Conference turris::womannotes-v1

    
    Stag parties are a prime example of the double standard in regard
    to sexual morality between men and women.  The whole idea infuriates
    me and my ex-husband didn't even *have* a stag party!
    
    A couple of years ago while working in an engineering dept. for
    DEC, a male friend was asked to be an usher at the wedding of one
    of the male engineers in the group.  The guy who was getting married
    certainly seemed like "a very nice guy" (whatever *that's* supposed
    to mean!) who talked about his financee as though he were really
    in love with her and appreciated her.  WELL, much to my surprise,
    the Monday after the wedding, my friend who was an usher came into
    my office and said, "Guess where we took "X" (name left out to protect
    the guilty) Friday nite-ha-ha-ha-snigger-snigger?"  I said, "Where?"
     "We took him to a brothel in Connecticut and he had his pick of
    the women there!"  I was stunned!  I said, "You mean he actually
    DID IT with a prostitute the night before he got married to the
    woman he loves?"  The answer was, "Well, I guess so.  He was in
    there long enough-ha-ha-ha".
    
    I was enraged and my friend was amazed that I was!  I said to my
    friend, "What would you think if you found out that the woman you
    were going to marry had had sex with another man the night before
    she married you, because she felt she need one last fling?  You'd
    call her a slut and a whore and you'd cancel the wedding!  That's
    what you'd do!", I screamed at him.  He walked out of my office,
    but later on he came back and said, "You're absolutely right.  I
    never thought of it that way before.  It is a double standard. 
    I wouldn't marry a woman that I knew had slept with another man
    the night before."  *That* made me feel kind of good, knowing I
    had made him *think* about something he had never thought of before!
    
    BUT, what I don't understand is why some men feel this way?  Why
    do they need one last fling - if marriage seems that dreadful to
    them, why get married?  If *I* were so in love with a man that I
    wanted to spend the rest of my life with him I wouldn't have any
    interest in being with another man - so why do some men?  (I keep
    saying *some* because I know *all* men aren't like that.)
    
    Also, I know some stag parties are fairly innocent where they just
    show "dirty" movies and play cards and maybe have a stripper in.
     But, I still don't like what it stands for.  For me it stands for
    men thinking of marriage as being roped into a life of dullness
    so they need one more wild fling - AND - the double standard where
    men are allowed to *need* this last fling and women *aren't*.
    
    The above is just my feelings.  I don't know what I would do in
    your place.  I might try to find out exactly what he's planning
    to do, and if it's basically innocent just forget about it.  If
    it isn't innocent, maybe I'd make sure I had a wild time that night
    myself!  But, I know that isn't really the answer either.
    
    Lorna
    

        Anyone who looks at marriage as a "loss of freedom" is making a
        big mistake by getting married to begin with. Marriage is a
        partnership, not a prison. 
        
        Having women throw their own "stag" party doesn't make the
        concept of a stag party any less absurd... it just doubles
        the absurdity.
        
        Besides, there's already a female "equivalent" to the stag
        party... it's called a "bridal shower".  Interesting
        demonstration of the double standard, huh?  Women get together
        to give presents... men get together to get drunk, watch
        stupid movies, and do whatever the hell else they do at those
        things.  Of course, both images are really just stereotypes...
        
        	/dave

    A friend of mine was at a wedding a few years ago.  Apparently on the
    Thursday before the wedding, there was a "rowdy" Stag party for the
    groom. 
    
    During the wedding reception, the bride was in the ladies room when
    two women came into the bathroom.  Their husbands had been at the
    Stag.  They proceeded to laugh and joke about how the Groom was
    making it with two "Ladies of the Evening" on a pool table in this
    bar plus other assorted sexual acts not be be mentioned in this
    note.  The sad thing was they did not realize the bride was there.
    Can you imagine the look on their faces when the bride emerged
    from the stall, proceeded to march into the reception hall, literally
    punched her husband in the face knocking him to the floor, threw
    the ring at him and marched out of the building.  She proceeded
    to file for an annulment the following Monday.
    
    Some people thought she over-reacted to his "little" incident but
    I can certainly appreciate her concerns.  Who wants a husband that
    would even think about screwing some broad they pulled off the street,
    let alone two of them.  YUK... Get that thing away from me......
    If that were me I would be afraid I'd catch something - V.C., Aids,
    etc.
    
    The husband tried everything to get his bride to change her mind but
    she stuck to her guns.  She is now happily married to this really
    nice man and is expecting her first child.  Her groom went on to
    marry someone but that wedding lasted much longer than the first
    one.  All of 10 months before his second wife caught him in bed
    with her best friend.  Nice Guy - yuh.
    
