BACK then, Hugh Heffner was the supreme bachelor of his time; he first coined the term ‘stag’ when referring to the male sex, a name he was going to use for his magazine until copyright laws stopped him. Heffner eventually named his publication Playboy, but stag and stag nights from then on started to evolve, giving us over the years a particular insight into the rough magic of what it means to be a bloke.
This being the 21st century, and thanks in part to the pioneering efforts of Playboy, most chaps know what a naked woman looks like, and how she works, albeit roughly. Gone though, are the simple no nonsense pleasures of a 70s style stag night, when, after due consumption of 14 pints, dribbling with admiration at Linda Lovelace’s magnificently flexible larynx, followed by a Chinese takeaway, came the pinnacle of pub pleasure: the arrival of a depressingly embarrassing strip-o-gram.
These days, the stag night seems not so much a right of passage from man to husband but more a way of indulging in enforced weekend binge drinking sessions.
Of course, the 14 pints are still obligatory, but now there is a level of pseudo sophistication that demands that stags also test drive their livers’ unique rejuvenation capabilities by consuming five start-up voddies, several alco pops, a quarter bottle of sambuco, followed by a nightcap of tequila slammers after lurching to embrace the delights on offer of a lap dancer.
Perhaps not that much has actually changed, as the idea of having a lap dancer grinding her bottom in your face is perhaps more embarrassing, degrading, and dreadful than the good old-fashioned get yer kit off stripper, or is it?
Is there I wonder some deeper meaning to stag nights or is it just a deliberate exercise in gross stupidity and vulgarity, a time of unrelenting grimness, an obvious boozy celebration of the most carnal characteristics of men.
I asked a group of males, all of whom had multiple experiences of the new, revamped 2005 stag night, to recount an experience, printable for a family Sunday paper.
In September, Dave Metcalf enjoyed a decidedly different Paphos stag do in the company of 20 mates, all of whom had flown out from Britain to help celebrate his betrothal to Kerry.
“It all started off really civilised, we started at 9.30am with a proper English breakfast, then it was down to the local gun club for a couple of hours’ clay pigeon shooting, then a few hours spent at the beach trying out different types of water sports.
“After all this activity (and still cold stone sober) some of the lads took me back to their hotel; after a few beers they dressed me up in a ‘full on’ humiliating pink PVC nurse’s uniform, wig, black fishnet stockings all accessorised with a tiny pink handbag; and then we hit bar street.”
“The locals didn’t get it at all,” he added, “and wisely made every effort to avoid walking near us. There were some really strange looks but I think most of them were more confused than anything else as they just didn’t know what was going on.”
A situation which, after several pints of beer and whisky chasers, rapidly became familiar to Dave as his friends proceeded to commit upon him one last embarrassing act of contrition: they pinned him down in the pub, and proceeded to strip wax his legs and chest. Dave’s screams of pain were seemingly heard all the way down to the harbour.
Jamie, aged 38, originally from Bristol and now resident in Limassol, organised a stag night for his brother Richard: he and a dozen friends flew last year to Estonia a couple of weeks prior to the wedding on a special three-day stag charter package.
This is what happens when a group of men bent on having a good time, are liberally lubricated by alcohol and placed in an unfamiliar environment. “We had a great time, as they really know how to drink out there, except it was so bloody cold; we didn’t factor that in when we booked to travel in mid-January.
“This oversight caused one of our party nearly to croak it after he collapsed and fell unconscious in the snow while taking a leak at the rear of this club; it was only after about half an hour that we missed him.
“Eventually he was found almost frozen to death; we rushed him to hospital where he recovered, although he still has some problems with his toes. He had for some weird reason removed his boots and socks and suffered some degree of frostbite, but, as we all pointed out, mercifully, it was only his toes that were affected considering what he was doing prior to his collapse.”
Charles Alexander from Pissouri experienced (though not by choice) a rather raucous stag night held on the London to Glasgow night sleeper train. “I was going home to Scotland to visit my family, had just settled into my compartment when all hell broke loose.
“I honestly thought the train had been hijacked, and in a way it had been, by 25 men on a stag night – all drunk, or high, or both, all intent upon partying the night away. There was nothing that we could do; certainly sleep was out of the question so the other passengers joined in. I vividly remember being in the bar that was being rapidly drunk dry, and as I sat there in my dressing gown and pyjamas there was seated opposite me a burly 6ft tall Scotsman dressed as Miss Marple.
“He wore the wig, pearls, tweed skirt and twin-set, the whole detailed costume right down to the silk stockings and trim lace up shoes. In one hand he held a deep pan Pizza take-away box which he referred to whenever he wanted to be sick, in the other immaculately leather gloved hand he had attached a stuffed parrot which he constantly referred to as My Darling Hercule.
“I always describe that journey to friends as my pure Dadaist stag night experience, quite weird but highly enjoyable, so much so that to this day I still keep in touch with a couple of the guys I met that night.”
I asked Dave why it was necessary to dress up the groom in female attire: “Oh that’s simple, the whole point is to gross out the groom make him squirm with humiliation, embarrassment, the whole caboodle. A stag night after all is one of modern life’s essential rituals.”
I get it, the whole idea of the stag night is that the worse it gets for the groom to be, the better it is. Shame you can’t say the same for marriage…
