Letters to the Editor
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missing the point
As I read it, the gist of the letter is that the LW was okay with being excluded based on being female, but not okay with being excluded for being a "boring married (female)". All the other strip club tropes are irrelevant, they just determine the form that the LW's free-floating anxiety is taking. If the group was just going on a bar crawl, she would probably be worried about that too.
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Bring your mom
I did.
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Not about "the girl"!
"My man isn't sexist" - my eye! If he went to a lynching and didn't help tie the knot...
I digress.
Another woman will be a part of the "He-Man Woman Haters' Club" and she takes issue with the woman and not the club. Like so many women, LW has been groomed to accept this stripper crap as acceptable behavior. So the problem isn't HER man; the problem isn't strip clubs; the problem isn't the whole stupid bachelor party thing... Oh, no! The groom's friend will be attending and THAT is the problem!(?)
C'mon, LW! This party is lame and sexist. YOUR MAN is going to participate in something lame & sexist. That makes him - what?
Don't put this off on the groom's friend.
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Yes, you should worry about the female "friend"
LW, it's normal and perfectly ok for you to be concerned about your husband having the company of this woman at a strip club.
Here's a thought: Your husband will not see her as one of the "guys". She will be seen as one of the other ladies at the strip club.
Strip clubs usually enforce strict rules, ie no touching. This does not apply to the lady "friend".
Keep an eye on her. We already know she's a slut. Why does she want to be around your husband when he's drunk and horny?
Good luck.
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What a ...
What a lame try at waxing poetic and a lamer answer. The woman asked a lame question, true, but she deserves a less than insensitive answer. Why, courtesy, which is the very thing I am not showing a colleague at this moment. It is obvious that the attendees are stuck in a pagan tradition, which seems to indicate insensitivity. That a lone female is attending, is even more interesting because it may mean someone will be trolling. Will it be her, with a panoply of males from which to choose, or is it the "Groom" who has plans for her after the party, or, and here is the point of the letter to Mr. Tennis, unconscious though it may be, will it be the writer's husband.
Dump the attempt at waxing poetic, Cary, this is simple, she is concerned that someone may get laid after the party and she wants reassurance, impossible to give, that it will not be her mate. Maybe the female guest is an orgasmic machine and that worries wives. She is entitled to... what? With the odds in favor of anyone of them or none of them, her worries, unless her husband is the stud of the vacuous litter, are unwarranted. That would be my answer to her.
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The Übermensch Way
If you read Being and Nothingness, LW, you'll discover that Being creates Nothingness, just as the religious fear of sex in America creates strip clubs and the fear of alcohol created Al Capone. And vice versa. Since marriage is a religious institution, to participate in one necessitates participating in its vulgar opposite-- the Bachelor Party.
Perhaps Cary and LW are pining for a more balanced approach. Oh that more women were allowed to be sexual beings instead of witnesses to the flouncy Manhattan insects we imagine such beings might resemble! Oh that men were allowed to revel in the beauty of the body in some more tasteful way! Instead we must do our worship in dark boxes: theaters, galleries, strip clubs, our own living rooms. The bodies we see are safely separated from us by invisible walls, right where we want them to be.
All these rituals are entirely meaningless, which is why in doing them we create their meaning. If you don't like the way things are, LW, do something else. It's the Übermensch way. (Then again, so is syphilitic insanity.)
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"she's single but unfortunately not gay"
hello! how on earth can you claim you trust your husband after making a comment like that!
Either you trust him or you don't. Why do you jump to the conclusion that a single woman at a party to help her best freind celebrate a rite of passage is going to jump your husband just cuz she's heterosexual. If your husband can't reisit that, he can't resist all the daily opportunities he faces at work, the gym, whereever on a continual basis.
You have got some major issues about trust, assuming any man around any woman will naturally jump her (forgetting she has any choice in the matter. Lord with that assumption, how do you let him out of the house?
And, guess what? IT's not your call. The groom-to-be invites who he wants and doesn't have to ask you. And your husband can go or not, but it's not up to you. You're not invited and if you were, you coulnd't dictate the guest list anyway.
Get. Therapy. Now.
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I've had guy friends all my life, but I never relished "being one of the boys" or their being somehow "My Boys." (There is a nauseating show titled this. Ugh.)
jealously, jealousy, jealousy
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A ritual celebrating friendship
A bachelor party is not meaningless drivel in a meaningless life that is part of a meaningless ceremony. I am an avid fan of Cary's musings on the existential challenges we face as individuals making our way through the modern world, but the special vitriol he had for this topic seemed misplaced.
A bachelor party is a ritual in which friends (men and women... get over it LW) re-connect prior to what will be one of the biggest events in the groom's life (even if he has two or three "big days"). I don't buy the whole "say goodbye to your freedom" thing. As Cary said, its crap. But a bachelor party is a wonderful opportunity to enjoy a night out with your best friends prior to committing yourself.
Where I think Cary missed the mark was in not more fully addressing the mythology around "needing" to go to a strip club for a bachelor party. He's right: it's lame and disgusting. I have found that more often than not it is driven by the individuals throwing the bachelor party rather than the groom. I would much rather spend the night doing something more meaningful with my friends than watching a naked woman exploit her sex for one dollar bills.
One of my greatest regrets at my bachelor party was that we spent too much time doing the traditional bachelor party crap instead of doing what we normally do: hanging out. There were guys there I hadn't seen in years and they spent more time obsessing over "the strip club" than catching up. I've moved around the country a lot so getting my close friends in one room at the same time is rare. Despite the strip club (which was the lamest portion of the evening), I have fond memories of just being with my friends.
A bachelor party is a ritual celebrating your friendships with others prior to committing yourself to your best friend for life. The perversion of this ritual into an admittedly lame "last chance" for freedom irritates me, but the ritual itself has meaning. My only advice to any nuptials reading this is make sure to do what you want: it's your night with your friends. Don't waste it.