Bucks Fizz

On Sunday....a very pleasant Mothers Day dinner was buzzing on pleasantly within the confines of the family unit, until I raised a controversial issue that resulted in my father and I going head to head (which rarely, IF EVER, happens). One of my very good mates happens to be getting married later in the year, and I was toying with the idea of going to the Bucks Night over the Hens Night for reasons as follows:

1. I've known the buck to be since I was 14

2. I'm unusually tied  to the same group of boys I've grown up with since school who would all be attending the bucks night and have rarely been excluded  from  any events concerning them

3. The fiancee is lovely, but we are not that close and I'd rather celebrate my close friends impending nuptials with him and my  group of friends

4. I despise hens nights and anything involving penis whistles, veils, matching t-shirts, women en masse, and doing stupid activities

5. I've been to strip clubs before WITH my group of boys and there's no situation that we all haven't seen eachother in

In saying all this...my father, who usually encourages my  unorthodox, non conformist streak....was vehemently opposed. He said "You would not be welcome there" to start with....which extended to "Bucks Nights are NO place for a woman" and "You are not a man". Things have changed since my father probably went on a bucks night (back in the '70's!) and this is no ordinary situation and I am no ORDINARY woman. Nor am I the sort of woman to take such comments on the chin. My inner feminist fire began burning but then I realised that it's not even about that (although it is in the case of fighting my fathers conservative attitude to this subject). It's essentially about being with my buddies on an imporant night of their life. I don't really even take the gender divide into account or whether for a moment, I might feel unwelcome. If anything, it would feel wrong for me NOT to be there.  I then further analysed this and wondered what kind of bucks parties my dad had gone to in order to be so appalled by having a female within the vicinity...and then I wondered whether his Monday nights at rotary were in fact a rouse for him attending some Gentlemans Only club where they were deer horns on their heads and drink red wine renouncing the ubiquity of women. Then mum chimed in with "Do you want people at the wedding to be pointing at you and whispering, that was the girl who went to the bucks night?? They will you know. You will be ostracised". I've been inflammed by their provincial outlook on this matter since Sunday and it remains unresolved in my mind. Dad even went further to engage my brother, who was trying to illustrate that this was no ordinary situation and take my side, "Mate...would you want to go to a hens night if you were close to a bunch of women?"....and before brother could open his mouth, he continued "No...ofcourse not, it would be wrong, just as wrong as a woman going to a bucks night"...and my brother muttered "But I wouldn't want to go to a hens night and they wouldn't invite a straight guy anyway"...which prompted Dad to then go "And don't go getting the opinion of your gay mates as they are not going to understand"......Great so let's just make this sexist and homophobic!!!!!

I'm still quite shaken that I've had a disruption to the rather calm and constant relationship I share with my father, and in the subsequent days that followed sunday...I've eyed him off suspiciously and treated him coolly.

I'm sure I'll get over it....but I'm a little perturbed to say the least.  And the jury is still out as to whether I "push the boats out" with the boys and hang my head in shame to my parent and apparently the masses of wedding guests who will be gathering around me calling for my hanging.....or demurely attend a hens day/night and smile politely, going through  the motions whilst wishing I was really at a Titty Bar chanting the bucks the name and "pretending I have balls". Last time I went to a bucks night I picked up one of the Groomsman, so I guess they are not all bad??