do
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: want that? Because I could go for a cucumber sandwich.
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: I mean, I could go. Haven't we established that I
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: could go for a sandwich at any time? That's true,
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: that's true, and it was Penn State, says yologist Beth Monima,
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: who we've already mentioned a couple of times, the the
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: bachelorette party scholar, who who was the one who said
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: that brides are holding these showers because of pressure's placed
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: on them by earlier generations. Yeah, but while pent of
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: modern bride's still have the showers, almost as many seventy
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: seven percent also have the bachelorette party, because you know,
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: the bridal shower is what you invite your mom to
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: you you're soon to be mother in law. Perhaps that's
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: the calm party, and then you have the wild bachelorette
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: and but it wasn't until the nineteen sixties that we
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: even have anything like a bachelorette party start to happen,
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: thanks Monumorro says to things like the sexual revolution and
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: birth control. But the history of bachelorette parties in the
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: UK is a little bit older. Um the term hen
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: party dates back to the eighteen hundreds, but that was
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: just referring to a gathering of ladies, any any gathering
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: of women, So we were having a hen party. Oh,
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: I guess you probably need more than two women to
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: form a henn party anyhow So in nineteen seventies six, though,
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: The Times used hen party for the first time in
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: the pre wedding sense, So a little bit sooner than
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: we're going to see the rise of the term bachelor
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: party in the United States. But even before the term
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: hen party was used as we would think of it
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: in reference to something like a bachelotte party, there were
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: similar traditions already happening, such as a female industrial workers
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: would get pranked on their last days of working at
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: the factory, for instance, before they got married, because the
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: expectation was they're gonna get married and then you know,
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: we work, but before Richard Gere came in to carry
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: them out of the factory. Never mind, just a reference
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: to a movie I've seen a thousand times, But all
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: of this kind of grew out of before the sixties,
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: the personal showers, which were somewhere in between the bridal
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: showers and the bachelorette parties. It wasn't with your extended
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: family and your mom and your aunt, your grandmother. It
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: was with your close friends, because those were the parties
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: like in the fifties where the bride would get lingerie
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: and other things. She didn't necessarily want to open in
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: front of extended family, but they were still subdued. Uh,
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: they were at people's houses. So it's it's kind of
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: that in between stage before we get into the full
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: big body bachelorette parties. And speaking of the full big
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: body bachelorette parties, something Old, something Bold bridle Showers and
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: bachelorette parties by Beth Montamorrow is our major source for
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: all of this, by the way, because she's really the
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: only person who has taken a deep scholarly dive into
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: this culture, and she says that in the nineteen eighties,
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: bachelotte parties were more about cementing friendships before that transition
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: into marriage. And there were a couple of scholars here
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: and there who hinted at bachelorette traditions. For instance, in
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: two we have Paula L. Dressel and David Peterson who
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: were studying male strippers, and they mentioned that some women
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: would see male strippers as a part of their celebrations
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: of upcoming marriages. Right. But it wasn't until that researcher
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: Rebecca Clark uses the term bachelorette party to describe what
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: motivated women's attendance at one of these particular clubs. And
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: she writes about how media coverage at this time in
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: the eighties and nineties really treated bachelorette parties like something novel,
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: foreign and crazy, like can you believe what women are doing?
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: And uh. In nine eight, Richard Roper of Eberton Roper Fame. UH,
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: he wrote an article for the Chicago Sun Times that
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: really signaled a shift in how the media talked about
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: bachelorette parties. It was the first one to really explain
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: it as a social social ritual, not something subdued and like, well,
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: let have a shower and then go out for drinks, y'all.
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: It was really kind of signaling the shift that it
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: was moving before that, beyond that into actual pre planned
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: nights of debauchery. I was surprised that it wasn't until
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: I believe that the term pops up in Cosmo I
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: would assume. I would have assumed that Cosmo would be
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: all over that absolutely um. And then I found it
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: funny that in two thousand two, not so long ago,
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: there was a Wall Street Journal cover story about how
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: bachelorette parties were getting super raunchy while bachelor parties were
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: simultaneously steering away from strip clubs, and they attributed it
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: to shifting gender roles in the workplace. Well, yeah, I
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: mean gender roles and feminism definitely came up. And around
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: the same time as that Wall Street Journal article, there
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: was a shift in describing them as feminist activities, like
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: we are taking the bull by the horns and we
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: are going out as women, and a lot of these
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: articles the shift in tone. It started describe women of
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: the millennium as asserting equality and demonstrating their ability to
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: flaunt their sexuality, and so parties are starting to move
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: more into the public places, getting more elaborate and expensive.
