Someday, when those Dollar Menu double-cheeseburgers and lapsed gym memberships catch up to your cardiovascular system, you — just like me and 80 percent of this grease-soaked nation — will be forced under the sterilized knife. And somewhere, in between your slightly irrational mistrust of the anesthesiologist and unconsciousness, you’ll question just what exactly makes the talkative guy in the long white coat qualified to tear a hole in your chest.
Because let’s be honest, your typical pre-med undergrad doesn’t ooze confidence. As an archetype, medical students are studious, stoic and more uptight than Michael Richards at [insert African-American cultural function here]. If this guy’s going to save your life, you want him to appear personable, good-looking and eager to, at any moment, do one armed push-ups. Instead, you get a Rick Moranis look-a-like with a Ph.D. from Stanford. On average, that’s going to add another one and a half bypasses to your running tab.
Fortunately, the UW Medical School has never been one to kowtow toward stereotypes — or decency norms.
On April 17, the UW Medical Students Association, with funds from the UW School of Medicine Alumni, threw a party — or, more specifically, a “Black Bag Ball.” Alliteration and illusions to covert government intelligence operations aside, it’s hard to know what to expect from an event with such a mysterious name, especially one put on by a bunch of pseudo-doctors. However, what one wouldn’t expect is nurse outfits and ’70s wah-wah pedal music.
Get your small denominations of American currency ready; it’s a stripper party.
For many of us, stripper parties exist only in the mythologies of National Lampoon films, that one cousin who spent a semester at ASU and Duke Lacrosse huddles. To have documented evidence of their existence on campus, and to know they’re occurring among the most bookishly perceived subsection of the student population, is a great comfort to those who hold the “cool” of UW in high esteem. And yet, with a little digging, one quickly discovers that not all that glitters is gold. [Ed. Note: This last sentence is terrible on several levels. Not only is it a fourth grade clich?, but also it ignores that most strippers are doused with glitter. Hell, half of them are named Glitter. Having said that, I’ll leave it].
In theory, holding a secret stripper party in a closed room right next to something called the Great Hall sounds epic — although also a bit Leni Riefenstahl-ish. Unfortunately, the Great Hall is in Memorial Union, not a fraternity house or, you know, a strip club. While it’s hardly my place to tell someone where they should and should not hold a stripper party, a major hub of community activity would not be high on my list. Sure, the union sells beer. But they also sell ice cream and offer tutorials on computer usage to the elderly. The last thing little Suzy needs is a spilled cup of Barry Alvarez when she learns how mom managed to pay for those CPA classes.
Also, from a PR standpoint, it wasn’t that long ago when the UW Medical Student Association seized the moral high ground in a Badger Herald controversy. Last October, when the Herald ran, in error, an inappropriate shout-out, the Medical Student Association was quick to threaten a boycott, saying it represented an endorsement of rape. I’m not strong-headed enough to assume a single misguided action defines the personal ideologies of an entire group (the stripper, after all, was the brainchild of only a few students, and she was never approved by any person of authority), a more sensational person could claim the stripper was an endorsement of the objectification of women by the UW Medical Student Association. But I wouldn’t say that. Besides, I’ll leave the doctor boycotts to the Christian Scientists.
Yet, this probably isn’t that big a deal. Ultimately, the stripper didn’t even get the chance to undress — although several students later offered to teach her how to check for breast cancer.
But if there’s a Brady Bunch-style lesson to be learned, it’s that hiring an exotic dancer for your university organization party held in a university building is a bad idea.
Medical students shouldn’t even need strippers. If Grey’s Anatomy is as realistic as it seems, doctors are getting busy with one another all the time.
Sean Kittridge ([email protected]) is a senior majoring in journalism and history.
