Modern Brides & Modern Grooms by Mark O'Connell

Author:Mark O'Connell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing
Published: 2013-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

14 Give Your Parties a Shower:

Exploding Pre-Wedding Rituals

“Hey guys, d’ya have any cawk—tales?”

That’s The Cocktails Girl. She’s not real. She’s a character I made up and play when I want my husband to laugh. And also when I want to have cocktails. And party. And not entirely own it. So I get creative and play her instead.

The Cocktails Girl is based on some of the twenty/thirty-something, dolled-up gals that carouse Manhattan late at night, wasted. I loathe them when they steal my cab on late rainy nights, using their crass, out-of-control feminine wiles gone wild. (One might argue that those who participate in LGBT pride equally contribute to such loud, crass performativity . . . but that happens one day a year.) I also loathe the male counterparts to these ladies, when they make needlessly loud aggressive animal noises, and when they threateningly call me, and other people, “Bitch!” or “Faggot!”

But aside from the horribly offensive vulgarity, I love their enthusiasm when seeking heightened, performative fun. It’s of a brand I’m often too risk-averse to embrace—due to my own Spotlight Ambivalence, I suppose. This performative fun often shows up at bachelor(ette) parties and showers, and though I’m turned off by the stereotypical behaviors on the surface—howling at strippers; howling at non-

strippers, while wearing penis crowns; howling at all!—The Cocktails Girls and their male equivalents are up to something I think can interest us all: a ritualistic, pre-wedding good time.

Need showers and bachelor(ette) parties be reductive, “naughty,” vulgar, destructive, and over the top—ala The Hangover? No. They need not. So let’s peek underneath the howling, and the penis crowns, to see what these rituals are essentially all about. That might free us up to enjoy them with our own spin.

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