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: Just at the same time as the cost of weddings
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: is shooting up. So as we're getting bigger weddings, we're
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: also getting bigger, more ritualized pre wedding activities. Yeah, and
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: you could say that all of this just ties into
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: the commodification of American weddings that now costs on average
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: around twenty eight thousand dollars because now you have for
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: bachelorette parties all of this pianist paraphernalia available to buy.
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: For instance, you have things like destination Bachelorette parties, uh
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: that you can spend so much money on. Um. There's also,
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: for instance, being a merchandise. According to the not dot com,
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: do you want to hear the seven Bachelorette essentials, Well,
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: you gotta have a headpiece for the bride a dare
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: list a suck for a buck accessory. Sorry I had
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: to say that on a podcast, But essentially it's like
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: you wear a candy necklace and strange men can dollar
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: to bite a piece off. I don't like that at all,
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: or you can make your own. It's suggested by taping
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: candies to a shirt. That should I can? I just
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: put a cheeseburger on a necklace and oh that would
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: be my that'll that. See, it's all about creating your
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: own rituals kristen Berg for a book. But you also
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: need naughty accessories blow up doll panis paraphernalia of course,
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: And just to show how dated this article is, disposable cameras. Yeah,
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: you don't want to have that file lingering on your computer,
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: so you need to or drunk Facebook posting right. Well, now,
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: the last bachelor party, when she was not only a
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: destination bachelor atte parties heard of, it was an athen
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: so it involved leaving Atlanta, but there were a lot
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: of women coming in from like Texas and all over
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: the place. But yeah, there were penis cookies. So you
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: know it's a thing. I've seen many a penis cake
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: on the internet. Not that not that I'm going looking
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: for them in my let me clarify, in my research
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: on bachelorette parties, I saw many photos of penis shaped cakes.
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: Uh so, but what does what does all of this mean? Though? Caroline,
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: because Monta Murrow says that there is a deeper meaning
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: to these penis whistles and such. She says that bachelorette
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: parties and bridle showers are not just women's parties. They
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: are rituals of status consumption and materialism, of transition and ambivalence,
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: of friendship and reinforcement of relationships among women, and of transformation. Yeah,
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: and and she does write also about what it means
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: for the transformation of sexual attitudes and morals and Moray's
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: and and you know, gender norms and all of that stuff.
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: She writes that the very existence of the bachelorette party
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: is evidence that women have made some real inroads as
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: far as gender equality. Interesting she said, men had bachelor
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: parties because they were about to be trapped. So this
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: is the same thing we talked about that. Now maybe
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: this shows that women, Hey, if we're gonna talk about
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: losing things like losing freedom, maybe women are losing their
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: sexual freedom too. And so she says, as the sexual
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: double standard lost some of its power, and as women's
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: rights and freedoms became more pronounced, it has become more
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: socially acceptable for women to acknowledge that they too are
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: entitled to a last night of freedom. And yet though
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: about all of that penis paraphernalia um, she says that
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: they're actually symbolic of a contradictory role that a bride
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: is forced to play. She says, within hours of the
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: bachelorette party ending, she'll morph from body bachelorette to blushing,
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: virginal bride. And it's it's funny. The discussion, the super
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: serious discussion of women going to male strip clubs and
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: what it means and and so. Monta Muro says that
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: though not necessarily consciously, many women who end up at
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: mail strip clubs tend to be making fun of the
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: idea that men feel it necessary to have a last
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: night of freedom that involves porn and strip clubs. And
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: author Jacqueline Geller echoes that she says that the bachelorette
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: party is a gesture of retaliation rather than an actual
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: sensual adventure. It's answering almost an imagined insult, rather than
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: responding to the bachelor party's text of lewd sexuality, rather
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: than its subtext lamenting lost friendship. Yeah, the for instance,
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: the bachelorette party that I helped plan for my best
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: friend did not include any male strippers or mail strip
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: club or anything like that. A because she would have
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: been not happy about that, and because it just wasn't necessary.
