Everyone is horny at the ren faire
Some friends dragged us to the local renaissance faire this year. We didn't dress up - none of us had the clothing and I carried Amanda's camera and took pictures all day like a tourist.
It was the last weekend of the regional faire and included a halloween costume contest. The regional faire is held at 'casa de fruta' a gas station with delusions of grandeur at the foot of the diablo mountain range that separates the coast from the California central valley. It is a medium sized event, I visited one much larger in Los Angeles and I've been to several smaller at elementary schools or off-season ski resorts.
Entrance price was $30/person and we spent $20 for parking. There isn't much to a renaissance faire. You go to see the people, staged events, and visit the shops. We watched a guy blow glass, a sword swallower, and a cheesy world wrestling event where we cheered play fighting knights, but most of the faire is just a series of food vendors, ye olde shops with clothing, arts, and crafts for sale. After waiting for nearly an hour in line I paid $10 for a small plastic cup of beer for Amanda. She said the alcohol helped her cope with the scene.
When I was younger I didn't really recognize the sexually charged atmosphere of the faire though as an adolescent I'm sure I appreciated it. Corsets and bodices are common and most female clothing is designed to accentuate the bosom or waist. Fairies and elves are found in abundance and costume choices range from leather covered woodland ranger to body paint. We saw a woman walking around in a tiny bikini and a cape and another wearing just a chain mail vest over her bare bosom. We weren't with the group when they visited the room of hand blown glass mushrooms fluorescing under a black light but we heard how they opened another door labelled 'Adult' and found a display of glass dildos and butt plugs fabricated by the genial old glassblower. The glassblower talked about travelling from fair to fair and how he was blessed to make enough to make a living. The sword swallower also mentioned travelling from show to show and I suspect the knights doing their choreographed fights were the same. I wondered how many people we saw spent all their time travelling from fair to fair, living in a kind of denial of modern civilization. I wondered how many never changed out of their leather trousers and loose shirts.
The banter at ren fairs makes me cringe. It was the reason I never got into them. The fake accents and forced elocution makes me embarrassed, not in a pearl clutching threat to my sensibilities, but rather for the people participating. While waiting in line we had an older man approach and offer us an enema from the wooden pump he carried. It was supposed to be a bit of shocking banter but it came across as awkward. I couldn't help but wonder if he really thought he was amusing as he moved on down the line to make the next group mildly uncomfortable.
There is a theater kid vibe among the participants at the faire. While our group watched the glassblower a young woman climbed up onto a nearby tree stump and in a loud fake english accent started her spiel about how she was taller that everyone and how men shouldn't look at her ankles. A few passers by, in the same spirit of fun tried to join in, cracking jokes about her station or situation in the same awkward way. Speaking like the characters in the princess bride, or Rosencrantz and Guildenstern must die, but without any humor or quickness of wit, as though the accent itself made it amusing.
Susan, while waiting in line for beer with the other female members of our group mentioned out loud how she wasn't embarrassed and this triggered a small group of older men to sexually harass them. I heard from a coworker and regular faire goes that for the people that camp out for the week the scene behind the scenes is an orgy of sexual liberation.
I've discussed the recent article about how everyone is beautiful but no one is horny about how because Hollywood is now run by Disney and changing attitudes about sexual harassment that we no longer have the horniness seen in the movies from the 1970s. The renaissance faire seems like the last bastion of this attitude - or at least it's an excuse to bring it back.
I still like the aesthetic of renaissance fairs, the costumes and enthusiastic participants. The styles of dress commonly found at renaissance fairs were a formative experiences of my youth. I dislike the fake accents, unfunny banter, and sexual harassment. I'm not sure if the two things can be separated.
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