Last year, I went to a Rob Zombie concert (yeah, ok). During the concert - at which the friends I was with had what I think turned out to be their penultimate fight before the break-up (oog) - a couple of young women were sitting on the shoulders of men in the audience. For a moment, I had a flashback to my first concert (The Cars) and being hoisted up onto the shoulders of an older classmate - a swoony experience that I can still remember. But to my surprise and dismay, these young women were soon flashing their breasts. "They pretty much have to," the soon-to-be-ex-boyfriend told me. "It's expected, once they climb up on a guy's shoulders."
Readers, is this true? I know that body-part-flashing has become more common these days than it was in my youth, but really? Is this a regular part of concert-going? Is it at least limited to the more raucous concerts? It's not that I object to breasts, but in this context, it was clearly the women's job to show their bodies for the men's pleasure, and it felt a bit like watching a Girls Gone Wild commercial.
If it weren't for the fact that the loud noise would hurt babies' ears, it would make me want to stage a breastfeeding sit-in at a rock concert. Can you imagine?
Sunday, September 23, 2007
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4 comments:
i saw rob a while back myself. I am short. Yep, shoulder sitting, nope, no flashing. some gals did, some gals didn't, it did not seem to be required from what I could tell.
It's never required to expose private parts of your body in public and any guy who thinks it is, is nuts- or entitled.
Also, in some places taking a female taking their tops off for "purient" interests is still illegal.
Andi - well, yeah, that is true, of course, but I remember in the early '90s that bands started refusing to play until women in the audience would take off their clothes. Beastie Boys were one of those, and I remember it got really out of hand at the second Woodstock or whatever it was called. So I wondered if concert-going behavior had changed that much that sitting on shoulders meant that everyone expected you to flash your tits.
Ren - I was really disappointed that he didn't do either Boogieman or She's on Fire.
I think that it may be a regional thing. It wasn't common in Dallas, but it WAS expected in Lubbock, where, I suppose, that was the most exciting thing that happened all year. I went to shows at the Civic Center in Lubbock where the flashing was almost competitive.
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