Spring Break Shocker: Not So Shocking

I must confess to watching quite a bit of Junk Food TV. I watch the news, but I like a little Chelsea Lately for desert. I watch the E! network, American Idol, and truckloads of animated comedies. I particularly like the wonder bread you get from E! though because not only does it keep me up to the minute on my favorite celebrity scandals, it sometimes gives me a glimpse of just how different the "straight world" can be. I put it in quotes because I'm not sure there is such a thing, but I am sure people think there is.

At any rate, I have been avidly watching hours and hours of quasi-news stories about Spring Break. Ah yes, the two week period in collegiate life every year when everyone becomes a drunken sex fiend. Millions of everyguys and everygirls across the world down their weight in booze, bare their flesh and go get laid. Now that the gratuitous titty shows have been played into the ground by the cable networks, they are starting to show the "nightmare" stories and the "most extreme" stories, which are a gold mine. They pick out the most over the top parties, the sluttiest girls and dumbest, horniest guys, and pepper in a few trips to the emergency room to really make it look crazy. Then there are the inevitable "remorseful confessions" where you hear about girls who got so drunk they had sex with dozens of guys, and the guys who had to have something removed from their orifices or ended up in the hospital because of a "hold my beer and watch this" moment. The commentators offer a continual narrative of shock and indignance, asking questions like, "What causes such mania?"

The irony for me is that I watch all of this and think to myself, Huh. Looks like gay pride weekend to me. I think the answer to the questions about why Spring Break is such a sex driven debauchery fest is simple: It is one of the only acceptable venues for otherwise conservative personalities to express their sexuality freely. We still live in a Puritan-influenced mainstream, but one that allows for youth to be youthful. However, once you cross the cultural milestones of college, marriage, middle age, etc., you are expected to conform. We also live in a society that deems youths "adult" before they are old enough to drink. So, we have this mass of free adults who, once they hit 21 or get a dependable fake ID, are suddenly exposed to this night life, this permissive adult culture they have craved. But, even then, there are lines they are not allowed to cross, unless there is a very good excuse. Spring Break offers that excuse. You can fly a thousand miles away from where you live your life and blend in to a huge crowd of people all of whom are behaving as outrageously as you or worse. Unless you are one of the people brave (or stupid) enough to end up on the E! network, you can have near total anonymity, which means near total freedom in a sexually permissive, alcohol soaked atmosphere. Big crowds, low inhibitions, and seas of naked flesh to keep you in the mood. And they wonder, "How did this happen?" Duh.

I compare this to Gay Pride festivals because they are the equivalent of the straight world's spring break. Thousands of GLBT people and their hetero friends crowd into the streets, block parties, gay bars, and parties for a 3-5 day long, drunken merriment. On a smaller scale even, some of those "wild, out of control" parties at Spring Break I keep seeing on TV look like a gay bar on any given Saturday. I agree that some of those scenes in gay bars seem out of control to me, but I don't think there is anything wrong with them. You don't have to look far to find semi-public sex, even group sex, in the gay night life; back rooms, leather bars with sex equipment all over the place, sex clubs, bath houses, etc. The same safety concerns exist as well; safe sex, informed drug use, buddy system safety, etc. I think the main difference is two-fold. First, the gay community has long since embraced its sexual liberty and at least tries not to judge. Second, it is "shocking" when straight people do it because it is so contrary to the nice, sterile, uniform image of white hetero culture that has been perpetrated in America. You also don't have to look very far to find blatant sexual behavior in a straight bar, either, or in the sexual proclivities of heterosexuals. But, hetero culture in general encourages a silence about it, a facade that excludes any kind of open sexuality. So, when the twenty-something bracket runs off to Spring Break and gets filmed having a public orgy, we wonder, "How could this happen," while simultaneously eating it up like candy.

Let's continue my Gay Pride analogy. I don't always go to Gay Pride. I always celebrate in some way, but my life is not always conducive to spending the weekend. For the record, let me say that I think Boston has the best Gay Pride. Anyway, back to the topic. So, what do I do to get ready for Pride when I am planning to attend the whole ball of wax? I have to go shopping, make hotel reservations (if it's not in my home town, which it often isn't), figure out who is going with me, get any advance tickets to events I know I want to go to. Then, when I get there, what are my priorities? My number one priority is having a good time. I'm not one to show up in my chaps with my junk hanging out planning to spend the weekend in the S&M mosh pit. It depends on who I'm with, if I'm single or seeing someone, how long I'm planning to stay, etc. However, no matter what my venue for a good time is, I go into it knowing I am going to have to be more permissive than usual, and I definitely want to see some man flesh. Assuming I'm single at these things, I also usually expect that I'm going to have sex, quite a bit of it, either with a Mr. Right Now or with a bunch of people. Interestingly, I have never been that comfortable with group sex, but at Gay Pride, I've often found the more the merrier. And, no doubt, I plan to drink, a lot. Normally, before Pride, I have to do some "practice drinking" to make sure I don't just pass out and miss all the fun. I go for the activism too, and for the community building element, but the real draw of Pride is the party. Arguably, the in-your-face sexuality of events like gay pride is political, which also adds to the permissiveness. So, by the time I get to Pride, I find myself wading into "near total anonymity, which means near total freedom in a sexually permissive, alcohol soaked atmosphere. Big crowds, low inhibitions, and seas of naked flesh to keep you in the mood."

I don't think there's anything shocking about the Spring Break phenomenon. Yes, there are safety concerns, and the regrettable incidents of rape and drug overdoses. Yes, some of the girls particularly probably do things that have consequences beyond the week of Spring Break. Yes, it can be a shocking thing to see. Yes, people do stupid things and hurt themselves and each other. Yes, Spring Break media coverage is sexist and demeaning (I wish they showed more naked dudes.) But, what people are shocked by is not this, it is the actual acts the are committed: the titty shows, the cock flashing, the "take it off cronyism," the overindulgence, the wild abandon, the blatant sexual behavior. They are shocked because they know Everygirl and Everyguy. The thing that is erotic about them is their next-doorness. But it is also the thing that is frightening and eye opening: the very raw, visceral truth about just how extreme the mainstream can act. These aren't coked out strippers in some seedy inner city bar. They're our neighbors, our children, our friends. We see this kind of sexual expression all over the Internet, and it is dismissively labeled as "porn," while we greedily lap it up. Internet promiscuity is acceptable, but when we do it in public for two weeks in April (or June for Gay Pride) it's "shocking." The only shocking thing about it is the level of social hypocrisy it exposes. Spring Break is the new Woodstock, or maybe it's Gay Pride for Everypeople.