I must confess I too attended the party last weekend at which a live male erotic dancer stripped before a room full of screaming girls. In fact, I contributed my five bucks to the birthday fund, and was even in charge of starting the music as soon as the birthday girl was in handcuffs.
Watching my friend when she thought that she was being arrested was an amusing moment that could only be surpassed by watching her face when she realized that this "police officer" was actually going to strip naked and dance for, and with, the assembled crowd.
Yet to say the women present "danced with him, touched him, and even helped to undress him" is an exaggeration. If anyone was screaming that night, it was in terror that they too would become the object of the stripper's attention. The room was fairly equally divided between the less inhibited, who went along with the show, and the more embarrassed, who were hiding in either the kitchen or one of the bedrooms as soon as the stripper removed his pants. I was cowering in the bathroom, because there was no way that I was going to become part of the show.
My friends and I also left before the stripper was completely naked. We had attended to wish a friend a happy birthday and to experience the novelty of a male stripper, but we had no desire to watch this man dance naked.
Later on in the evening when I told male friends how my evening had started, their reaction ranged from disgust at what we had done to questions regarding how big the stripper was. And when I later ran into the birthday girl and other party guests at a fraternity, the main topic of discussion was still the stripper. My main point in continuing to bring up the stripper, however, was to embarrass my friend in order to cover my own embarrassment.
Perhaps the most surprising part of the evening was how un-erotic the entire event was. The striper was fairly good-looking in a bleach blond, fake 'n' bake kind of way, but I would be surprised if any of the women present had any desire to take him home that night. I honestly believe that people were there more out of curiosity than out of any desire to explore their sexuality.
But I don't think one evening of raunchiness on the part of thirty or so women allows one to make an apt commentary on the condition of sexuality at Dartmouth. It was not "the opportunity to be openly and unashamedly aggressive in their [the women's] sexuality." It was one of the things you do once in your life. I don't plan on hiring a stripper for any future birthday parties and I would be surprised if any of the others involved did either. Although not everyone chose to hide from the stripper as I did, I think most share with me the belief that there is very little that is sexual or erotic about a grown man stripping for money.
One should not use the events of Friday night to comment on the sorority system at Dartmouth. While a number of the women present did belong to the birthday girl's sorority, to say that the stripper was making up for a sorority's inability to provide adequate or appropriate women's space is completely off the mark. Sororities exist to educate their members. They exist to provide support to both their members and to the campus as a whole. They are a space for women, but not one in which "sexual opportunities for women" in the form of a stripper would be appropriate.
So what does the hiring of a stripper for a birthday party mean?What does it say about the women involved?
It says that they were curious. Amused. Maybe even a little titillated.
For myself, I would say that it was an educational experience. The next time someone tries to convince me of the excitement of an erotic dancer, I will be able to truthfully and knowledgeably state that it is not something that I consider a turn-on.
There are many problems at Dartmouth related to sexuality and the current sorority system. We are a campus that has a long way to go before we can consider ourselves to be sexually equal and aware. The problems are much more pervasive than this one party though. To say that this party exemplified these problems is to give it too much credit. It was one night of fun.
Resolving the issues surrounding female space and sexuality will require more time and effort than that one party could ever represent.
