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Reprinted from the Winter Solstace 1990 EV Will and Word
BATHROOM PARTY
One day, i decided to let go all the intellectual stops and create
a happiness vortex all my own. By now, i had learned to approach
such a task by asking these questions: What do i want? What's the
problem? Who can help? How?
In short order, i discovered i wanted to throw a bathroom party.
For a long time, i'd toyed with the concept of doing a theatrical
production in a bathroom because of the bathroom's psychic imprint.
The bathroom is magical! People routinely get naked there. Water
appears and vanishes. Things disappear in the toilet bowl. People
force things out of their bodies. One can experience body-wide
fields of heat, cold, steam, and tingly water there. Mirrors are
stared into. Rituals of hygiene are performed. All interactions
become intimate. The bathroom is the most dangerous room in the
house (Most accidents take place there). It is a favorite place
in which to commit suicide.
Furthermore, the tub can be used as a stage, and lighting tends to
be complex (window behind tub--say--and a door, and the bathroom
light).
But during those days of self-examination through creation of the
bathroom party concept, i saw that theatre as theatre wasn't right
for me. It was all too convoluted and cerebral. It lacked the
very messiness, scattered and crowded style which had attracted me
to the bathroom in the first place.
I realized that all i wanted was my happiness vortex. Not to
teach. Not to do good theatre or laudable ritual. Not to make a
political statement. These things would, i could easily see,
appear and with gusto, but as secondary manifestations of my simple
lust to birth my bathroom party.
It was at this point--where i'd rejected any artistic
pretensions--that i quickly grew aware of a tradition of the
bathroom party. My most direct links were in the child folk
cultures, but i soon recognized it in both modern and ancient adult
cultures as well, in the folk and court/society circles.
Bathroom parties, though they haven't self-consciously been
performed as beads on a long traditional thread, are in fact a
common thing. There is the solitary bathroom experience, for
example, of sinking into a tub of warm water and scented oils or
of frothy cool bubbles. There is the young hidden expression of
sexuality, which in inhibited modern cultures, often takes place
in the bathroom as well.
But not all bathroom parties have been solitary. Sex is often
enjoyed in the bathroom, the shower or tub serving as mattress or
dance floor. The tub is often where the small child is introduced
to bathroom partying, naked and sitting up to the navel in warm
water, surrounded by tub toys and joined by an older guardian.
Simple puppetry turns the tub of toys into a toddler's theatre!
And bathroom parties are not exclusively an adult or baby
pass-time, either. Kids and adolescents, herded into our school
system, let it all hang out in the boy/girl segregated bathrooms.
They meet to talk behind the backs of their jailers, script
graffiti, fight and play, toke a smoke, jack off, talk love, and
so on. Girls keep it up, quite openly, past school age, and boys
get together too, but (as Woody Allen might say) "with an
explanation."
Furthermore, kids have a tradition of holding seances. One branch
of traditions is the Mary Worth/Mary Wolf/or Bloody Mary ritual.
This is performed in the bathroom around either the toilet or the
mirror. Groups are all girl, all boy, or mixed--according to the
particular tradition. The bowl or mirror is stared into in the
dark, and a chant along the lines of "I believe in you, Mary Worth"
is repeated a specific number of times (3 and l0 are popular
numbers). A blue light is supposed to appear. Kid seances are
about as effective as any other kind.
Another branch of traditions is the girls' marriage divination, at
least one of which takes place in the bathroom. A candle is lit
before the mirror; a charm is spoken; and the face of one's future
spouse (Yes, it's awfully presumptuous) will appear in the mirror.
These traditions are widespread and are passed down from child to
child, generation after generation. There are traditions as grand
in age and decorum as the most ceremonious of these seances in
adult bathroom parties. They can easily be typified by reference
to the ancient Greek gymnasium. Modern locker room and spa
behavior (especially sauna) clearly carry the tradition along.
Native American sweat lodges and Asian spas argue for an almost
universal network of bathroom partying traditions. Of course,
class/age/gender sometimes kept such celebration from truly being
universal. The oldest public baths in the US are only about a
hundred years old, and most have been shut down, as have most of
the baths that openly championed homosexual celebration. How many
of the poor or homeless can get clean in a dignified--never mind
enjoyable manner? Spas are for the rich in the USA (Even public
swimming pools--sometimes the same thing as a public bath--are
closing down in NYC).
So i could rest assured that i was not an out-and-out pioneer in
this effort. I am not brave in that sense. I want to push the
envelope (and how), not invent it. My birthday 'round the corner
(3 July/Cancer), and the unwelcome return and reunion of two
relatives whose combined neuroses threatened to reach critical mass
on my day of days catalyzed me into action. I made a few phone
calls, and one friend invited me over.
Based on my theory that birthday cake used to be little cakes, and
that the fire used to be much less centralized under a single adult
guardian's control, we exchanged cookies and lit a candle and
incense. I brought over my plush toy lamb, Sappho, and had her
call down the blessings of my personal guide/deity, Goldilox, in
a few words initiating my friend and friend's 2 year old into the
mysteries of Goldilox. I was nude, my friend wore a bathing suit,
the babe wore diapers and shirt and had to be changed once.
Everyone played the harmonica at some point (babe learning very
quickly).
I had names of six songs my friend and i both knew written on slips
of paper (Babe was asleep then). We mixed the slips 'round. I
then pulled out three and, from inside the tub (Babe awake by
then), wove a musical review marrying the song triplet.
Adults drank screwdrivers, and the babe drank apple juice. I sang
one of my folkish songs with accompaniment of a toy accordion.
Baby played with tambourine at one point while parent played on
harmonica and i did body percussion. Baby played with the stuffed
animals as we looked on, clapping alot. Most of the celebration
was recorded on audial tape. Much free discussion, gossip, and
philosophizing went on throughout.
Sleep, hugs and kisses brought the celebration to its amiably
exhausted close.
I find it significant that a child was involved in this. In a way,
it was mere luck of the draw. But for me, if there can't be kids,
i'm scared away too. The gnostic masses i've been to have lacked
the presence of children (even though they are called for in the
script). Sure, it was luck of the draw, but seeking child energy
was also a main priority for me. In all my dream lists of guests,
i worked hard to include a child or two--even if it all seemed like
wishful thinking. Also, i go to the mass in order to feel out
certain recurring stories or themes in my life. I felt a more
direct, visceral, and celebratory examination in this bathroom
party than i would have felt had i gone to a gnostic mass at this
time.
The gnostic mass may be a great way to commune with a large
scattered group over long periods of time. But by asking one's
self (not one's ego constructs), "What do i want?" one can find
adventures that the mass merely keeps track of.
--g. saintiny, l99l
SEX IS PEACE
TRUE WILL NOT SLAVERY
CONSCIOUSNESS IS STRENGTHtem, let it all hang out in the boy/girl segregated bathrooms.
They meet