    As far as peer pressure, I hope any man/woman is mature enough to
    make his/her own decisions about their sex life.  If a person is
    "persuaded" otherwise, they are reacting because THEY WANT TO.  As they
    say, "You can only be a doormat if you lie down".....  Who wants
    doormat for a spouse. 
    
    I agree that getting married is not like getting the death penalty.
    Your peepee doesn't fall off just because you go to bed with the same
    person each night.  If that is not what a man/woman wants in marriage,
    why the hell get married.  Hire a maid to clean your house, bring in
    your "assortment of ladies/men" and live happily ever after.
    

Okay, before we have this poor future bride shaking in her lace-and-satin
shoes, I'd like to add my own two cents, which is experienced
from both the bride's point of view (married November 2, 1985) and the
bridemaid's....

First of all, today's stag parties are usually OVER-blown, OVER-rated,
and pretty boring stuff!!!  At my husband's (and I had the advantage of
having 4 brothers keeping an eye on the groom :*) ) they went to a
restaurant on Rte 1 in Saugus, ate alot to get their stomaches well-coated,
and went to some strip joint... Golden Banana, methinks, but not sure.
They all got drunk (except the designated driver), made raucous noises,
annoyed the strippers (who strip down to G-strings and THAT'S over-rated
believe me), were mostly too embarassed to put dollar bills in the
girl's g-strings, and were home by midnight, stewed to the gills!!!
He was under the weather on Sunday, but I was nice to him and kept the
house quiet and cooked him light food for dinner (and laughed into
my sleeve every time I saw his face)... and he was in top form for
the wedding that next Saturday.

It is a rite-of-passage party for the groom... his send off.. and, as
Dave said, it NO different than the bride's rite of passage party -- 
the bridal shower.  It is based on archaic customs AND some people still
associate it with those times of booze, broads, and debauchery....

Cow poopies!!!! If your guy is not prone to booze, broads and
debauchery, he ain't gonna indulge now!!!

If a man sleeps with a hookey (long story there!  Maybe at the end of
this) the night before you get married, don't kid yourself, sweets.
He's slept with PLENTY of hookies!!!!!  And when drunk, you
lose your inhibitions, not your mind!!!!

Trust this guy you love and are going to marry...

But DON'T trust his friends.... I'm advocating trust, not insanity :*)!
Find your best man and let him have it with BOTH barrels that you are
going to hold HIM responsible... IF something happens to the groom,
whether it be death or dismemberment or dishonor, the BEST MAN is
accountable.  With any luck it's a brother or someone equally close who
can get nervous if you rock the boat.  DO NOT TELL HIM HOW TO RUN HIS
STAG PARTY!!! He'll get really p.o.'d and the groom will look henpecked
to his friends, his pride will get hurt, and you'll suffer for it!

But tell the Best Man that it's on HIS head.

Oh, and I think you're nuts if you let them have the stag party the night
before the wedding.  He'll be bleary-eyed and probably very hung-over,
and starting a marriage with a fight is crazy.....

But please don't worry.... he won't do anything now that he hasn't been
prone to do....

Karen

    	This is not an arguement in support of stag parties!
    
    	The stag parties I've attended have been a bit tame compared
    with those detailed in other replies but they have mostly been what
    I was taught they were suppose to be, a time to say goodbye to one
    life style in preparation for a new one.  The concept is quite old
    and possibly doesn't fit as well today as it did at one time but
    it still appears to be somewhat appropriate, at least in concept.
    The concept, as I learned it, did not include people engaging in
    sex.  However, sexual activity was a part of a stag party or two,
    as I recall.
    
    	A number of years ago (maybe 15 or 20?) female 'stag' parties
    were somewhat in vogue among my friends, as were coed 'stag' parties,
    with 'stag' being used in place of 'last party as a single person.'
    Most were little more than an excuse to get drunk.  Some were a
    true experience in saying goodbye to a lifestyle and special
    relationships with specific people.
                                
    	How a groom/bride-to-be acts just prior to being married
    will probably be no different than he/she acted during the engagement
    period and should not come as any big surprise.
    
    Douglas

    My ex didn't have a stag party, but his brothers and cousins all
    got together and mailed masses of sympathy cards to him...

	My husband's stag party was a dinner at a restaurant, and lots of
	drinking at a friend's house afterwards.  It was a typical party
	that that particular group of friends have.  I drove him there
	(it was a surprise, and we were ostensibly going to meet a friend
	for dinner there), and I picked him up afterwards.  I was not going
	to trust anyone not to drink too much, and I was *not* going to
	have my fiance injured (or worse) on his way home from his stag party.

