August 7, 2013 • 31 mins
Why did it take until 1998 for Cosmopolitan to use the term "bachelorette party?" Because the raucous pre-wedding shindigs haven't been around very long, since bachelor parties were for grooms and showers were for brides. Cristen and Caroline explore the social and sexual symbolism of the rise of the bachelorette party.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to stuff Mom Never told you from house stuff
Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Kristen and I'm Caroline, and today we are talking about
bachelorette parties. Last episode we talked about engagement rings, and
the previous episode we talked about gay marriage. Yes, we
(00:26):
do have marriage on the mind, not because either one
of us is about to walk down the aisle, but
because the way we know of and yeah, that we
know of, but because it is wedding season. And surprisingly,
bachelorette parties have a very interesting history and very stuff
mom never told you ish history. That's right. And I
(00:47):
let me say I was totally surprised that bachelorette party
history is so brief. Yeah, I mean it's it's kind
of a new thing. The bachelorette party that you think
of today is pretty new. Um. I actually I threw
a bachelorette party a couple of years ago. How did
(01:07):
it go? It was? It was kind of depressing. What
I'm going to tell you, Well, I think the important
thing and I feel like etiquette guides tell you this.
When you plan a bachelorette party, you have to plan
it with the bride in mind. Which seems obvious, but
if your bride is like a total party girl, you
(01:27):
should have a big party type of thing. We're a
pub crawl or whatever. But if your bride is quieter
and maybe just like the girls getaway kind of bride,
maybe you shouldn't plan a pub crawl. Did you plan
a pub crawl? Yeah? Yeah I did. And uh, the
the fellow women who you know, we all had dinner
first and then we started the pub crawl, they all
(01:49):
just started to like disappear. But so by the time
we were at like the third or fourth bar, it
was pretty much just the bridesmaids and the bride. And
let me tell you, she was not having a good
time because she was basically I don't know if she's
feeling bad that all those ladies left, but I think
what she really wanted was like, let's just drink with
my girls and you know, have some champagne and a
good time. So we got a cab, we went back
(02:11):
to the hotel, we drank some champagne and put on
a stupid eighties movie and that was the most fun
part of the night. That sounds fun, Yeah, yeah, I
planned one last year. In fact, for one of my
best friends and it was a lot of fun. It
was very cold when it happened, and we did a
pub crawl as well, um, which uh ended with us
(02:37):
almost being asked to leave an establishment, not because we
were so rowdy, but because I bought everybody whistles and
even though we knew some of the people who were
working at this bar. Uh. And that's really the only
reason we didn't get kicked out, because you know, we
wanted to make an entrance for for the bride to
(02:57):
be and I could just see the bar Nope, nope,
go out, turned around. Yeah, and whistles indoors. Not a
penis shaped whistles. They were not penis shaped whistles. But
we did have um, oh we did. I've made cocktails
for everyone beforehand, and there were penis stirs, cocktail stirs. Yeah,
(03:22):
we kept it classy ish. But speaking of that penis paraphernalia,
that kind of stuff is very new to the bachelorette culture,
and according to a prominent bachelorette scholar, yes there is one.
It says a lot about our sexual moray's and gender equity.
(03:42):
But first, a brief historical word on bridesmaids, because surprisingly
there's not a ton of history on bridesmaids. There's this
idea that it goes back to ancient Rome when some
brides Toby would have been accompanied by a ton of bridesmaids,
all dressed. Idea nically to try to trip up any
(04:03):
evil spirits that might try to whisk her away, or
kidnappers you might try to whisk her away. So bride's
maids were I guess, sort of like bodyguards at first. Yeah,
but that whole spirit superstition carried through for quite a while,
all the way through the nineteenth century England. Because if
you look at some Victorian era wedding photographs, you can't
even tell which one is the bride and which one
(04:24):
is the bride'smaid. Yeah, and that's why I don't understand
why people get upset when I just wear wedding dresses
to the weddings. You know, sorry, I look so good
and white. But you're just doing it for the bride.
I think you know you're protecting her. I don't actually
do that. Just to clarify um, but bachelor parties have
(04:44):
ancient roots. The often sided historical precedent to the modern
day bachelor party is fifth century BC. Sparta Sparta, where
soldiers would hold a dinner in the groom to be
his honor and toast him. But yeah, I mean it
didn't stay that classy for long. Things things did get
(05:05):
a little rowdier over time. In six, i'd never I mean,
I don't know why I would have heard this, but
I had never heard this. U. P. T. Barnum's grandson,
Herbert Barnum's Seeley through a stag party that ended up
getting rated by the cops because of rumors that a
belly dancer would be making a nude appearance. Yeah. And
in nineteen the term bachelor party is used for the
(05:29):
first time in a Scottish publication, Chambers Journal of Literature,
Science and the Odds, to describe a jolly old party.
So we have we we've got that whole culture already
established by two and then in four pop culture wise,
we have the first movie devoted to this pre wedding debauchery,
(05:52):
appropriately called bachelor party. Yeah, but it's Tom Hanks. So yeah,
I've never seen it, but you know it's gonna be sweet.
It is gonna end up sweet. Um. But but the
whole idea though, as to why bachelor parties have this
extensive history is that we have long accepted that men
(06:12):
want to sow their wild oats, and they are more
at liberty to have sex before marriage and tom cat
around and and do as men are want to do.
That whole notion that that it's simply in men's natures
to be you know, sex fiends, right, I mean, I
think the idea and and uh that that bachelor party
(06:35):
scholar you mentioned, Beth Monta Murro, brings it up that
there's an idea that men are really giving something up
when they get married, whereas women are gaining something incredible
like a life. Finally, I have a life because I
have a man. And so that that is sort of
what all of this hinges on. Because men get to
have that rowdy bachelor party to say goodbye to their
(06:58):
days of freedom. Women and however, they tend to get
bridle showers. Well, yeah, I mean because for a long,
long long time, throughout that history of you know, the
extensive history the bachelor party, the economic aspiration for a
woman was limited to being a wife and mother. So
it makes sense that the bridle shower is has been
(07:20):
the go to thing for so long that it actually
goes back to sixteenth and seventeenth century Holland, and the
origin story is that there was a woman who wanted
to marry a poor guy, and so neighbors showered her
with household gifts because her father was like, no, you're
not gonna marry this poor dude, and her neighbors were like, oh,
(07:40):
we shall help you. We will give you this, ye
old kitchen aid Nixon I know, and unfortunately can't do
a Dutch accent, but um. In the late nineteenth century,
bridle showers became routine for wealthier women in the United States,
which were focused around preparing them for their housewife e duties.
