Letters to the Editor
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Strippers/husbands/wives
Wow, that was great. We haven't seen this side of Cary in a while.
I have nothing to offer the LW, other than a few stripper & hubby anecdotes. My SIL threw a 30th birthday party for her hubby for which she hired a female stripper. She then proceeded to get very PO'd at hubby for seeming to enjoy the stripper's performance. Same SIL threw herself a 50th b-day party (20years later), for which she hired a male stripper. I presume she enjoyed the performance but can't tell you as I was one of the contingent of people who chose to leave the room for that part of the evening's fun.
My best friend's hubby had a weekly night out with guy friends prior to their marriage which he continued after marriage. She didn't mind at all, except on the few times when something came up on that night (it was always one particular night), but he was loathe to give up his night out. (note: he had many such pre-marriage rituals out that he didn't give up, so this wasn't his "only" time to have fun.). Children came along and she still didn't complain about his night out leaving her with the kids. Until the birth of #3. I visited her in the hospital after birth #3. Hubby was there also & it was "the night out" night. He said to her (in all seriousness & hoping she let him go), "I suppose this means I won't be going out tonight." She told him he was right.
I'm not sure what the point is other than to say that men & women both have strange ways about them and you probably shouldn't categorize behavior based on gender. And I don't personally "get" the thing about watching strippers but accept that some people do.
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Widen your perspective a little ...
Thoughts from a woman who has frequently attended events and been the only female:
Honestly, LW, how self-centered do you have to be to think that you're going to be a topic of any discussion if I'm there to celebrate something completely unrelated to you? Why on earth would your relationship with your husband, who isn't even the man of the hour, be of any concern to me? Unless he's complaining about you, but I wouldn't have any control over that, either.
To answer your direct question: Yes, you are crazy. As far as she's concerned, she accepted an invitation to a party from her best friend. The activities of the party are acceptable to her. The reasons for the party are, indeed, joyous. She has no control over the guest list. She likely hasn't thought twice about the gender ratio of those who will attend.
How do you KNOW she'll be enjoying the 'exclusivity?' Because you would? And there, I think, is your problem. Stop assuming other people's motives without any evidence.
Oh, and being the only woman in attendance doesn't make her 'one of the boys.' And, despite what another poster said, it doesn't make her a tomboy, a 'hangers on' or a closet lesbian. She is who she is -- as complicated and as simple as the next person, someone with a variety of interests and, if she's lucky, an interesting mix of friends. That she doesn't separate them along gender lines, that she makes choices based on other attributes altogether, likely makes her lucky.
True, the bachelor party hype and symbolism and cliched activities are problematic. But that's me and, as stated, it's all unrelated to the LW's problem.
For their part, I hope the willing and invited participants have a smashing time.
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Most that will happen
The most that will happen because the groom's BFF is there is that everyone gets a little drunk and beg her to kiss the stripper.
And why would the friend diss all the absent wives? Is there something you left out? Otherwise it just sounds like you're a bit jealous. You should go to a strip club and spend half an hour in it, after that you won't be jealous anymore, believe me.
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men parties for men, and women parties for women
You people make it all so complicated.
The guy's parties are for guys. Ditto for the women. What happens within the party, stays within each respective group. Period.
Now about this woman coming to the boy's party. She'll be treated like one of the boys. The men won't even see her as a woman, or they wouldn't feel comfortable with her being there. She'll be dressed in jeans and T-shirt like everyone else there, and act like a man. There's no threat. She'll just be one of the boys.
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Having analyzed the problem...
LW, could this be it?
The inherently irritating thing about strip-club bachelor parties is that they can't help but make the following statement: there are two kinds of lives, bachelor and married, and two kinds of women who correspond to them: on one side, all the sexy, desirable single women who are (theoretically) available to the bachelor and who are symbolized, if you will, by the strippers; on the other side, the nice, safe little woman he's going to settle down with for the sake of, oh, let's say companionship, offspring, and a clean house. Not sexy.
I'm not saying that most men think this way, or that that's the declared purpose of a bachelor party, but that's the built-in logic, conscious or not: a final farewell to all the sexy women the groom has given up as part of this trade-off. And so it places the bride-to-be firmly in the "no longer sexy" category that she is from now on to inhabit for her husband. And by extension, you seem to feel, it places you as a married woman in the same category. Dorky, I think you said.
Now, the fact that the "sexy" category of women is typically symbolized in such a situation by strippers is bearable. Strippers are paid to be fantasies. Most men, single or otherwise, probably don't want to date actual strippers or even go to bed with actual strippers. Some men, yes, but most men, no. So the groom who goes to a strip-club for his bachelor party is using a fantasy to say goodbye to a fantasy, since the average man getting married isn't exactly giving up legions of gorgeous available women who would drop their clothes on his command.
Maybe the problem, then, is that this female friend who's attending is not a fantasy but an actual representative of the kind of woman who the groom and his friends COULD have (or could have had). I really, really doubt she's going to sit there and verbally put down the wives and girlfriends, but just her presence is another reminder of the divide between the unsexy wife and the sexy non-wife, and as such, a put-down to the category of "wife." If strip-club bachelor parties are in and of themselves a put-down to the category of "wife," so perhaps bringing a "real single woman" into it is just an extra insult?