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: You know. Now, one thing though that uh we we
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: really didn't look into at all. But it's something that
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: came up when I was listening to UM an episode
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: of Savage Love not too long ago, there was a
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: caller talking about how it was a gay guy calling
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: in complaining about bachelorette parties coming into gay bars and
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: gay strip clubs and tearing the place up and essentially
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: saying that these women need to respect these spaces, that
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: it's not so ko shert for you to just waltson
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: blow in your penis whistle and disturbing their Friday night
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: out or whatever. And I know for a fact actually
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: that here in Atlanta, speaking of male strip clubs, there
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: is a gay mail strip club that if you are
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: a woman, you are not going to be let in
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: with the group of women because they pretty much have
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: a policy against bachelorette parties. Because I do I agree
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: with the idea that you know what, your bachelorette party
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: is not your one night to go be obnoxious at
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: a gay bar. Well, it's not your one night to
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: be obnoxious anywhere. Honestly, I think you can. I think
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: it's possible to have a bachelorette party and not annoy
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: the crap out of everyone around you. But I do
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: think that bachelorette parties especially do take more license saying
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: it would be Oh, it's totally fine, it'll be fun.
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: We'll just go and go to a gay bar and
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: and you know, all of the men will find us fabulous.
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: And and just for women out there, I think that
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: maybe you need to take a second thought about respecting, uh,
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: expecting their spaces, just like we wouldn't probably want uh, well,
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: I don't know any bar. I wouldn't really want a
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: bachelorette party to come in and try to take over
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: the place. So just something to think about. Yeah, well
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: then you have to ask yourself. Okay, well, so ask
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: the hooting and holleran and all these public spaces. What
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: else are they doing? They're drinking, drinking. I was surprised
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: at the number of studies on bachelotte parties and alcohol
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: and the concern over it, and and the seeming surprise
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: over how much women are drinking at these parties. Well,
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: but I mean, I don't think it's so shocking. I mean,
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: I think any surprise expressed is sort of maybe not genuine,
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: or maybe it's I think it's weird that they're surprised
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: that at something like a bachelorette party, where you are
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: already stepping outside of normal behavior. Um, that that that
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: you would be drinking a lot. Well, speaking of norms, uh.
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: In Changing gender Norms for alcohol consumption, social drinking, and
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: lowered inhibition at bachelorette parties, the authors concluded that women's
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: use of alcohol in this ritual challenges existing gender norms
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: and conceptions of masculinity and feminity. So the drinking, in
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: a way, is simply an extent chin of doing the
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: things like being overtly sexual by wearing a penis necklaces
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: and having asking men to pay a dollar to bite
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: candy off of a necklace and going to a strip club,
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: et cetera. Yea, And according to a May study in
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: the Journal of Substance Abuse, Uh, they really do talk
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: about like, oh, there's so much drinking, saying that of
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: women in these bachelorette parties reported drinking an average of
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: five drinks over the course of the night. And I
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: understand what the definition of binge drinking is and that
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: is it. Yes, but I kind of feel like, uh,
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: you know, I think that maybe a one night, a
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: one off at a bachelorette party, is that so terrible?
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: I mean, unless it's leading to awful behavior that puts
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: you in an unsafe position. Well, and guess I guess
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: a scholar would just say, well, why is that ritual
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: so specifically attached to bachelorrette? Because you know, I I
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: think and I would be curious to hear from listeners
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: on this. I think that the the emerging stereotype for
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: bachelorette parties is more of a pub crawl kind of
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: thing where you go out and you are gonna binge drink.
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: And for guys, when I think of a bachelor party
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: these days, yeah, you have the hangover and the hangover
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: part two and the hangover part three. Now, um, but
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: I imagine guys doing things like drinking some scotch and
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: smoking cigars in one place. I mean maybe, I don't know,
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: I don't think of that. I mean I guess I
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: still think of like the traditional like go out and
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: get schwisted. Apparently I have a very aristocratic idea. I
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: don't know. Maybe your dude friends are more sophisticated than mine.
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: I don't know, I feel like almost there's there's a
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: touch of overcompensation in a way with with bachelor parties,
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: where it's like we go so far, so far out
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: because obviously there's the whole stripper aspect that's seeing you know, stereotypical.
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: But um, yeah, I don't know, I'm I'm I'm so
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: curious to hear from listeners on this one. Our bachelorette
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: parties a symbol of gender and sexual equality and a
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: sign of good things? Um? Or are they just a
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: night of frivolous excess? Yeah? I mean, I don't know.
