by Alison Tennant

Created on: September 24, 2008   Last Updated: October 31, 2008

A BOYS' NIGHT OUT is men chatting about football, right?
And a Girls' Night Out is women comparing fashion and make-up tips.

No?

I'm sure my grandmother went to her grave thinking that.
'In her day' - a phrase she used whenever I dared talk about my life - women were oh so genteel and their husbands (never lovers or partners) were a little more raucous with a pint of 'Ordinary' inside them.

At least that was what she expected me to believe. I think that secretly she whipped it up with the best of them. As people get older, memories of their vibrant youth seem to dim.

But, for me, a Girls' Night Out still means sex talk, relationship advice, and shrieks of humour from people who really understand me, i.e. those who have dress sense, periods, and breasts.

And, of course, it means strippers.

Yes, a Girls' Night Out is a therapeutic exercise, it lets me both rid my body of the sensitivity and insecurities which have grown in it in the real world, and recharge my batteries ready for more daily drudgery. I can 'let it all out', be it in telling other girls about my hassles at home, in shrieking and laughing at what the strippers have to offer, or in getting drunk and crying tears of sorrow or joy.

But points need to be made here ABOUT the strippers:
Male stripping isn't a corollary of female stripping. It seems odd for me to support men doing something and not to support women doing it but, until Hell freezes over and we get true equality, so be it.

The point is - as anyone who's attended both male and female "Nights Out" will testify - men and women react to the opposite sex in states of undress in different ways. For men it's a personal, quiet thing ("She's stripping FOR me, i.e. I'M in control", "throw her a fiver - she may need me to fight off the vultures who only want her body!"), another millennia-long tradition of keeping us in our place.

For women it's a group, excitable thing ("Get'em off!", "let us see what you're humping for us") a safety-in-numbers attempt to worship our masters while they demonstrate to us what they've got to make us humble and excited.

Where men ogle our bodies, we cheer theirs. It's real life.

But the Girls' Night Out lets us do so much more than laugh and drink with our sisters. If I'm annoyed with a boss, I can tear him (or her!) to shreds with the combined tongue lashings of catty mates; if I'm trying to pull a bloke, I can pick up suggestions on how a complicated man like him might respond to my overtures; if I'm having trouble at home, I can either joke with others on the receiving end of male superciliousness, or compare notes on how best to overcome it.

But what the hell? I'll give up analysing it.

"Ooh girls - he's hunkeeee. Bet HE measures up!"

Learn more about this author, Alison Tennant.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.