Lace! Stringy things! Everywhere! My eyes!!!

I am actually at a loss for words how to start this post. I think I need a new category for this stuff: "America, the Parallel Universe" (or, as a friend misspoke this evening, the "Paradox Universe", which was in some ways even more apropos).

We were at what is essentially an underwear party. Lingerie shower, bachelorette party, whatever you want to call it. All the bride-to-be's gir'frien's rock up and give her sexy underwear for her wedding.

Not kidding. Not making this up.

Like the more benign kitchen teas and shower teas that we are used to, this is what is done to help set up a young lady in all the essentials of married life and happy home. And it is expected. Almost universal, according to my sources.

We sat there eating cake made in the shape of a bustier, while the two brides (it was a joint shower) unwrapped their gifts, to much blushing and high-pitched effusiveness. Meanwhile, my delightful and highly prized cultural insider saved my relative sanity by telling lingerie shower anecdotes, including such phrases as "had to try them all on" and group shopping excursions and about ... well, you don't need to know about the cake. And, as she predicted I would write in this post, that's when they started chanting, "Try it on! Try it on! Try it on!"

No one actually tried anything on, thank goodness. But I mean ... this is one of the first times in my life where I feel like the phrase "what is this I don't even" is one I could utter without the slightest attempt at irony.

WHAT IS THIS I DON'T EVEN

Well, that felt good.

We started discussing the phenomenon from a cultural point of view, given that the colonies which stayed closer to their English roots – Australia, for example – have a vast array of sex/genitalia-related insults and expletives, which are nonetheless not considered obscene in the same way that they are in America. I just realized, although I didn't think of it at the time, that the religious expletives have a similarly heightened impact here; it got me in trouble for ages, thinking nothing of dropping a casual "damn" or "hell" into the conversation. I get away with "bugger" because they don't even know what it means!

Although I have done precisely zero investigation on the subject, it seems almost inevitable that this stems from the puritan roots of the country. The insults which are taken mildly tend to be more related to stupidity: retard, spaz, and a bunch of others which make me deeply and quietly angry, but for (obvious) personal reasons, which I occasionally (and unapologetically) use to make the people using those words very uncomfortable. [Edit: Oh, and, even more – toilet humour. GAH.]

But here's the point: we sat around while lacy, racy, and see-through items were waved about and discussed specifically in the context of the upcoming marriages, and who was the most uncomfortable person in the room? Me, that's who, the girl who employs the word "bugger" to swear even though she does know what it means.

Which seemed a curious paradox, although there's a lot to be said for culturally-mandated pressure valves, where taboos can be engaged in a socially acceptable way. For Australians, and the English too, I'm pretty sure, things such as emotional repression are acceptably vented at sporting events, where it is expected that you get drunk and ridiculously passionate about your team. For Americans ... well, maybe that's what's going on here. Who knows. I'm not intending to do much further research on this one.

This is your intrepid anthropological adventurer, deep in the heart of America, signing off.