Hippies Ruined My Cocktail Party

There were coming out parties for young ladies, introducing them to society; lavish parties for anniversaries of all sorts; parties to welcome home a traveling friend; parties to meet the new neighbors and say farewell to old neighbors -- cocktail parties at a frightening pace. There were couples only parties, single mixers, & even parties where the married folks tried to set up the few unattached hold-outs. We even had people from our jobs over to our homes, liquored them up, & still no one did anything as lewd as photocopying their ass.

Parties were well organized: guest lists cleverly created to ensure the proper mingling, seating arrangements to assure fascinating dinner conversation, all details such as menu, music, decor & dress were deliberate acts to facilitate more than a gathering, but an affair to remember.

There would be pretty dresses, complete with high heels & the perfect accessories; men in dinner jackets with sardonic eyebrows; records on the hi-fi and the clink of ice cubes in glasses serving as a background to conversation; laughter, wit & perfume wafting through the air...

I would have had all of this, if not for the 60's.

The 'gift' of The Pill and symbolic bra burnings ushered in an era of acknowledment & non-conformity. On the surface, it sounds just. Grand even. But in truth, everything changed, and good things were included in the casualties of the rebellion.

Th Pill has been heralded as one of the greatest inventions, allowing women more freedom over their bodies. While it didn't bring about "The" sexual revolution, it sure changed the game. Casual sex, in or out of marriage, was now acknowledged as a fact. Women no longer had to risk pregnancy, nor count on that charming rascal to take precautions, nor did they need to roll out of bed & proclaim they were in love.

While I do not hate the invention & authorization of The Pill, I have to wonder just how much damage it also did... Now, instead of folks assuming you were a virgin, it was now assumed you weren't. (Is either expectation fair?) Those women who fell into the miniscule percentage of The Pill's failure rate were in worse trouble than before: smart girls didn't get caught, and the odds weren't fact, pregnancy exposed personal failings. The Pill was also courtship contraception, putting an end to pursuit, wooing, dating, and responsibility for relationships. But our bodies were so free to screw...

The Pill may have freed our bodies in some political sense, but women wanted more freedom. We wanted to have our breasts swing as freely as our new attitudes.

The figural burning of bras was the literal end of fashion, at least as we knew it. The Dress Reform, reaching such glamorous heights as in the New Look period, would end in the 60's. Originally, Dress Reform was a freedom of dress for women - no more Victorian bustles, undergarments and fashions themselves were much less restrictive - new styles to reflect the new roles of women during the First World War. This, along with scientific and mass production advances, culminated in the glamour & consumerism of the New Look.

In the 60's the New Look became the old look as the youth no longer wanted such classic looks. Rebellious teens scorned current fashions as the uniforms of uniformity - running away from home required a new wardrobe of anti-establishment. For many, standards of beauty were replaced with standards of duty, as they opted to be a Beatnik or a Mod. These fashions would become as polarized as the politics of the times. One was casual, and moving towards that natural or hippie look, while the other required one to look about as natural as those orange formica kitchen countertops... Fashion statements were about as subtle as a Vietnam peace rally, each screaming to be heard, and no one was listening. Instead of realizing conversation is a act with both talkers & listeners, fashion just went about screaming for attention and action.

While I do not wish to be required to wear girdles, garters & stockings, there is something to be said for the look - and the looks one receives when wearing such things. As much as I would surely chafe if such undergarments were the foundation of my everyday attire, I equally miss the inability to dress like a woman. But I digress... How does all of this impact my loss of cocktail parties?

Casual sex & casual clothes spawned casual entertaining. Direct was the new foreplay, and no longer were clever conversation, witty repartee, and flirtatious fashions a necessary part of seduction. People no longer organized ways to entertain one another with oneanother's company. Gone were well orchestrated seating charts and dressing to flatter your figure as your words flattered another.

I'm not advocating we go back to these days exactly. No one needs to be stuck in the kitchen all day first trying to figure out what canapes are (no, not can-a-peas), then trying to make them. No one perhaps wants to work so hard as to figure out which wine goes best with the meal, buy a good bottle of it, & then rush home to dress in the most elegant little black dress. Nor do we need to make alcohol the center of our lives. But somehow, I feel ripped off. I grew up believing that when the magical 'one day' happened, & I was to be an official grown-up, I too would enjoy such wonderful events.

But no. In the 60's people would come together in groups, or even mobs, all to create a change, or to take part in self-indulgent pursuits. It was come as you are, BYOB, and bring along your friends - or strangers you just met even. It was meet someone new, let it all hang out, and if you felt like it, screw. Gone was the grace, the intrigue, the craft of cocktail parties. The art of subtle seduction in the assembly of associates was lost. Its death was culminated in the 1969 party in the mud, aka Woodstock, where rude self-indulgence & impulsive fucks were hidden beneath macramed hemp ponchos.

Now, people come together in groups, bags of Doritos, Cheetos and pork rinds lay open on TV trays, and cans of beverages sit waiting in coolers of ice. Sporting events & television shows replace conversation, be it a gathering at home or at a neighborhood watering hole. Hooking up with someone at one of these parties is as absent minded as munching on those snack foods - reach in that open slot (just where else that hand has been...?!), and help yourself.