This was all around the time that you have the
(08:01):
cult of domesticity and the rise of consumerism, which melded
together nicely. Well. Yeah, around this time also you have
things like hope chests and trousseau's which the bride's family
would fill with linens and and dishes and stuff so
she could bring that into the marriage. I actually have
(08:22):
a friend whose little sister her parents had been filling
this hope chest for her for years, but the parents
didn't do it for my friend because they were so
convinced that the little sister would get married and the
older sister would not. Why would they be filling a
hope chest to begin with? What did they put inside
of a very traditional southern family uh? Literally like uh,
(08:45):
stuff from the grandmother to get passed down, So like
fine china, fine silver, fine linens, all of that stuff.
My mom does have a silver tea service waiting for me,
and it has been waiting for me for years and
almost any time I see her, she asked me if
I want to want to take my silver tea service
home and I and I'm putting it off. Yeah, Well,
(09:07):
my mom says that I have a mink coat waiting
for me. WHOA, Yeah, I said that I'm going to
attach a bear head to it and put it on
the floor like a rug. There you go. It doesn't
even need a bearhead. Just go ahead and toss that
thing down and call it a day. But that that
idea though, of women filling the hope chest, is because
traditionally men were expected to buy the house in the land,
whereas women would provide the soft goods. And before traditional
(09:30):
bridal showers where you might bring gifts for less wealthy women,
there were kind of sweet traditions. I think of the
a lot of women getting together to do things like
so the new monogram on sheets and linen's maybe get
together to help make a new quilt for a bed um.
Lots of these different kinds of again very domestic oriented
(09:54):
pre wedding traditions for women, but it was one structured
of course, around men as the breadwinner and the head
of household. There was even one game that was I
guess more taking place in the first half of the
twentieth century where a hostess would hide trinkets in cakes
(10:15):
that would be given to any unmarried women who would
attend a bridle shower, and these trinkets would symbolize what
their future husband's professions might be, so kind of like
a precursor to playing mash Yeah, fingers crossed for the
stethoscope lord. All right, Well, today, of modern brides still
(10:38):
have those bridal showers, even though there's kind of a
shift in how we view them, even though it's more
like just based on tradition versus I really really want
a bridle shower where they feed me cucumber sandwiches and tea.
What are you saying you do want that? Because I
could go for a cucumber sandwich, I mean, I could go.
Haven't we established that I could go for a sandwich
at any time? That's true, That's true, and it was
(11:00):
penn State, says y'allogist Beth Monima, who we've already mentioned
a couple of times, the the bachelorette party scholar, who
who was the one who said that brides are holding
these showers because of pressure's placed on them by earlier generations. Yeah,
but while a percent of modern bride's still have the showers,
almost as many seventy seven percent also have the bachelorette party,
(11:24):
because you know, the bridal shower is what you invite
your mom to, your your soon to be mother in law.
Perhaps that's the calm party, and then you have the
wild bachelorette. And but it wasn't until the nineteen sixties
that we even have anything like a bachelorette party start
(11:44):
to happen, thanks Monumorro says to things like the sexual
revolution and birth control. But the history of bachelotte parties
in the UK is a little bit older. Um The
term hen party dates back to the eighteen hundreds, but
that was just referring to a gathering of ladies, any
any gathering of women, so we were having a hen party. Oh,
(12:08):
I guess you probably need more than two women to
form a hen party. Anyhoo. So in nineteen seventies six though,
The Times used hen party for the first time in
the pre wedding sense. So a little bit sooner than
we're going to see the rise of the term bachelor
party in the United States. But even before the term
(12:29):
hen party was used as we would think of it
in reference to something like a bachelorette party, there were
similar traditions already happening, such as a female industrial workers
would get pranked on their last days of working at
the factory, for instance, before they got married, because the
expectation was they're gonna get married and then you know,
we work, but before Richard Gere came in to carry
(12:50):
them out of the factory. Never mind just a reference
to a movie I've seen a thousand times. But all
of this kind of grew out of before the sixties,
the personal showers, which were somewhere in between the bridle
showers and the bachelorette parties. It wasn't with your extended
family and your mom and your aunt, your grandmother. It
was with your close friends. Because those were the parties
(13:11):
like in the fifties where the bride would get lingerie
and other things she didn't necessarily want to open in
front of extended family, but they were still subdued, uh.
They were at people's houses. So it's it's kind of
that in between stage before we get into the full
big body bachelorette parties. And speaking of the full big
body bachelorette parties, Something Old, something Bold Bridle Showers and
(13:36):
Bachelorette Parties by Beth Montamorrow is our major source for
all of this, by the way, because she's really the
only person who has taken a deep scholarly dive into
this culture. And she says that in the nineteen eighties,
bachelotte parties were more about cementing friendships before that transition
into marriage. And there were a couple of scholars here
(13:56):
and there who hinted at bachelotte traditions. Instance, in two
we have Paula L. Dressel and David Peterson who were
studying male strippers, and they mentioned that some women would
see male strippers as a part of their celebrations of
upcoming marriages. Right, But it wasn't until nineteen five that
(14:17):
researcher Rebecca Clark uses the term bachelorette party to describe
what motivated women's attendance at one of these particular clubs,
and she writes about how media coverage at this time
in the eighties and nineties really treated bachelorette parties like
something novel, foreign and crazy, like can you believe what
women are doing? And uh. In nineteen eight Richard Roper
(14:40):
of Eberton Roper Fame, UH, he wrote an article for
the Chicago Sun Times that really signaled a shift in
how the media talked about bachelorette parties. It was the
first one to really explain it as a social social ritual,
not something subdued and like, well, let's have a shower
and then go out for drink, y'all. It was really
(15:02):
kind of signaling the shift that it was moving before that,
beyond that into actual pre planned nights of debauchery. I
was surprised that it wasn't until nine I believe that
the term pops up in Cosmo. I would assume. I
would have assumed that Cosmo would be all over that
absolutely um. And then I found it funny that in
(15:22):
two thousand two, not so long ago, there was a
Wall Street Journal cover story about how bachelorette parties were
getting super raunchy while bachelor parties were simultaneously steering away
from strip clubs, and they attributed it to shifting gender
roles in the workplace. Well, yeah, I mean gender roles
and feminism definitely came up. And around the same time
(15:45):
as that Wall Street Journal article, there was a shift
in describing them as feminist activities, like we are taking
the bull by the horns and we are going out
as women, and a lot of these articles the shift
in tone. It started to describe women of the millennium
as a sarting equality and demonstrating their ability to flaunt
their sexuality. And so parties are starting to move more
(16:07):
into the public places, getting more elaborate and expensive, just
at the same time as the cost of weddings is
shooting up. So as we're getting bigger weddings, we're also
getting bigger, more ritualized pre wedding activities. Yeah, and you
could say that all of this just ties into the
commodification of American weddings that now costs on average around
(16:28):
twenty eight thousand dollars because now you have for bachelorette parties.
