An unspoken code of secrecy surrounds bachelor parties. I think it’s to keep women on their toes, and to spare them the grief of the details. “The boys got together and went to a strip club,” is a heck of a lot less upsetting than, “We got trashed on cheap whisky, went to Hooter-Nannies, and I lost myself in a lapdance given by a tall, lithe woman who called herself Luscious Linda. Oh, and she smelled divine!”
Before I go on, let me just say that I am so happy that The Beard did not have a bachelor party. Even though I know that his friends – who are also my friends, for the most part – likely would have planned an evening of PBR and Wii, I’m still happy. Why? Because after reading Bachelor Party Confidential by David Boyer I now know that all it takes is one sleazy friend with a phone book handy to turn a relatively mild evening of male bonding into a sex crazed evening that could be considered grounds for annulment.
Maybe.
Yes, the men interviewed in Bachelor Party Confidential were given the sweet gift of anonymity. Yes, the author is a gay man and thus had little vested interest in the mythos surrounding hetero bachelor parties. And, yes, strippers and such ilk were also given space to tell their side of the story. But I remain a skeptic. People in general tend to brag when they know their story can’t be verified. When I lived in Costa Rica, I’d sit at the bar talking to strangers, lying my butt off about my life, and for all I know they were journalists writing stories about ex-pats in Central America. People exaggerate and embellish some parts of their stories while holding others back. They may not even realize they’re doing it!
Did Anthony V. attend a bachelor-party-turned-orgy in 1996? Did he marry a stripper he did the deed with at a fake bachelor party he and his buddies held for the heck of it? Does VancourverGuy, a member of LoveShack forums, really think that, uh, manually stimulating a stripper isn’t cheating? How many people are really hiring little people to dance and undress at their bachelor parties? The one thing Bachelor Party Confidential doesn’t do is give you any idea of how frequently best men are calling up acts like Ouchy the adult sex clown to beat the groom-to-be or substituting girl-on-girl sex shows for the traditional strip-tease dancer.
What Bachelor Party Confidential does do is give vanilla white-bread nerd girls like me a reason to turn beet red and mutter, “Oh my gosh!” while reading on the treadmill at the gym. I think the old biddy on the treadmill next to mine got more than she bargained for when she decided to read over my shoulder.
Bachelor Party Confidential also served as a reminder that my group of pals is in no way representative of any sort of “norm.” The Beard grew up in Nevada and had frequent non-sexy contact with strippers as a pizza delivery boy…which may be why he’s not so keen on them today. Most of my male friends would choose marathon Zelda (yes, original Zelda) sessions over live sex shows. And the one time anyone tried to order a dancer at a party I attended, no one could figure out who to call. Sure, you could easily find pictures analogous to the grainy snapshots at the start of each chapter in my own college photo albums, but…well, you’ll just have to read the book.
Before you write it off as some sort of titillating men-are-such-dogs song and dance, however, know that there are plenty of gents who shared their stories with Boyer that did not shame themselves on the evening before their wedding. There are even plenty of guys who said, “To heck with whole strippers and booze thing, let’s get creative!” Cade H. and his posse built a tree house in the middle of the woods in Woodstock, NY. Bryce C. and his buds bonded over D&D. And services are popping up all over that will plan the ultimate in extreme bachelor parties with white water, parachutes, and the like.
After finishing Bachelor Party Confidential, I’m still happy that The Beard didn’t have a bachelor party. But I’m surer than sure that his wouldn’t have been a balls-out Vegas hookers getting nasty in the bathroom kind of affair. For every guy who does have that kind of party, I’m going to guess that there are about 100 or 1,000 who sit around in a basement rec room getting kind of drunk and reminiscing about old times from 8 p.m. to midnight.
If you decide to pick up Bachelor Party Confidential — and I highly recommend you do, if only to make the biddies blush — just remember that it is a book designed to shock you, not a book outlining ALL of the possible forms a modern bachelor party can take. Enjoy!
My fiancé and I are both having parties two nights before the wedding. His will be a LAN party, and if he even thinks anyone is calling a stripper I know he’ll leave (he also doesn’t drink, so no danger there). By order of my maid of honor, my party will involve ice cream cake and chick flicks. I’m excited.
LAN parties are fun and ice cream cake is fun…perhaps I will combine them at some point in the future!
My sister in law wouldn’t let my brother have a party…and all he wanted was to go down to his favorite pub with his best buds and have a couple beers.
I told my beloved he was free to have a party if he liked. He stared at me as though I’d grown horns. I knew that if he had a bachelor party it would be a pretty tame one. He didn’t have one, but I trusted him absolutely.
Then again I told my bridesmaids that the first one to suggest taking me out for a bachelorette party would be first up against the wall. I don’t drink and I wasn’t prepared to be publicly draped in plastic penii. But if someone had suggested one that was a slumber party with romantic movies or something, I’d probably have enjoyed that.
I love the fact that people are getting more creative with these bashes now. The treehouse building party sounds like a real blast!
We both had parties, and I wouldn’t trade it for the world.
My husband actually had a whole weekend, and I’ve heard all the stories and wasn’t worried in the slightest. IMO the worst thing he did was drink a beer bong that someone started pouring bourbon in, puke, and keep going. That’s disgusting.
I was WAY angrier that the night before our actual wedding he was out until 3am just drinking. meanwhile I had to drive an hour because I forgot something and was dead tired. He’s going to be working that off for years….
Me and my fiance’ had plenty of discussions on what should and should not be happening at my bachelor party. Since I’m not a stripper/go crazy kind of guy, it’ll be a bunch of riding around, drinking and reminiscing.
Never would I have thought an entire expose’ on the party practice would come out, but I’m glad my fiance’ is not aware of it yet. That would be much unnecessary strife just days away from our wedding.
Not for nothing, if I couldn’t trust a guy to stay within reasonable limits on his bachelor party (which for me are admittedly pretty laid back) I wouldn’t be marrying him.
My good friend almost didn’t go through with the wedding because she found out her fiance got a little handsy with the stripper. Needless to say, it ruined the big day. She’s not smiling in the photos.
Guys can be idiots.
P.S. the “biddy” on the treadmill beside you was probably in her 20s in the 1960s, so I woudn’t assume she’s that easily shocked.
I’m about halfway between bride and biddy myself.