It's not just about opening doors, or serving others before you serve yourself - such behaviors are easily mimicked and co-opted by those without a shred of Chivarly in their heart. It's about actually CONSIDERING others before yourself. It's things like remembering to say goodbye to the people you enjoyed talking to all night, regardless of how quickly the person dragging you out of the party would like to make their exit.
I don't want to be that sad, sad Sally that says Chivalry is dead... but it's wounded and lost somewhere in the woods. It's certainly not something you see often anymore. Yes, part of that is because these insufferable Millenials have started to stake their claim on the world-at-large, and myopic self-fulfillment is quickly becoming de rigueur. I think it's also because a misled generation of shrill, hypervigilant harpies (male AND female) decided that "Chivalry" was code for "sexist," and ruined a good thing for EVERYONE.
"as if I NEED you to do that FOR me."
No, bitch. No. I did it because I wanted to, and in doing so I have taken NOTHING from you and instead OFFERED you something you didn't have before. It's an act of kindness, not of oppression, and if you fail to see the difference then excuse me but you're not fit to be a parent, a lover, or - frankly - in public.
It saddens me that general acts of decency don't seem to garner any notice or import anymore. And I'm not talking in an old-fashioned, morally subjective way. Show some ankle - hell, show some cleavage for all I care - and be proud of who you are. BUT, show some love for the people around you, too.
THIS is part of why I feel like a fucking alien anymore.
This weekend I acted as Emcee for Boulder Pridefest. I was a last-minute replacement, many things changed drastically in the days - hell, even HOURS - before the show. I ran with it as best I could, was professional as I could muster, and even had a lot of fun doing it. Pridefest, in and of itself, was a great success and very fun. My sole reward was a VIP ticket to the After-Party... an event which I would have been better off avoiding.
The After-Party began when the Boulder Pridefest crowd was shooed onto Pearl Street Mall for an hour while the crew worked to transform the theatre into a nightclub. Having been on stage for the past six hours, I decided to rest understage in the Green Room, where the headlining band and their friends handily ignored my attempts to be friendly. Shortly thereafter (but still more than 15 minutes late for their "call") the Andrew Christian performers arrived. They proceeded to loudly complain about the lack of a private bathroom and seemed entirely too eager to break into the alcohol that was apparently demanded in the rider of their contract, except that the ice in which their bottles were chilling and the stemware provided were both sub-par and that was, apparently, highly vexing.
After hissing a venomous warning that I was a fellow performer and NOT their servant, I decided to pack up my things, put all my valuables in my pockets, and flee to the relative safety of the upstairs - let the headliners deal with the naked divas.
From the vantage point I had in the VIP "lounge" (a cordoned off section with a table of food), I watched a perplexing array of 18 year olds, homeless people, and stripper groupies stumble through the doors and into the room. A constant stream of "Now THAT'S what I call Music #47-69" blared through the speakers, sending everyone into a vibrating, gyrating, humping, twerking FRENZY that, if submerged, would have made a great episode of River Monsters. Then, after the first 90 minutes, the older, richer crowd started to show up. This is when the real "party" began.
The rest of the night is remembered to me as a thick, flavorful stream of bile waxing and waning in the back of my throat. There were numerous young heterosexual couples dancing in scandalous ways - one dude leaned so far back to rest the back of his head on the apron of the stage that his stomach and private parts literally provided a table on which his girlfriend could gyrate. The Andrew Christian performers circled around the place, making eye contact with the unwashed masses only long enough to say the name of the event and/or encourage people to drink more, then participate in the contests coming up later.
The contests were two-fold. The first contest involved proving to one of the "models" that you were not wearing underwear. The prize was... underwear. The second contest was - I shit you not - a twerking contest. The eight entrants were all cis-gendered, thin-to-emaciated white people under the age of 21 (with one 30-something man in nothing but high tops and sport briefs). The prize here was also... underwear.
While all this feverish amorousness raged on at the stage, the Wealthy Elite gazed on, ravenous and enraptured, from the sidelines. They sipped their $10 cocktails and licked their lips at the visual feast laid out in front of them. A couple of them were friends of mine - friends who seemed genuinely pained to have to choose between the warring pleasures of interacting with friends and staring obsessively at the clearly-visible outlines of private parts being squashed by elastic fabrics.
I tried dancing a couple of times. I fell flat on my ass because part of the dance floor was soaking wet with some fucknut's drink (and a single, tiny, wadded-up napkin). Then I got smacked in the face by a haphazard hand so hard I drove home later that night with a headache. I still don't know who hit me - they didn't bother to notice or apologize. Considering my options for "strike three" (an instant case of the herp? Someone's high heel in my ear?), I decided to heed the warnings of the Universe and stay the fuck outta there.
Around 11 o'clock I realized that I quite literally wanted to scream. What the FUCK did all this have to do with the spirit of the event? How the FUCK did twerking and strippers - yes, STRIPPERS I don't give a fuck whose name is embroidered in the waistband of their panties - get mentioned in the same sentence as PRIDE?!?!?! Don't straight girls get to shamelessly bounce on the barely-contained erections of their sires in EVERY OTHER CLUB ON THE FUCKING PLANET? Don't skinny people with dubious dancing skills get to win free shit EVERY OTHER FUCKING DAY OF THE YEAR?! And hold the FUCKING phone - did the guy in this rap song really just use a fucking GAY SLUR?!!? WHY THE FUCK IS THIS BEING PLAYED AT PRIDE?!?!
I... lost my mind a little bit, and actually contemplated the pros and cons of puking my guts out right where I stood, but decided a better display of my distaste would be to leave. I slunk understage - was stopped by the fucking "security douche" the strippers brought with them to protect all their NO CLOTHES they were storing down there - and wasn't going to be allowed to access my stuff until one of the theatre staff who had seen me there for the last TEN MOTHERFUCKING HOURS told the guy I was allowed past that point. I grabbed my stuff (which had obviously been rifled through - luckily I had the foresight to hide my valuables) and booked it the fuck out of there.
I spent the drive home nursing the aforementioned headache and my sense of personal outrage. This... this is NOT the community for whom I've shed my own blood, sweat and tears. What happened this night had NOTHING to do with the world I helped build. These were not the people for whom I fought. These are not the rights for which I continue to fight.
It occurred to me as well that almost no eye contact was had. No exchange of names, of information, of affirmation. This "pride" party had been reduced to a series of deafening thumps that weren't so much "heard" as "sensed" through the vibrations that traveled in the collected transfats of my body.
There was no love for those with whom each was surrounded. There was no consideration of those who were neighboring. There was only the pursuit of immediate pleasure, noise, and body parts.
In that moment, in that space... Chivalry was not only dead, but its corpse was being used as a disco ball. An ugly disco ball, covered in acne and soiled (but expensive) panties. No... no wait. I'm thinking of the strippers again...
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