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Support
Indiebride! Your optional subscription fee helps keep the site up
and running. ----------- The Name Game Racing
toward love Strapped! Mommy
Diarist The
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Review: The Artful Bride The
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Marriage of My Own Why
I Popped the Question My
Wedding, My Way Happily
Ever After Am
I Really That Single? ----------- |
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The Undercover Bride
Melissa D. Some brides want to know everything that happened at the groom's
bachelor party, but there's definitely an argument to be made for
staying in the dark. Los Angeles-based writer Melissa D., who likes to
say she is "older than Britney Spears and younger than Demi Moore,"
learned that lesson when she went undercover at her fiancé's party for a
women's magazine. My editors at the magazine knew I was getting married. And they
called and asked, "Is your husband having a bachelor party? And would
you crash it as a man?" I was like, "Of course! I wanna know
what's happening." I think all girls do. And as a journalist, I was
like, "Well, I'm getting paid," and I was a struggling freelancer at
that time. I went to the magazine's office, and this makeup artist made me up as
a man with a little mustache. And a stylist put me in these clothes, a
brown shirt and these ugly pants with pleats. It was fine, but I looked
so bad; I looked like this little fat Chinese man. My brother was my partner in crime: He was throwing the party and he
told me where it was going to be and all that. And he had to tell
everybody (except my fiancé) what was going on, because otherwise there
might be problems. Nobody squealed. And because there were photographers
for the story, my brother told my fiancé, Mike, it was for a
coffee-table book on bachelor parties, and Mike was like, "All right,
whatever. Just don't use my name." I caught up with the party at a strip club. Actually, I was surprised
that the girls there were very pretty: They didn't have fake boobs, they
were young, and kind of gorgeous. And I was like, "Oh, shit!" because I
was expecting some over-tanned, forty-year-old, sagging, over-the-hill
strippers. But no, they were nubile college girls. The place, though, was kind of sleazy. Very dark; all these corner
booths. There was a lone stage in the middle, where somebody would
dance. And because I was there dressed as a man, the strippers would
come up to me, like, "You want a dance?" They wanted to give me a lap
dance. And I'd be like, "No, no." But they were very aggressive. What's
funny is I had to go to the bathroom-and I was not gonna go to
the men's room-so I tried to go in the women's bathroom. And the
strippers were like, "You're not allowed!" I confessed, "I'm a girl!"
and explained that I was a journalist. Well, the women's bathroom is
also the strippers' dressing room. And they had this great camaraderie
in there, and they were really cool. My brother and the rest of the party were already there when I
arrived. I watched as the girls hopped on and off my fiancé's lap and
slithered up against his belly, stuck his face between their breasts,
and bent over to give him a better view of their backsides. Seeing him
enjoy himself was a little bit, uh, troubling. For some reason, I thought he would be bored-I guess because I would
be bored. But no, he had a smile on his face and this wolflike grin. You
never want to think of your husband as somebody who looks at other
women. And I didn't think all these very educated, liberal, feminist men
were gonna have that much fun. They're not like typical jock guys;
they're art history majors and writers and architects. I mean, Mike
originally said he didn't really want a bachelor party or need one. He
thinks they're just silly. He always says, "It's like the most unsexy
thing. It's all fake. You're flirting with a stripper, and of course she
laughs at your jokes." Yeah. Whatever! These are just lies men
tell women to make us feel better. [laughs] What I learned is
that even if your husband's very enlightened, at heart, he's very male.
They do like seeing the boobs. And here's this place where it's totally
allowed and expected and encouraged. I did feel kind of bad because I
was spying. You know, some things should be private. But they had their
little private thing afterward; they went to another strip club after I
left. I really didn't need to see any more. I've never heard about what
happened later; I'm sure it was nothing. I think they just wanted to
enjoy that whole "last night of freedom." But really his last night of
freedom was the night before he met me. At one point, Mike walked right by me. We made eye contact, but there
was no recognition whatsoever. That was really freaky, 'cause I felt
like, "I'm here!" We'd been dating for six years; I thought he would
just mentally recognize me, but he totally didn't. I don't know what I
would have done if he did: I would've just been like, "It's just for a
magazine." Ha ha, funny! Your bachelor party's a part of my career. I
would have just confessed and tried to laugh it off; I knew he would
have probably understood. I told him a week later. We were at dinner somewhere kind of nice.
And after several glasses of wine, I was like, "You know that bachelor
party you had?" He was like, "Uh-huh." I was like, "Well, there was a
weird Chinese guy in the back; that was me." And he totally remembered.
He was like, "You were the weird, creepy Chinese guy in the corner? I'm
gonna kill you!" But he was fine with it. He thought it was hilarious.
And we were definitely very happy when we got the check for the article,
because we needed the money. I was afraid when the article came out that there'd be some negative
blowback, but people really liked it; I think it touched upon something
women are very curious about. And people definitely wanted to know
whether we were still getting married. So, in the next issue it said,
"Mike and Melissa got married. They're fine." So many of my friends who were getting married called me and were
like, "Oh my God, I totally want to do what you did!" I think girls are
worried. But the bachelor party is not really about love and it's not
really about your wedding-it's just about having fun with the boys. And
boys will be boys. So I was like, "Don't do it. Do you really want that
image seared in your brain-some woman's butt in your husband's face?" ----------- David Boyer is an oral historian and copywriter. His first book, Kings &
Queens: Queers at the Prom, was published in 2004 by Soft Skull Press. Bachelor Party Confidential is available on Amazon.
----------- Discuss bachelor and bacherlorette parties in Kvetch Related Article: When bachelors go bad: How my fiancé ruined our marriage before it even began |
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