The stag do – or as our friends across the pond would call it, the bachelor party – can be traced back to ancient Sparta (circa 404 B.C.) where soldiers would hold a celebration for a groom the night before his wedding. This masculine meet sought to bid a final salute to singledom whilst preparing for the journey ahead. But let’s not be blinded by the cultural traditions of this occasion; back then – as it is now – this event was all about getting shitfaced. A temporary amnesia designed to block out the perceived terror of responsibility; relationships can be hard work.
Nearly 2,500 years later, some couple of thousand miles due west of the now long lost city of Sparta, I found myself in the epicentre of the modern day stag do: the strip of Levante Beach Boulevard in Benidorm.
I too had negotiated this rite of passage with a similarly spartan backdrop in the then shabby function room at The Admiral Cunningham pub in Bracknell. In fairness, most 80s venues of this ilk replicated this decor and a boisterous group of my police colleagues gathered to watch me humiliated by Bambi the requisite stripper. Debagged and doused in baby oil by the lady in question, both legs were then set in plaster before I was driven home in a Mini Clubman with my rigid legs poking out of the window. Aside from that, I can remember only two other facts: watching the erotic entertainer remove my sergeant’s glasses and insert them in a cavity that made viewing through the bifocals pretty blurry, and arriving home in the wee small hours. All in all, this wretched experience lasted around eight hours and cost me no more than 100 quid (including Bambi).
In a matter of a few short decades the contemporary stag do has turbo-charged into a mini-break requiring military planning. And it costs a fucking fortune. Before I even supped my first pint of lukewarm lager at The Dog and Duck – this compact region of Benidorm is basically a caricature of everything that is wrong in Britain – I was around £700 light. Not to mention the loss of four days of my precious life.
Even as the alcohol began to numb the senses, I was still able to conduct my favourite pastime: humanoid surveillance. Or in other words, people watching. As a qualified postgraduate researcher, I was spoilt by the sample group. Sub-clusters blended effortlessly into the hubbub of hedonism. Those on dual mobility scooters mingled with those tattooed from their toenails to their todger and beyond. The volume of those in red and white striped football shirts led me to a scientific quandary – at this precise moment was there any fucker left in Sunderland?
Then there were the stags themselves, dressed in the most audacious and lewd garbs that made many of them repulsive to the eye. Through the alcoholic haze there were occasional visions that could easily pass as feminine – as a boy from Nottingham I didn’t necessarily exclude those with beards.
As the days rolled on, I became more aware of the dichotomy of the typical stag party. The reluctant drinkers, the exhibitionists, the leaders and the led and, of course, the wise sages who observed the carnage from a controlled distance. And let’s not forget the five-star general cunts who could easily test the patience of any saint; Budha, had he been present, would probably have head-butted them.
In the temperate surroundings of Chaplins my Bambi experience seemed like the jaunty equivalent of a nursery rhyme as the late great adhesive Victoria’s daughter entertained the close quarters crowd of thirty-somethings with her versatile vagina. My social science conscience struggled with the juxtaposition of who was exploiting who? And I mulled over the likely conversation between mother and offspring when she passed on the baton, although I didn’t wait around long enough to see if this emerged from her tunnel of love too.
The learning I derived as a result of this leave of absence from responsibility was nevertheless rich. The stag survived alcoholic Armageddon and I vowed that, if I should ever marry again, my stag party would be held at the centre of the universe – Nottingham – at The Stage pub with Bambi. Admittedly, given her now probable vintage, I expect her to be strutting her stuff from the sanctuary of a mobility scooter made for two.
© Ian Kirke 2024 & all photographs.
@ianjkirke