	..Karen

	By the way, he told me afterwards that he wish'd I had stayed, since
	he doesn't have as much fun at a party without me.

From the "stag" parties I've encountered, I have taken away a couple
of guidelines....

a. The "parties" are mostly collections of men drinking a lot (too much?)
and watching young ladies remove their clothes to the accompaniment of
music, either live or on film. There is much ribald language and "locker room"
humour, but no sexual activity. Sometimes, misguided friends will play jokes
on the groom-elect to further embarrass him for their amusement.

b. Afterwards, the paticipants (those that can remember!) exaggerate the events
of the evening, to _further_ embarrass the groom, and to "impress" the
listeners with their prowess. I mean, where is the glory in saying "Well, we
went to Brad's stag party and watched boring films and drank too much. Brad
passed out at midnight, so we all went home".  BUT, to say "Oh, you missed a
great party. I was at Brad's stag party and he wouldn't leave the girls alone;
oh, we had strippers and hookers and blue movies and ....." to describe the
same party saves a lot of "face".

		Nigel

ps: As a footnote, when I got married, I went out for a quiet dinner with a
couple of friends (the ushers & best man, after we'd been measured for Tuxes).
We had a good meal and a couple of drinks with dinner, then all went our
separate ways. My wife's friends, on the other hand, took her to "Ladies Night"
at the Golden Banana..... 

    "But men will be men"....?  Okay, where are all the guys that keep
    telling me "but, we're not all like that"?
    
    Seriously, we are all different, and we all have our set of acceptible
    standards for behavior.  Hopefully your standards aren't to different
    from those of your fiance.  How about talking to him about your
    concerns?  He'll know where you stand and you'll know where he stands.
    It will also force him to think about what he thinks is acceptible
    before any temptations and while sober.  He'll know you care and
    know that if he has to disappoint his friends someone will think
    more of him for it.
    
    By the way, it has been my general observation that party stories
    tend to be more impressive than the actual event.

    I have had the chance to attend several Stag parties in the last
    year.  Some were dinners at a restaurant and other were at someone's
    house.  the one's at the houses, had strippers but in every case,
    the groom had stated that he didn't want to have anything to do
    with them after their "show".  I have another friend who is going
    to get married this fall and he stated he just wanted to go out
    to dinner with us and get "plowed".
    
    The bottom line is, if the groom loves the bride enough, most of
    them feel the same way.  They could not "do" anything with anyone
    else.  If your love is strong enough (I'm sure it is) you have nothing
    to worry about.

    I must  admit  that  I have no experience of the American version of 
    the stag party, but I have attended my fair share in Britain and can 
    attest to the relative tameness of the proceedings.
    
    As  a  partial  aside: I used to be a professional photographer, and 
    have over the years photographed a number of weddings  for  friends, 
    both male and female. My own special addition, being a friend of the 
    couple, has always been to include a picture taken at the stag party 
    and  one  taken  at the bridal shower (known by a less sophisticated 
    term in Britain of course) in the album.  One consequence of this is 
    that each knows a little of what happened at the others "do". I have 
    never known the camera dampen proceedings noticeably (indeed  on  at 
    least one occasion my second camera - a polaroid - livened up things 
    a little!)
    
    /. Ian .\

    	Shall we make an effort to use the proper term for the prewedding
    male party?  It is called, at least in the U.S., a bachelor party.
    At one time, 25 years ago (?), only bachelors were invited to attend.
    
    	Stag parties are any male only party (the term stag is often
    used today to reflect any party to whom only members of a single
    sex are invited).  The purpose of stag parties, when I was growing
    and today among my friends, is the support of male bonding - a time
    for men to get together and talk about subjects of mutual interest
    and concern.  My generation of males, at least those I was raised
    with, were taught many subjects are never openly discussed.  Therefore
    we learned how to discuss taboo subjects in rather indirect ways.
    People who were not raised in a like manner would probably find
    our 'chats' rather boring unless we explained what we were really
    talking about, something we have no desire to do.  Coeducational
    discussions are often quite stimulating but there are times when
    we prefer to limit our discussion groups to men only.  This is not
    meant to spite women.  Don't women want to limit their discussion
    groups to women sometimes?
    
    It has been pointed out to me on a number of occasions by the wife
    of one or the other of us who has overheard 'stag' conversations 
    that the most interesting part of an evening's conversation has
    been what was not said.  A little analysis of what was overheard
    often shows much more than realized was said, just not in
    'conventional' terms.

