I went to another bridal shower this weekend. It was my second bachelorette party, actually. The bride is the fiancee of A's kabarkada and all of the girlfriends of the kabarkada were invited to the party, while the guys went to the stag party, which was happening simultaneously (ours in a condotel, theirs in a strip club). Among all the girlfriends, only me, Elaine, Jin, Irene and Cris were able to make it.

It was awkward at first, since there was only 5 of us who really knew each other as opposed to the 15 other people there who came from the bride's highschool or work. It was so me against the world. During the party, they regrouped us for the games. We played the first game where we had to make a penis out of clay and the group that made one that looked like the bride's own model would win. After that, the stripper came out to do his first dance number. He came out with a towel wrapped around his waist. And slowly teased us by bearing his thong. Not a pretty site. It was a good place to hang out sans the workout. Probably because the guy looked like he got picked up from the red light district. Eew!

The next game was charades. Each group would choose a representative to act it out and for those groups that didn't get to guess it right, the bride had to choose a representative to do a consequence. That would be fine, right? But what if you had to guess which sexual position they were acting out? Would you be okay with it? I'm not really conservative but I admit I was a bit surprised. I guess it was okay. After all, we were all girls and it's all in the name of fun.

But what if the consequences were sexual positions that you had to do WITH THE STRIPPER? In front of all those people you weren't even friends with? Would you do it?

When I found out that consequences included the stripper and saw how they had to do it, I was disgusted. It was just too bastos (indecent) and vulgar for me already. As Glady put it, it was distasteful. True. While the bride's friends were okay with it and would even make fun of the positions, there were some who hesitated at first but went through it anyway. I kept wishing that we won't get chosen by the bride to do the charades, especially the consequences.

Unfortunately, the bride just had to choose Elaine to do the charade. I told her if she needed a partner, I'll help her out, all in the name of support and sisterhood as I know how uncomfortable it was to be out there. Unfortunately, the charade required one person. When the time came to choose who would do the consequence, the bride chose me. As she approached me, I kept shaking my head "no." Eventually, I had to say, "Cris, ayoko talaga. Magagalit si A. Di ako papayag. (Cris, I really don't want to. A will get mad. I won't allow it.) I guess I said it with a dead serious tone that she let it go and chose someone else from the group. Elaine told me later that I curtly told off Cris or tinarayan ko siya. I felt bad because that was not my intention and I felt I had to put my foot down, that I was against, not only the consequence, but the concept of it. Call me kill joy, call me conservative (though honestly, I'm probably the most liberated among my friends), but it really was too vulgar. Nakakabastos na nga eh. When I told this incident to an officemate, she told me that it was a good thing I didn't go through the consequence because doing so was like disrespecting myself. True. By the way, what was the consequence? I had to pretend to lick the stripper from neck going down. I tell you, that's already tame compared to what the others did.

I've been to one bridal shower, the one before this, and it was fun. We had games where we had to make a wedding dress out of rolls of tissue paper and condoms in eggplant and it was ten times better than the last party. A bridal shower can be sexy yet still be wholesome, clean and fun. While writing this blog, I realized that a bridal shower is supposed to be a send off party to the bride who is embarking into a new journey where she will be sharing her life for all eternity to the husband. But in last Saturday's bridal shower, it was a send off party to a life filled with sex. Trust me, not even the words, "wedding gown," "ring", or "flowers" were heard! The bride even forgot to give us the wedding invitations!