All of this pianist paraphernalia available to buy. For instance,
you have things like Destination Bachelorette parties, uh that you
can spend so much money on. Um. There's also, for instance,
(16:48):
being a merchandise. According to the not dot com, do
you want to hear the seven Bachelorette essentials, Well, you
gotta have a headpiece for the bride a dare lists
a suck for a buck accessory. Sorry I had to
say that on a podcast, But essentially it's like you
wear a candy necklace and strange men can dollar to
(17:12):
bite a piece off. I don't like that at all.
Or you can make your own. It's suggested by taping
candies to a shirt. That should I can I just
put a cheeseburger on a necklace and oh that would
be my that'll that. See, it's all about creating your
own rituals kristen Burg for a book. But you also
(17:32):
need naughty accessories blow up doll peanis paraphernalia of course,
And just to show how dated this article is, disposable cameras. Yeah,
you don't want to have that file lingering on your computer,
so you need to or drunk Facebook posting. Right. Well, now,
(17:53):
the last bachelor party when she was not only a
destination bachelor atte party sport of it was an Athens
so it involved leaving Atlanta, but there were a lot
of women coming in from like Texas and all over
the place. But yeah, there were penis cookies. So you know,
it's a thing. I've seen many a penis cake on
the internet, not that, not that I'm going looking for them.
(18:14):
In my let me clarify and my research on bachelorette parties,
I saw many photos of penis shaped cakes. Uh So,
but what does what does all of this mean though, Caroline,
Because Monta Murrow says that there is a deeper meaning
to these penis whistles and such. She says that bachelorette
(18:35):
parties and bridle showers are not just women's parties. They
are rituals of status consumption and materialism, of transition and ambivalence,
of friendship and reinforcement of relationships among women, and of transformation. Yeah,
and and she does write also about what it means
(18:56):
for the transformation of sexual attitudes and morals and Moray's
and and you know, gender norms and all of that. Stuff.
She writes that the very existence of the bachelorette party
is evidence that women have made some real inroads as
far as gender equality. Interesting, she said, men had bachelor
parties because they were about to be trapped. So this
(19:17):
is the same thing we talked about that. Now maybe
this shows that women. Hey, if we're gonna talk about
losing things like losing freedom, maybe women are losing their
sexual freedom too. And so, she says, as the sexual
double standard lost some of its power, and as women's
rights and freedoms became more pronounced, it has become more
socially acceptable for women to acknowledge that they too are
(19:38):
entitled to a last night of freedom. And yet, though
about all of that penis paraphernalia um, she says that
they're actually symbolic of a contradictory role that a bride
is forced to play. She says, within hours of the
bachelorette party ending, she'll morph from body bachelorette to blushing,
virginal bride. And it's it's funny the discussion, the super
(20:03):
serious discussion of women going to male strip clubs and
what it means and and so. Mona Muro says that
though not necessarily consciously. Many women who end up at
mail strip clubs tend to be making fun of the
idea that men feel it necessary to have a last
night of freedom that involves porn and strip clubs, and
(20:24):
author Jacqueline Geller echoes that she says that the bachelorette
party is a gesture of retaliation rather than an actual
sensual adventure. It's answering almost an imagined insult, rather than
responding to the bachelor party's text of lewd sexuality, rather
than its subtext lamenting lost friendship. Yeah, the for instance,
(20:46):
the bachelorette party that I helped plan for my best
friend did not include any male strippers or male strip
club or anything like that. A because she would have
been not happy about that, and because it just wasn't necessary,
you know. Now, One thing though, that uh we we
really didn't look into at all. But it's something that
(21:09):
came up when I was listening to UM an episode
of Savage Love not too long ago, there was a
caller talking about how it was a gay guy calling
in complaining about bachelorette parties coming into gay bars and
gay strip clubs and tearing the place up and essentially
saying that these women need to respect these spaces, that
(21:35):
it's not so koshert for you to just waltson blow
in your penis whistle and disturbing their Friday night out
or whatever. And I know for a fact actually that
here in Atlanta, speaking of male strip clubs, there is
a gay mail strip club that if you are a woman,
you are not going to be let in with a
(21:57):
group of women because they pretty much have a policy
against bachelorette parties. Because I do I agree with the
idea that you know what, your bachelorette party is not
your one night to go be obnoxious at a gay bar. Well,
it's not your one night to be obnoxious anywhere. Honestly,
I think you can. I think it's possible to have
(22:17):
a bachelorette party and not annoy the crap out of
everyone around you. But I do think that bachelorette parties
especially do take more license saying it would be oh,
it's totally fine, it'll be fun. We'll just go and
go to a gay bar and and you know, all
of the men will find us fabulous. And and just
for women out there, I think that maybe you need
(22:38):
to take a second thought about respecting, uh, expecting their spaces,
just like we wouldn't probably want uh, well, I don't
know any bar I wouldn't really want a bachelorette party
to come in and try to take over the place.
So just something to think about. Yeah, well then you
have to ask yourself. Okay, well, so as their hooting
and holleran and all these public spaces, what else are
(23:00):
they doing? They're drinking, drinking. I was surprised at the
number of studies on bachelotte parties and alcohol and the
concern over it, and and the seeming surprise over how
much women are drinking at these parties. Well, but I mean,
I don't think it's so shocking. I mean, I think
any surprise express is sort of maybe not genuine, or
(23:23):
maybe it's I think it's weird that they're surprised that
at something like a bachelorette party, where you are already
stepping outside of normal behavior, um, that that that you
would be drinking a lot. Well, speaking of norms, uh.