    My husband did not have a "bachelor" party per se (I certainly
    didn't want a bridal shower!).  But about a week before the wedding,
    he did go out for a night on the town with his brothers and a couple
    of friends (very informal and not organized at all).  
    
    I didn't resent this, but I did resent the implication (which did not
    come from my husband, but from the others involved) that this was the
    "last time around".  It really burned me that these single men were
    making a judgement about how *our* marriage was going to be.  Marriage
    shouldn't (and hasn't) "clipped his wings".  It's the underlying
    assumption that it will which makes those raucous, drunken events
    deplored in this file seem necessary to some.
    
    Gloria 

                <<< 2B::NOTES1:[NOTES$LIBRARY]MENNOTES.NOTE;1 >>>
              -< Shooting the Breeze...Topics of Interest to Men >-
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Note 58.7                         STAG PARTIES                           7 of 15
RDGENG::LESLIE "Andy `{o}^{o}' Leslie, ECSSE. OSI."  16 lines  15-JAN-1987 17:19
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    It is not unknown in the UK for such parties to end by tying the
    bridegroom naked to a lamp-post or by putting him on a train for
    600 miles away so that he doesn't make the wedding.
    
    With friends like that, who needs friends.
    
    
    Seriously, the most important rule when you have a stag or hen night
    is that they must NOT occur the night before the wedding. Too much
    sickness/hangover may ruin the day!
    
    Even more seriously, if you don't trust your fianc�, why are you
    marrying him? Why should a ring make you trust him more. If you
    don't trust him, don't marry him.
    
    Andy
    

    Andy's  recollection is parallel to mine ...  In Britain such public 
    misdemeanors have on occasion led to the groom  being  delivered  to 
    the church by the police.  Sometimes with a summons to appear before 
    the magistrate in the near future.
    
    This appears to point up another cultural difference between America 
    and  Britain: in America this party is a "bachelor party" , formerly 
    attended only by bachelor friends and relatives of  the  groom,  and 
    with a strong (if perhaps only suggested) sexual bias. In Britain it 
    is a "stag night", no suggestion of marital status of the  attendees 
    is  implied,  and  it  is  usually  restricted  to getting drunk and 
    committing the groom to be to an embarrassing denouement...
    
    /. Ian .\

    Re: .18
    
    	I have been told by British relatives the bachelor party was,
    at least at one time, limited to bachelors.  Either the relatives
    were mistaken (doubtfull) or the times have changed.
    
    	The bachelor party in the U.S. (can't speak for Canada, Mexico,
    or the other countries of which America is comprised) is no longer
    limited to bachelors, though it was so limited among my circle some
    years ago.  As to the sexual aspect of the bachelor's party, isn't
    there a rather successful play "No sex pelase, were British"? ;-)
    
    Douglas

re .19

Your relatives need not be mistaken. Britain is far from a homogeneous country,
despite being physically smaller than many American states.

I was speaking from my own recollection (and for the record I am distinctly
British -- a geordie).
                    
/. Ian .\

PS if you don't know what a geordie is -- Andy Capp (the cartoon character)
is the archetypical geordie.

PPS if a non-geordie says that within my hearing I'll separate his head
from his shoulders!

    (Geordies are northern sassenachs that sound vaguely like lowland scots)
    
    					=maggie
    
    (sassenachs are saxons, i.e., english)

    
                         -- I have to add mine... -
    
    My husband's "bachelor party" was playing basketball with his
    friends until the wee hours.  Harmless, fun and in my mind,
    rational.
    
    I should also add that I married an *angel*.
    
    Victoria

> "But men will be men"....?  Okay, where are all the guys that keep telling me
> "but, we're not all like that"?

Right here.  I disagree with the comment.  People will be themselves.
 <_Jym_>

    I also disagree.  Not all men will be "men."
    I refused to attend any such bachelor party as
    some have suggested are normal.
    I hope I surprised no one by doing so.

    I have to agree with the general consensus of the note, Stag parties
    aren't what they are advertised!  I just had a stag for my younger
    brother and I had everyone showup at my place, they got drunk, watched
    a couple movies on the vcr and played cards.  I have been to stags
    that had live entertainment, but in the day of AIDS and other great
    wedding gifts like that, there seems to be less interest in partaking
    in the fun.
    
    re .17
      
       I remember about 5 years ago a good friend's brother was taken
    in a drunken state to a greyhound bus with no money in pocket, piled
    into the bus and then woke up in Buffalo NY 1 day before his wedding.
    Talk about a panicked mother of the bride!
    
    Mike B
    

    What's the matter?  Can't you decide?
    
    :-) :-)
    
    DFW