Godzilla Kisses

Bridal showers make less sense in a modern society where couples often live together before marriage, don't they? Engaged couples who live together often have many of the necessary tools for keeping house by the time the wedding approaches -- oh, and they already know about sex!

1. Bridal showers make sense for poor people who are just about to start a new household and the people involved have a sexual division of labor that involves the woman being in charge of household objects. There are a few people who still live that way, but the rest of the people who have bridal showers are evoking that landscape when they do it, because it makes them feel like they hold continuity with their ancestors.

2. Motherhood did not make me feel especially more femme, either. Neither does holding a tradtionally women-only job.

3. I get any mildly expressive playful group activity. It's like rubberstamping or scrapbooking -- it's not even meant to be anything like art, it's just supposed to be a hobby thing that other respectable dorks do.

4. Oh my, how often I feel raised by wolves. My children do too, and sometimes I feel really embarrassed about that. Other times, well, at least they were raised by something, eh?


Are you writing articles about bridal showers and baby showers for website magazines, poor dear?

Actually I am writing about bachelorette parties; bridal showers came up naturally if tangentially. And ceramics came up in the "alternative ideas for bachelorette parties" category.

Ceramics painting sounds more fun that most of the "typical" party ideas I've hear of. At our "stag night" for my first marriage we played board games (both of us, since we had pretty much all the same friends.)

Board games sounds great! Ceramics painting sounds dull :) But I understand that mileage varies.

Thirding the two previous explanations of bridal showers, and would also note that inviting seventy bazillion people to weddings is a relatively modern thing even for rich people, because most people got married at church with a reception at their parents house, so there was probably a higher proportion of people who were close but wouldn't be at the wedding for space reasons.

I was raised by robots, and have stayed true to my robot heritage when raising my own children.

*snerk* at robot raising.

I was raised by parents who, despite being areligious and not all that white, managed to pull off a WASP philosophy much of the time. "You're having a feeling, darling. Go to your room."

I am intrigued by the parenting ways of the robots. I am wondering if I, too, was raised half-robot. (Wolf+Robot=FTW? If so, a very civilized wolf. But I digress.)

Robots are quiet, restrained, self-sufficient and orderly. (with exceedingly rare massive flaming malfunctions.)

My kids, however, have no metallic skins whatsoever, so it's been a bit challenging to be a good mom-robot.

CQ went to one Friday to talk about-I'm not remembering- some exciting, naughty sexy things I suppose. But it turned out the women really wanted advice on how to keep intimacy and a sex life going, some assurances as they go do something they want to do, but is also scary.

I went to one bridal shower, for a former coworker, and I was also going to her wedding and so was everyone else who was at that shower. Basically, it was for:

1. "girl time" (no smelly boys allowed!)
2. Presents
3. Foofy tea, food and drinks
4. Dressing up in foofy tea and food outfits
5. The bride-to-be's sister to make a fake bouquet out of the ribbons for use at the wedding rehearsal
6. People to give the bride-to-be sexy lingerie and snicker about it.

Do I even need to mention that these people were Republicans?? ;) I usually don't mind the foofoo crap but I didn't have a bridal shower and I don't think I want to go to any more of them.

There are sometimes games, with or without explicit sexual innuendos. The clothespin game always made me giggle, because I doubted anyone playing it had given any thought about the why behind it. It goes like this: Everyone is given a clothespin to clip to their clothing. Throughout the shower, if you see anyone crossing their legs or even their ankles, you can collect their clothespin(s). Whoever has the most clothespins at the end of the evening wins.