In Changing gender Norms for alcohol consumption, social drinking, and
lowered inhibition at bachelorette parties, the authors concluded that women's
(23:46):
use of alcohol in this ritual challenges existing gender norms
and conceptions of masculinity and feminity. So the drinking, in
a way is simply an extension of doing the things
like being overtly sexual by wearing a penis necklaces and
having asking men to pay a dollar to bite candy
(24:09):
off of a necklace and going to a strip club,
et cetera. Yeah, And according to a May study in
the Journal of Substance Abuse, Uh, they really do talk
about like, oh, there's so much drinking, saying that of
women in these bachelorette parties reported drinking an average of
five drinks over the course of the night. And I
(24:31):
understand what the definition of binge drinking is, and that
is it. Yes, but I kind of feel like, uh,
you know, I think that maybe a one night, a
one off at a bachelorette party, is that's so terrible.
I mean, unless it's leading to awful behavior that puts
you in an unsafe position. Well, and guess I guess
a scholar would just say, well, why is that ritual
(24:54):
so specifically attached to bachelorette Because you know, I I
think and I would be curious to hear from listeners
on this. I think that the the emerging stereotype for
bachelorette parties is more of a pub crawl kind of
thing where you go out and you are gonna binge,
drink and for guys. When I think of a bachelor
party these days, yeah you have the hangover and the
(25:17):
hangover part two and the hangover part three. Now, Um,
but I imagine guys doing things like drinking some scotch
and smoking cigars in one place. I mean maybe, I
don't know, I don't think of that. I mean, I
guess I still think of like the traditional like go
out and get schwaisted. Apparently I have a very aristocratic idea.
(25:39):
I don't know. Maybe your dude friends are more sophisticated
than mine. I don't know. I feel like almost there's
there's a touch of overcompensation in a way with with
bachelortte parties, where it's like we go so far, so
far out because obviously there's the whole stripper aspect that's seeing,
(26:00):
you know, stereotypical. But um, yeah, I don't know. I'm
I'm I'm so curious to hear from listeners on this one.
Our bachelorette parties a symbol of gender and sexual equality
and a sign of good things, um or are they
just a night of frivolous excess? Yeah, I mean, I
(26:25):
don't know. It's interesting some of the things we read
talked about girls nights and girls like trips to a
mountain cabin as something really subdued and like, you know,
whereas the party with the penis necklaces and all the
cocktails is is the fancy, fun thing to do, And
it's like, well again, like I said at the beginning,
I mean you kind of have to take into account
(26:46):
what the bride wants, what's her personality, right, you know
what what what group of friends are you getting together? Yeah?
And what will they want to do? And I had
a great time at my at my best friends we
had we all had a really fun time and it
was just enough too much. It ended with a lot
of pizza, which was great. Um So I'm definitely not
(27:06):
against the ritual at all, but it's it's compelling to
stop and think of where did all of this come from?
Birth control, baby birth, bakst. And with that, listeners, we
want to hear from you anyone planning a bachelotte party
or any brides to be nervous about the bachelorette party
grooms as well. Do you think that at this point
(27:29):
bachelotte parties are getting wilder than bachelor parties? All of
these thoughts we want to hear. Mom Stuff at Discovery
dot com is where you can send your letters. You
can also drop us a line on Facebook or tweet
us at Mom's Stuff podcast. And we got a couple
of your letters to share when we come right back
from a quick break. And now back to the letters.
(27:52):
Christ and I have one here from Jared. He's writing
in about our bed wedding episode. Uh he says, First off,
allow me to say that I greatly enjoy the show.
Thank you, Jared. Uh he says. I was a chronic
bed wetter, and while the exact number of times per
week escapes me now, I do remember it as being
quite frequent, not drinking much, double voiding, and none of
(28:13):
the simple tricks helped me at all. I must admit, though,
my primary problem with wetting the bed was that I
was an extremely heavy sleeper. As such, while the alarm
I had would eventually wake me up, it was normally
much too late for me to do anything but change
the sheets or reposition myself to sleep in the least
wet part. Urology appointments and even bladder X rays found
nothing amiss. I was just programmed to sleep deeply and
(28:35):
wet the bed. I did eventually get a hormone spray
that I shot up my nose at night, and this
helps somewhat. But I off and on wet the bed
until seventh grade. Then my body finally stopped me from
the endless embarrassment of waking up to soggy sheets. I
do not miss the crinkling of the plastic sheets I
used to protect my mattress, or the embarrassment of the
first time I had a friend over and realized that
I had stripped the bed that morning to leave only
(28:57):
the plastic behind. Now, strangely, I'm a very light sleeper.
Perhaps life is having a fickle sense of humor. So
thanks Jared, and I've got an email here from Chris,
subject line a trans perspective on your video the science
of Bitchy resting phase. Um. That's in reference to a
(29:17):
recent YouTube video over at YouTube dot com slash stuff
Mom never told You, and Chris writes, as I mentioned,
I'm trans and for me this means that I have
been perceived by others as both male and female at
different times in my life. Your points about women's experiences
are exactly in line with what I've experienced, but I
also wanted to add some interesting aspects of what I've
experienced when I've been perceived as a man. While women
(29:40):
are expected in pressure to emote constantly and generally in
a positive manner, men are conversely expected and also actively
pressured to not emote in a positive manner, especially through
facial expression and body posture, unless they are being a
funny caricature or something similar. In my experience, one consequence
of the squashed masculine positive emoting is actually muted experience
(30:04):
of positive emotion. I guess the mechanism behind this is
sort of an inverse of the well known feedback between
emotional facial expression and experience of emotion. Well, it is
clearly unfair to use a certain class of person to
prop up others emotional security, as our patriarchal society uses women.
Sometimes it is also unfair to rob another class of
people of the full richness of emotional experience. Basically, the
(30:27):
patriarchy screws us all and everyone. Men, women, gender, queers, etcetera.
Should be a feminist if they want the most out
of life. So thanks Chris for sharing that perspective, and
thanks everybody who's written in. Moms of a Discovery dot
com is where you can send your letters. You can
also find us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter
at mom Stuff Podcasts and on Tumbler as well at
(30:49):
stuff Mom Never Told You dot Tumbler dot com, and
like I said, we are on YouTube. You can head
over and watch the Science of Bitchy, Resting Face and
many more video at YouTube dot com, slash stuff Mom
Never Told You and don't forget to be a friend
in subscribe for more on this and thousands of other topics.