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: It's interesting some of the things we read talked about
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: girls nights and girls like trips to a mountain cabin
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: as something really subdued and like, you know, whereas the
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: party with the penis necklaces and all the cocktails is
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: is the fancy, fun thing to do, And it's like, well, again,
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: like I said at the beginning, I mean you you
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: kind of have to take into account what the bride wants,
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: what's her personality, right, you know what, what what group
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: of friends are you getting together? Yeah? And what will
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: they want to do, and I had a great time
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: at my at my best friends we had We all
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: had a really fun time and it was just enough,
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: not too much. It ended with a lot of pizza,
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: which was great. Um So I'm definitely not against the
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: ritual at all, but it's it's compelling to stop and
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: think of where did all of this come from? Birth control,
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: baby birtha. And with that, listeners, we want to hear
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: from you anyone planning a bachelorette party or any brides
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: to be nervous about the bachelorette party grooms as well.
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: Do you think that at this point bachelorette parties are
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: getting wilder than bachelor parties? All of these thoughts we
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: want to hear. Mom Stuff at Discovery dot com is
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: where you can send your letters. You can also drop
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: us a line on Facebook or tweet us at mom
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: Stuff podcast. And we got a couple of your letters
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: to share when we come right back from a quick break.
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: And now back to the letters, christ and I have
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: one here from Jared. He's writing in about our bed
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: wedding episode. Uh he says, First off, allow me to
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: say that I greatly enjoy the show. Thank you, Jared.
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: Uh he says I was a chronic bed wetter, and
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: while the exact number of times per week escapes me now,
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: I do remember it as being quite frequent, not drinking much,
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: double voiding. None of the simple tricks helped me at all,
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: I must admit, though, my primary problem with wetting the
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: bed was that I was an extremely heavy sleeper. As such,
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: while the alarm I had would eventually wake me up,
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: it was normally much too late for me to do
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: anything but change the sheets or reposition myself to sleep
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: in the least wet part. Urology appointments and even bladder
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: X rays found nothing amiss. I was just programmed to
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: sleep deeply and wet the bed. I did eventually get
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: a hormone spray that I shot up my nose at night,
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: and this helps somewhat. But I off and on with
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: the bed until seventh grade. Then my body finally stopped
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: me from the endless embarrassment of waking up to soggy sheets.
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: I do not miss the crinkling of the plastic sheets
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: I used to protect my mattress, or the embarrassment of
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: the first time I had a friend over and realized
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: that I stripped the dead that morning to leave only
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: the plastic behind. Now, strangely, I'm a very light sleeper.
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: Perhaps life is having a fickle sense of humor. So
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: thanks Jared, And I've got an email here from Chris,
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: subject line a trans perspective on your video the science
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: of bitchy resting phase. Um. That's in reference to a
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: recent YouTube video over at YouTube dot com slash stuff
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: mom never told You, and Chris writes, as I mentioned,
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: I'm trans, and for me this means that I have
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: been perceived by others as both male and female at
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: different times in my life. Your points about women's experiences
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: are exactly in line with what I've experienced, but I
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: also wanted to add some interesting aspects of what I've
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: experienced when I've been perceived as a man. While women
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: are expected in pressure to emote constantly and generally in
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: a positive manner, men are conversely expected and also actively
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: pressured to not emote in a positive manner, especially through
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: facial expression and body posture, unless there being a any
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: caricature or something similar. And my experience, one consequence of
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: a squashed masculine positive emoting is actually muted experience of
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: positive emotion. I guess to the mechanism behind this is
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: sort of an inverse of the well known feedback between
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: emotional facial expression and experience of emotion. Well, it is
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: clearly unfair to use a certain class of person to
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: prop up others emotional security, as our patriarchal society uses women. Sometimes.
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: It is also unfair to rob another class of people
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: of the full richness of emotional experience. Basically, the patriarchy
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: screws us all and everyone men, women, gender, queers, etcetera
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: should be a feminist if they want the most out
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: of life. So thanks Chris for sharing that perspective, and
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: thanks everybody who's written in. Moms of a Discovery dot
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: Com is where you can send your letters. You can
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: also find us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: at mom Stuff Podcasts, and on Tumbler as well at
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: stuff Mom Never Told You dot tumbler dot com, and
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: like I said, we are on YouTube. You can head
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: over and watch the science of Bitchy resting Face and
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: many more videos at YouTube dot com, slash stuff Mom
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: Never Told You, and don't forget to be a friend
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: and subscribe for more on this and thousands of other topics.
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: Is it how stuff works? Dot com