Bash Compactor: Getting Hymen
Saturday nights Re-Virgin Party at Glasslands Gallery was a lot like losing your virginity: less exciting than youd hoped. Upon entering, I noticed something was off. Unlike the sweaty clusterfucks one usually finds at the venue, this party was sparsely attended, with only a few guests making attempts at dancing. While the crowd seemed largely unenthused, a few had made an effort there were two white-clad maidens and one sexy schoolgirl.
The so-called purity chamber, which resembled a glowing pillow fort, beckoned from the stage. The centerpiece of the party, this chamber was supposed to scrape from partygoers hearts the layers of existential malaise that build up after too many sordid nights with strangers, such that they could continue their cycle of illicit dalliances with zero psychic repercussions.
Despite the fact that I feel losing your V-card once is enough for one lifetime, for journalisms sake I entered the chamber and was relieved to find it did not contain a tiny doctor performing hymen restoration surgery, but a TV playing a video on repeat.
Debra Moonstone, an alter ego of the partys host, Misha Calvert, appeared superimposed on a soothing beach backdrop. We are not our bodies, we are so much more, and this journey is not physical but meta physical.
Upon emerging, a foppish guy in a houndstooth scarf asked me how I felt. I responded I wasnt sure it had worked, as I couldnt hear the video. Its more about the experience, he assured me. How did he feel? Im going in again so I can be a double-virgin and lose it twice on my wedding night. Brilliant!
I tracked down Calvert and asked her why she would throw such a party. In Williamsburg, people get caught in a cycle of partying and recovering that can be sort of exhausting, she said. I wondered if there was a way I could feel clean again. This process rejuvenates you. Were not talking about growing our hymens back, right? Because that shit hurts. No, and its crazy how popular physical revirginization is getting. In relation to this, that is bullshit.
Be careful tonight, you have a cherry again, warned my scarf-wearing pal as I left.
Calvert herself was the brains behind the much-reviled Williamsburg Beauty Pageant. With a fabricated story about how the event was community service, she earned credulity, ire and, most importantly, attention from Williamsburgers and local media. I suddenly felt annoyed at having spent all night tiptoeing around the beliefs of someones deadpan impersonation of a crazy New Age lady. Is she a master of Dadaist performance art, or just an imperfect practitioner of one-note ironies?
While Calverts master plan for her events remains unclear, the revirginization project was doomed to fall short of last summers hipster-hatred-fueled press fest. After all, in these parts, purity isnt nearly as sexy as a gold lamé bikini.