(31:10):
Is it how stuff Works dot com
Welcome to stuff Mom Never told you from house stuff
Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Kristen and I'm Caroline, and today we are talking about
bachelorette parties. Last episode we talked about engagement rings, and
the previous episode we talked about gay marriage. Yes, we
(00:26):
do have marriage on the mind, not because either one
of us is about to walk down the aisle, but
because the way we know of and yeah, that we
know of, but because it is wedding season. And surprisingly,
bachelorette parties have a very interesting history and very stuff
mom never told you ish history. That's right. And I
(00:47):
let me say I was totally surprised that bachelorette party
history is so brief. Yeah, I mean it's it's kind
of a new thing. The bachelorette party that you think
of today is pretty new. Um. I actually I threw
a bachelorette party a couple of years ago. How did
(01:07):
it go? It was? It was kind of depressing. What
I'm going to tell you, Well, I think the important
thing and I feel like etiquette guides tell you this.
When you plan a bachelorette party, you have to plan
it with the bride in mind. Which seems obvious, but
if your bride is like a total party girl, you
(01:27):
should have a big party type of thing. We're a
pub crawl or whatever. But if your bride is quieter
and maybe just like the girls getaway kind of bride,
maybe you shouldn't plan a pub crawl. Did you plan
a pub crawl? Yeah? Yeah I did. And uh, the
the fellow women who you know, we all had dinner
first and then we started the pub crawl, they all
(01:49):
just started to like disappear. But so by the time
we were at like the third or fourth bar, it
was pretty much just the bridesmaids and the bride. And
let me tell you, she was not having a good
time because she was basically I don't know if she's
feeling bad that all those ladies left, but I think
what she really wanted was like, let's just drink with
my girls and you know, have some champagne and a
good time. So we got a cab, we went back
(02:11):
to the hotel, we drank some champagne and put on
a stupid eighties movie and that was the most fun
part of the night. That sounds fun, Yeah, yeah, I
planned one last year. In fact, for one of my
best friends and it was a lot of fun. It
was very cold when it happened, and we did a
pub crawl as well, um, which uh ended with us
(02:37):
almost being asked to leave an establishment, not because we
were so rowdy, but because I bought everybody whistles and
even though we knew some of the people who were
working at this bar. Uh. And that's really the only
reason we didn't get kicked out, because you know, we
wanted to make an entrance for for the bride to
(02:57):
be and I could just see the bar Nope, nope,
go out, turned around. Yeah, and whistles indoors. Not a
penis shaped whistles. They were not penis shaped whistles. But
we did have um, oh we did. I've made cocktails
for everyone beforehand, and there were penis stirs, cocktail stirs. Yeah,
(03:22):
we kept it classy ish. But speaking of that penis paraphernalia,
that kind of stuff is very new to the bachelorette culture,
and according to a prominent bachelorette scholar, yes there is one.
It says a lot about our sexual moray's and gender equity.
(03:42):
But first, a brief historical word on bridesmaids, because surprisingly
there's not a ton of history on bridesmaids. There's this
idea that it goes back to ancient Rome when some
brides Toby would have been accompanied by a ton of bridesmaids,
all dressed. Idea nically to try to trip up any
(04:03):
evil spirits that might try to whisk her away, or
kidnappers you might try to whisk her away. So bride's
maids were I guess, sort of like bodyguards at first. Yeah,
but that whole spirit superstition carried through for quite a while,
all the way through the nineteenth century England. Because if
you look at some Victorian era wedding photographs, you can't
even tell which one is the bride and which one
(04:24):
is the bride'smaid. Yeah, and that's why I don't understand
why people get upset when I just wear wedding dresses
to the weddings. You know, sorry, I look so good
and white. But you're just doing it for the bride.
I think you know you're protecting her. I don't actually
do that. Just to clarify um, but bachelor parties have
(04:44):
ancient roots. The often sided historical precedent to the modern
day bachelor party is fifth century BC. Sparta Sparta, where
soldiers would hold a dinner in the groom to be
his honor and toast him. But yeah, I mean it
didn't stay that classy for long. Things things did get
(05:05):
a little rowdier over time. In six, i'd never I mean,
I don't know why I would have heard this, but
I had never heard this. U. P. T. Barnum's grandson,
Herbert Barnum's Seeley through a stag party that ended up
getting rated by the cops because of rumors that a
belly dancer would be making a nude appearance. Yeah. And
in nineteen the term bachelor party is used for the
(05:29):
first time in a Scottish publication, Chambers Journal of Literature,
Science and the Odds, to describe a jolly old party.
So we have we we've got that whole culture already
established by two and then in four pop culture wise,
we have the first movie devoted to this pre wedding debauchery,
(05:52):
appropriately called bachelor party. Yeah, but it's Tom Hanks. So yeah,
I've never seen it, but you know it's gonna be sweet.
It is gonna end up sweet. Um. But but the
whole idea though, as to why bachelor parties have this
extensive history is that we have long accepted that men
(06:12):
want to sow their wild oats, and they are more
at liberty to have sex before marriage and tom cat
around and and do as men are want to do.
That whole notion that that it's simply in men's natures
to be you know, sex fiends, right, I mean, I
think the idea and and uh that that bachelor party
(06:35):
scholar you mentioned, Beth Monta Murro, brings it up that
there's an idea that men are really giving something up
when they get married, whereas women are gaining something incredible
like a life. Finally, I have a life because I
have a man. And so that that is sort of
what all of this hinges on. Because men get to
have that rowdy bachelor party to say goodbye to their
(06:58):
days of freedom. Women and however, they tend to get
bridle showers. Well, yeah, I mean because for a long,
long long time, throughout that history of you know, the
extensive history the bachelor party, the economic aspiration for a
woman was limited to being a wife and mother. So
it makes sense that the bridle shower is has been
(07:20):
the go to thing for so long that it actually
goes back to sixteenth and seventeenth century Holland, and the
origin story is that there was a woman who wanted
to marry a poor guy, and so neighbors showered her
with household gifts because her father was like, no, you're
not gonna marry this poor dude, and her neighbors were like, oh,
(07:40):
we shall help you. We will give you this, ye
old kitchen aid Nixon I know, and unfortunately can't do
a Dutch accent, but um. In the late nineteenth century,
bridle showers became routine for wealthier women in the United States,
which were focused around preparing them for their housewife e duties.
