The wonders of drunken chicks

I’ve been witness to this phenomenon twice this week and it has left me with nothing but disdain, tonight especially.

Tonight, I witnessed two of my favorite men – intelligent, articulate, talented, smart, funny men – watch with gaping, mouth-breathing fascination as this…. chick…. for lack of a useable “c” word other than the one that rhymes with hunt… anyway… as this chick writhed around on a bed like a parody of a bad Madonna video from the 80s. And I realized that even if I set my hair on fire and ran screaming around the room, I would not exist.

What pissed me off even more was that, suddenly, my friend, Patty, and I felt like we had to compete for attention with this…. chick. Hard to do considering she was falling out of her tube top and saying wondrous things like “I’m not really that drunk” and “I wish I was your lesbian lover.” She has the whole giggle and hair toss thing down to a fine art, which I could almost admire were she not using it for evil instead of good.

This is the second time in a week I’ve watched this same chick practice this same technique, with pretty much the same results. The shame is that she is a smart, funny, talented girl and she’s adorable so she’d get a lot of attention anyway, without flashing her delicates and openly declaring “gosh, I didn’t wear underwear tonight.” I feel embarrassed for her that she has to put on such a spectacle every single time she’s around men of any ilk. And the thing is, she’s not interested in these guys. She’d hook up with them if they gave her the slightest indication but that’s all it would be – hooking up. Hmmmm, hooking up… there’s that other description of women with the word “hook” in it that is not all that flattering. This is just behind that.

And I am further disappointed in the penis-driven fascination that these amazing men in my life show to this chick, which encourages her to try to get their dicks even harder because, well, she simply can.

And I’m standing there, thinking, I’m smart, funny, talented, not bad to look at. I can hold a conversation on just about anything and I’m a good listener. I just finished these two incredible projects and have such an exciting year in front of me. And all I can think while I’m watching this is, I should take off my shirt and show off my cute black and pink bra because that’s the only way I’m going to get the attention of these two men who I adore and love spending time with. But I cannot compete with pantiless, spread-eagled drunken girl, even if I were completely naked. I guess with me, there isn’t the expectation that I’m going to perform sexual acts at will because I’m drunk. Well, one of them might have a chance, at least until last night, but still, not a promise I dangle out there as freely as she dangles, well, just about everything.

And this just makes me angry. I have fought so hard to be taken seriously, both personally and professionally. I see what women in this industry go through, how we are belittled and thought of as nothing more than “girls” who are incapable of handling the job of filmmaker or given less pay than a man simply because we have a vagina. Then I watch this chick flash her vagina and I think, there goes all that work I put in. I cannot compete with a potentially exposed vagina. And that diminishes all of us. Not her vagina in particular but just the wantonness with which so many women flash theirs.

I finally had to leave the party, as much as I didn’t want to, because the three glasses of wine I had (two over my usual limit) freed my tongue instead of my tush and I was becoming incapable of censoring myself. I knew I hit the limit when my friend who hosted the party made some comment about how to have a better wine party and I shouted out, “Invite better women.” Ooops. Time to go before I say what I really want to. And I don’t want to do that because I actually like this girl and we work at the theater together. But I wanted to grab her by the shoulders and scream, “Stop it! You’re making a fool of yourself. They’re watching you only because they can’t wait to see what stupid, ignorant, offensive thing you’re going to do next. Not because they think you’re that fascinating. It’s because you’re willing to do anything and they can’t wait to see what you’ll do.” Not a good thing. My dearest man, who broke my heart recently, asked me if I was okay to drive home, due to my lack of sleep (drove a friend very early to the airport and never really got more than 2 hours sleep today) and wine consumption. I wanted to say, do you really care? You’re so caught up in the half-time entertainment, would you notice if I drove the car into the front of the house? What are you going to do if I’m not okay to drive home? I’m sure if drunken slutty chick were too drunk to drive home, there’d be an offer of bed, driving home and a myriad of other offers (I bet she can’t spell myriad without relying on the spell check). I, however, respectable, older woman that I am, just shrugged and grabbed my keys, knowing that he’d never give me another thought after I left as he returned his attention to the writhing pile of flesh in front of him. Maybe next time, they should charge admission and install a stripper pole.

Bitter? You bet your ass. Every time a girl does this, it brings us all down. And it feeds men’s images that girls like her are some kind of ideal. They’re fascinated because it speaks to the most primitive part of them. Don’t think, just fuck. And it makes them look at all the women around them and go, why don’t they do that? And it just makes those of us who are not comfortable with exposing body parts and who do, in fact, own underwear (very pretty, lovely ones, thank you very much) feel like we are somehow not meeting the requirements to be a girl because we can’t writhe like that – or choose not to. It makes us feel every single one of our insecurities and it feeds our demons, who look at her and see the men’s reactions and go “they don’t look at you like that.” There’s a reason they don’t – I won’t degrade myself to get a little attention.

Wow, this is a lot harsher than I had expected. Maybe I’m jealous or envious of the freedom with which she flaunts her body and I know I’m jealous of the attention she gets. But do I really want that attention? The talking-behind-the-hand thing that goes on – “do you know what she did at the pool party –hehehehehe” – and the snarkiness that is spewed by those around her.

I just know that the next time I’m at a party where she is and when she starts sucking back the alcohol, it’s time for me to go. Because I don’t know how much longer I am going to be able to hold my tongue. And if I let that cat out of the bag, she’s never going to be the same.