This was all around the time that you have the
(08:01):
cult of domesticity and the rise of consumerism, which melded
together nicely. Well. Yeah, around this time also you have
things like hope chests and trousseau's which the bride's family
would fill with linens and and dishes and stuff so
she could bring that into the marriage. I actually have
(08:22):
a friend whose little sister her parents had been filling
this hope chest for her for years, but the parents
didn't do it for my friend because they were so
convinced that the little sister would get married and the
older sister would not. Why would they be filling a
hope chest to begin with? What did they put inside
of a very traditional southern family uh? Literally like uh,
(08:45):
stuff from the grandmother to get passed down, So like
fine china, fine silver, fine linens, all of that stuff.
My mom does have a silver tea service waiting for me,
and it has been waiting for me for years and
almost any time I see her, she asked me if
I want to want to take my silver tea service
home and I and I'm putting it off. Yeah, Well,
(09:07):
my mom says that I have a mink coat waiting
for me. WHOA, Yeah, I said that I'm going to
attach a bear head to it and put it on
the floor like a rug. There you go. It doesn't
even need a bearhead. Just go ahead and toss that
thing down and call it a day. But that that
idea though, of women filling the hope chest, is because
traditionally men were expected to buy the house in the land,
whereas women would provide the soft goods. And before traditional
(09:30):
bridal showers where you might bring gifts for less wealthy women,
there were kind of sweet traditions. I think of the
a lot of women getting together to do things like
so the new monogram on sheets and linen's maybe get
together to help make a new quilt for a bed um.
Lots of these different kinds of again very domestic oriented
(09:54):
pre wedding traditions for women, but it was one structured
of course, around men as the breadwinner and the head
of household. There was even one game that was I
guess more taking place in the first half of the
twentieth century where a hostess would hide trinkets in cakes
(10:15):
that would be given to any unmarried women who would
attend a bridle shower, and these trinkets would symbolize what
their future husband's professions might be, so kind of like
a precursor to playing mash Yeah, fingers crossed for the
stethoscope lord. All right, Well, today, of modern brides still
(10:38):
have those bridal showers, even though there's kind of a
shift in how we view them, even though it's more
like just based on tradition versus I really really want
a bridle shower where they feed me cucumber sandwiches and tea.
What are you saying you do want that? Because I
could go for a cucumber sandwich, I mean, I could go.
Haven't we established that I could go for a sandwich
at any time? That's true, That's true, and it was
(11:00):
penn State, says y'allogist Beth Monima, who we've already mentioned
a couple of times, the the bachelorette party scholar, who
who was the one who said that brides are holding
these showers because of pressure's placed on them by earlier generations. Yeah,
but while a percent of modern bride's still have the showers,
almost as many seventy seven percent also have the bachelorette party,
(11:24):
because you know, the bridal shower is what you invite
your mom to, your your soon to be mother in law.
Perhaps that's the calm party, and then you have the
wild bachelorette. And but it wasn't until the nineteen sixties
that we even have anything like a bachelorette party start
(11:44):
to happen, thanks Monumorro says to things like the sexual
revolution and birth control. But the history of bachelotte parties
in the UK is a little bit older. Um The
term hen party dates back to the eighteen hundreds, but
that was just referring to a gathering of ladies, any
any gathering of women, so we were having a hen party. Oh,
(12:08):
I guess you probably need more than two women to
form a hen party. Anyhoo. So in nineteen seventies six though,
The Times used hen party for the first time in
the pre wedding sense. So a little bit sooner than
we're going to see the rise of the term bachelor
party in the United States. But even before the term
(12:29):
hen party was used as we would think of it
in reference to something like a bachelorette party, there were
similar traditions already happening, such as a female industrial workers
would get pranked on their last days of working at
the factory, for instance, before they got married, because the
expectation was they're gonna get married and then you know,
we work, but before Richard Gere came in to carry
(12:50):
them out of the factory. Never mind just a reference
to a movie I've seen a thousand times. But all
of this kind of grew out of before the sixties,
the personal showers, which were somewhere in between the bridle
showers and the bachelorette parties. It wasn't with your extended
family and your mom and your aunt, your grandmother. It
was with your close friends. Because those were the parties
(13:11):
like in the fifties where the bride would get lingerie
and other things she didn't necessarily want to open in
front of extended family, but they were still subdued, uh.
They were at people's houses. So it's it's kind of
that in between stage before we get into the full
big body bachelorette parties. And speaking of the full big
body bachelorette parties, Something Old, something Bold Bridle Showers and
(13:36):
Bachelorette Parties by Beth Montamorrow is our major source for
all of this, by the way, because she's really the
only person who has taken a deep scholarly dive into
this culture. And she says that in the nineteen eighties,
bachelotte parties were more about cementing friendships before that transition
into marriage. And there were a couple of scholars here
(13:56):
and there who hinted at bachelotte traditions. Instance, in two
we have Paula L. Dressel and David Peterson who were
studying male strippers, and they mentioned that some women would
see male strippers as a part of their celebrations of
upcoming marriages. Right, But it wasn't until nineteen five that
(14:17):
researcher Rebecca Clark uses the term bachelorette party to describe
what motivated women's attendance at one of these particular clubs,
and she writes about how media coverage at this time
in the eighties and nineties really treated bachelorette parties like
something novel, foreign and crazy, like can you believe what
women are doing? And uh. In nineteen eight Richard Roper
(14:40):
of Eberton Roper Fame, UH, he wrote an article for
the Chicago Sun Times that really signaled a shift in
how the media talked about bachelorette parties. It was the
first one to really explain it as a social social ritual,
not something subdued and like, well, let's have a shower
and then go out for drink, y'all. It was really
(15:02):
kind of signaling the shift that it was moving before that,
beyond that into actual pre planned nights of debauchery. I
was surprised that it wasn't until nine I believe that
the term pops up in Cosmo. I would assume. I
would have assumed that Cosmo would be all over that
absolutely um. And then I found it funny that in
(15:22):
two thousand two, not so long ago, there was a
Wall Street Journal cover story about how bachelorette parties were
getting super raunchy while bachelor parties were simultaneously steering away
from strip clubs, and they attributed it to shifting gender
roles in the workplace. Well, yeah, I mean gender roles
and feminism definitely came up. And around the same time
(15:45):
as that Wall Street Journal article, there was a shift
in describing them as feminist activities, like we are taking
the bull by the horns and we are going out
as women, and a lot of these articles the shift
in tone. It started to describe women of the millennium
as a sarting equality and demonstrating their ability to flaunt
their sexuality. And so parties are starting to move more
(16:07):
into the public places, getting more elaborate and expensive, just
at the same time as the cost of weddings is
shooting up. So as we're getting bigger weddings, we're also
getting bigger, more ritualized pre wedding activities. Yeah, and you
could say that all of this just ties into the
commodification of American weddings that now costs on average around
(16:28):
twenty eight thousand dollars because now you have for bachelorette parties.
All of this pianist paraphernalia available to buy. For instance,
you have things like Destination Bachelorette parties, uh that you
can spend so much money on. Um. There's also, for instance,
(16:48):
being a merchandise. According to the not dot com, do
you want to hear the seven Bachelorette essentials, Well, you
gotta have a headpiece for the bride a dare lists
a suck for a buck accessory. Sorry I had to
say that on a podcast, But essentially it's like you
wear a candy necklace and strange men can dollar to
(17:12):
bite a piece off. I don't like that at all.
Or you can make your own. It's suggested by taping
candies to a shirt. That should I can I just
put a cheeseburger on a necklace and oh that would
be my that'll that. See, it's all about creating your
own rituals kristen Burg for a book. But you also
(17:32):
need naughty accessories blow up doll peanis paraphernalia of course,
And just to show how dated this article is, disposable cameras. Yeah,
you don't want to have that file lingering on your computer,
so you need to or drunk Facebook posting. Right. Well, now,
(17:53):
the last bachelor party when she was not only a
destination bachelor atte party sport of it was an Athens
so it involved leaving Atlanta, but there were a lot
of women coming in from like Texas and all over
the place. But yeah, there were penis cookies. So you know,
it's a thing. I've seen many a penis cake on
the internet, not that, not that I'm going looking for them.
(18:14):
In my let me clarify and my research on bachelorette parties,
I saw many photos of penis shaped cakes. Uh So,
but what does what does all of this mean though, Caroline,
Because Monta Murrow says that there is a deeper meaning
to these penis whistles and such. She says that bachelorette
(18:35):
parties and bridle showers are not just women's parties. They
are rituals of status consumption and materialism, of transition and ambivalence,
of friendship and reinforcement of relationships among women, and of transformation. Yeah,
and and she does write also about what it means
(18:56):
for the transformation of sexual attitudes and morals and Moray's
and and you know, gender norms and all of that. Stuff.
She writes that the very existence of the bachelorette party
is evidence that women have made some real inroads as
far as gender equality. Interesting, she said, men had bachelor
parties because they were about to be trapped. So this
(19:17):
is the same thing we talked about that. Now maybe
this shows that women. Hey, if we're gonna talk about
losing things like losing freedom, maybe women are losing their
sexual freedom too. And so, she says, as the sexual
double standard lost some of its power, and as women's
rights and freedoms became more pronounced, it has become more
socially acceptable for women to acknowledge that they too are
(19:38):
entitled to a last night of freedom. And yet, though
about all of that penis paraphernalia um, she says that
they're actually symbolic of a contradictory role that a bride
is forced to play. She says, within hours of the
bachelorette party ending, she'll morph from body bachelorette to blushing,
virginal bride. And it's it's funny the discussion, the super
(20:03):
serious discussion of women going to male strip clubs and
what it means and and so. Mona Muro says that
though not necessarily consciously. Many women who end up at
mail strip clubs tend to be making fun of the
idea that men feel it necessary to have a last
night of freedom that involves porn and strip clubs, and
(20:24):
author Jacqueline Geller echoes that she says that the bachelorette
party is a gesture of retaliation rather than an actual
sensual adventure. It's answering almost an imagined insult, rather than
responding to the bachelor party's text of lewd sexuality, rather
than its subtext lamenting lost friendship. Yeah, the for instance,
(20:46):
the bachelorette party that I helped plan for my best
friend did not include any male strippers or male strip
club or anything like that. A because she would have
been not happy about that, and because it just wasn't necessary,
you know. Now, One thing though, that uh we we
really didn't look into at all. But it's something that
(21:09):
came up when I was listening to UM an episode
of Savage Love not too long ago, there was a
caller talking about how it was a gay guy calling
in complaining about bachelorette parties coming into gay bars and
gay strip clubs and tearing the place up and essentially
saying that these women need to respect these spaces, that
(21:35):
it's not so koshert for you to just waltson blow
in your penis whistle and disturbing their Friday night out
or whatever. And I know for a fact actually that
here in Atlanta, speaking of male strip clubs, there is
a gay mail strip club that if you are a woman,
you are not going to be let in with a
(21:57):
group of women because they pretty much have a policy
against bachelorette parties. Because I do I agree with the
idea that you know what, your bachelorette party is not
your one night to go be obnoxious at a gay bar. Well,
it's not your one night to be obnoxious anywhere. Honestly,
I think you can. I think it's possible to have
(22:17):
a bachelorette party and not annoy the crap out of
everyone around you. But I do think that bachelorette parties
especially do take more license saying it would be oh,
it's totally fine, it'll be fun. We'll just go and
go to a gay bar and and you know, all
of the men will find us fabulous. And and just
for women out there, I think that maybe you need
(22:38):
to take a second thought about respecting, uh, expecting their spaces,
just like we wouldn't probably want uh, well, I don't
know any bar I wouldn't really want a bachelorette party
to come in and try to take over the place.
So just something to think about. Yeah, well then you
have to ask yourself. Okay, well, so as their hooting
and holleran and all these public spaces, what else are
(23:00):
they doing? They're drinking, drinking. I was surprised at the
number of studies on bachelotte parties and alcohol and the
concern over it, and and the seeming surprise over how
much women are drinking at these parties. Well, but I mean,
I don't think it's so shocking. I mean, I think
any surprise express is sort of maybe not genuine, or
(23:23):
maybe it's I think it's weird that they're surprised that
at something like a bachelorette party, where you are already
stepping outside of normal behavior, um, that that that you
would be drinking a lot. Well, speaking of norms, uh.
In Changing gender Norms for alcohol consumption, social drinking, and
lowered inhibition at bachelorette parties, the authors concluded that women's
(23:46):
use of alcohol in this ritual challenges existing gender norms
and conceptions of masculinity and feminity. So the drinking, in
a way is simply an extension of doing the things
like being overtly sexual by wearing a penis necklaces and
having asking men to pay a dollar to bite candy
(24:09):
off of a necklace and going to a strip club,
et cetera. Yeah, And according to a May study in
the Journal of Substance Abuse, Uh, they really do talk
about like, oh, there's so much drinking, saying that of
women in these bachelorette parties reported drinking an average of
five drinks over the course of the night. And I
(24:31):
understand what the definition of binge drinking is, and that
is it. Yes, but I kind of feel like, uh,
you know, I think that maybe a one night, a
one off at a bachelorette party, is that's so terrible.
I mean, unless it's leading to awful behavior that puts
you in an unsafe position. Well, and guess I guess
a scholar would just say, well, why is that ritual
(24:54):
so specifically attached to bachelorette Because you know, I I
think and I would be curious to hear from listeners
on this. I think that the the emerging stereotype for
bachelorette parties is more of a pub crawl kind of
thing where you go out and you are gonna binge,
drink and for guys. When I think of a bachelor
party these days, yeah you have the hangover and the
(25:17):
hangover part two and the hangover part three. Now, Um,
but I imagine guys doing things like drinking some scotch
and smoking cigars in one place. I mean maybe, I
don't know, I don't think of that. I mean, I
guess I still think of like the traditional like go
out and get schwaisted. Apparently I have a very aristocratic idea.
(25:39):
I don't know. Maybe your dude friends are more sophisticated
than mine. I don't know. I feel like almost there's
there's a touch of overcompensation in a way with with
bachelortte parties, where it's like we go so far, so
far out because obviously there's the whole stripper aspect that's seeing,
(26:00):
you know, stereotypical. But um, yeah, I don't know. I'm
I'm I'm so curious to hear from listeners on this one.
Our bachelorette parties a symbol of gender and sexual equality
and a sign of good things, um or are they
just a night of frivolous excess? Yeah, I mean, I
(26:25):
don't know. It's interesting some of the things we read
talked about girls nights and girls like trips to a
mountain cabin as something really subdued and like, you know,
whereas the party with the penis necklaces and all the
cocktails is is the fancy, fun thing to do, And
it's like, well again, like I said at the beginning,
I mean you kind of have to take into account
(26:46):
what the bride wants, what's her personality, right, you know
what what what group of friends are you getting together? Yeah?
And what will they want to do? And I had
a great time at my at my best friends we
had we all had a really fun time and it
was just enough too much. It ended with a lot
of pizza, which was great. Um So I'm definitely not
(27:06):
against the ritual at all, but it's it's compelling to
stop and think of where did all of this come from?
Birth control, baby birth, bakst. And with that, listeners, we
want to hear from you anyone planning a bachelotte party
or any brides to be nervous about the bachelorette party
grooms as well. Do you think that at this point
(27:29):
bachelotte parties are getting wilder than bachelor parties? All of
these thoughts we want to hear. Mom Stuff at Discovery
dot com is where you can send your letters. You
can also drop us a line on Facebook or tweet
us at Mom's Stuff podcast. And we got a couple
of your letters to share when we come right back
from a quick break. And now back to the letters.
(27:52):
Christ and I have one here from Jared. He's writing
in about our bed wedding episode. Uh he says, First off,
allow me to say that I greatly enjoy the show.
Thank you, Jared. Uh he says. I was a chronic
bed wetter, and while the exact number of times per
week escapes me now, I do remember it as being
quite frequent, not drinking much, double voiding, and none of
(28:13):
the simple tricks helped me at all. I must admit, though,
my primary problem with wetting the bed was that I
was an extremely heavy sleeper. As such, while the alarm
I had would eventually wake me up, it was normally
much too late for me to do anything but change
the sheets or reposition myself to sleep in the least
wet part. Urology appointments and even bladder X rays found
nothing amiss. I was just programmed to sleep deeply and
(28:35):
wet the bed. I did eventually get a hormone spray
that I shot up my nose at night, and this
helps somewhat. But I off and on wet the bed
until seventh grade. Then my body finally stopped me from
the endless embarrassment of waking up to soggy sheets. I
do not miss the crinkling of the plastic sheets I
used to protect my mattress, or the embarrassment of the
first time I had a friend over and realized that
I had stripped the bed that morning to leave only
(28:57):
the plastic behind. Now, strangely, I'm a very light sleeper.
Perhaps life is having a fickle sense of humor. So
thanks Jared, and I've got an email here from Chris,
subject line a trans perspective on your video the science
of Bitchy resting phase. Um. That's in reference to a
(29:17):
recent YouTube video over at YouTube dot com slash stuff
Mom never told You, and Chris writes, as I mentioned,
I'm trans and for me this means that I have
been perceived by others as both male and female at
different times in my life. Your points about women's experiences
are exactly in line with what I've experienced, but I
also wanted to add some interesting aspects of what I've
experienced when I've been perceived as a man. While women
(29:40):
are expected in pressure to emote constantly and generally in
a positive manner, men are conversely expected and also actively
pressured to not emote in a positive manner, especially through
facial expression and body posture, unless they are being a
funny caricature or something similar. In my experience, one consequence
of the squashed masculine positive emoting is actually muted experience
(30:04):
of positive emotion. I guess the mechanism behind this is
sort of an inverse of the well known feedback between
emotional facial expression and experience of emotion. Well, it is
clearly unfair to use a certain class of person to
prop up others emotional security, as our patriarchal society uses women.
Sometimes it is also unfair to rob another class of
people of the full richness of emotional experience. Basically, the
(30:27):
patriarchy screws us all and everyone. Men, women, gender, queers, etcetera.
Should be a feminist if they want the most out
of life. So thanks Chris for sharing that perspective, and
thanks everybody who's written in. Moms of a Discovery dot
com is where you can send your letters. You can
also find us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter
at mom Stuff Podcasts and on Tumbler as well at
(30:49):
stuff Mom Never Told You dot Tumbler dot com, and
like I said, we are on YouTube. You can head
over and watch the Science of Bitchy, Resting Face and
many more video at YouTube dot com, slash stuff Mom
Never Told You and don't forget to be a friend
in subscribe for more on this and thousands of other topics.
(31:10):
Is it how stuff Works dot com
Stuff Mom Never Told You News
Hosts And Creators
Anney Reese
Samantha McVey
Popular Podcasts
United States of Kennedy
United States of Kennedy is a podcast about our cultural fascination with the Kennedy dynasty. Every week, hosts Lyra Smith and George Civeris go into one aspect of the Kennedy story.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.