Female Sharing Evenings:
A Sacred Rite

 

 

So there’s a crowd of women in your living room with a few bottles of wine and some kind of bread/dip scenario and maybe a nail polish or two, and it’s a Wednesday night and none of you have plans to leave shortly to be anywhere else. The mood is cheerful, the conversation is flowing… you are basically seconds away from a Female Sharing Event.

Soon—any moment now—someone will offer up a little personal nugget. Something small but a definite Share, the kind of thing that you couldn’t or wouldn’t say if there was anyone else in the room but this particular group, drunk on friendship, the shared experience of being young and alive, and, okay, perchance a bit tipsy on the “winter sangria” you made from that wine your mom brews up in her basement plus some cloves and, well, whiskey for the “winter” part. This personal nugget will be built upon by the assembled group, one story of a first kiss at summer camp spiralling into secret shares about crushes past and present, girlsperimentation, and who knows what else.

One of the most bewildering parts of female life is the amount of things we are supposed to keep to ourselves, experiences that are commonplace (and in many cases in vital need of sharing) but which have been collectively shushed. We can’t talk about periods, it’s “gross.” We can’t talk about rape, it’s “upsetting.” We can’t talk about yeast infections, it’s “too much information.” We can’t talk about abortion, it’s “divisive.” Something pretty incredible happens to a group of women when they realize they’re in a safe space for open and honest discussion, free of judgement. You can see people’s eyes light up, their bodies lean in, and their brains start to gather up old silences to make them known.

Sometimes the silence has been kept a long time, and is difficult to divulge because it’s personal and hurtful. Sometimes the silence is “I have an EXTREME thing for Simon Cowell and I can’t carry that alone anymore.” Both are important and over the course of a really good night of Female Shares, you can run the gamut from hilarious stories about the time you had sex with your boyfriend to stop him entering a bathroom into which you’d just deposited a Five-Alarm poop, to virginity loss shares (a true classic), weirdest orgasm stories (a new classic), or more serious topics like fear of death, how you really feel about your wrinkles and where they are, or what consent means, and how it’s been violated for you and almost everyone you know at one time or another. Women speaking and listening to each other is important, and it feels amazing to create space where the women you know are free to do both. Here are some notes to get you started:

 

You Can Never Go Wrong with Candles and Crafts
The only thing groups of twenty-something women love more than actual crafts is The Craft. Tap into some coven vibes by smudging your apartment with sage and lighting a million candles. A few crystals you ordered from a witch website never hurt no one neither.

 

 

Approach Food and Drink Suggestions with the Fervour and Enthusiasm of a Beginner Improviser
It’s not all about serious dialogue. Sometimes it’s about serious snacks. “Should we order pizza?” “Yes! AND let’s get a box of wine.” “YES, aaaand why don’t we make a big kale salad just to be fancy?” “Yes, and I’ll bring just a straight-up roll of cookie dough and no one will talk about whether or not eating raw egg in large quantities like that is bad for you.” “Yes, hands! I’m throwing out my cutlery.”

 

An FYI
There are five types of Female Sharing: Body Talk (that Robyn album and the location of everyone’s most troublesome lone hair); Affirmation Nation (“Honestly, Claire, I mean this, do you even KNOW how talented and beautiful you are? No, Claire, seriously. CLAIRE.”); Romance Dramz (having friends of all ages has revealed something to me about ladies: we do not just stop talking about crushes one day. In fact, we never stop. We can’t stop.); Deep’N’Meaningfuls (the capital-H heavy stuff, more on this later); and Family Secrets (stuff your aunt told you at Christmas while she was drunk).

 

Go with the Flow, Conversationally
A solid flow comparison is probably as good a place to start as any. How’s everyone’s menarche?? A quick rundown of what exactly that time of the month means for you is a great segue into larger Female Shares. We’ve been sharing funny, uncomfortable period stories since our YM days, so no one should be too embarrassed here. Get into it. Cramps? Describe. Mood swings? Been there. Sex, comma, during? Explique. Smells? Pubescent tampon usage horror stories?? Give us the goods! The first person to overshare will unleash a crimson tidal wave (hi) of information that is both hilarious, helpful, and deeply bonding, setting the tone for the rest of the evening. Surf that wave.

 

This is Not the Body Issues Olympics
Turning your pal’s story about her years of disordered eating into a launching pad for an examination of the way your grandmother once asked you very pointedly if you “really needed” that brownie is not chill. The patriarchal/celebrity/beauty/femininity industrial complex has done its job well enough that we’ve aaaalllll hated our bodies at some point. You do not need to best your friend’s retelling of the inconveniences, embarrassments, and, maybe, straight-up traumas she has experienced as a woman. Sure, you’ve been there, and sure, her story is only part of a complex tapestry of suggested self-loathing and fad diets and, yes, weird comments from your grandma where it’s like, LINDA, PLEASE, that make up the embodied female experience, but we’ll get to that in a second. Share the floor. This applies to all stories, not just body ones: if you are the only one talking all night it’s going to bum everyone out. There’s no I in “Everyone’s Story About Meals They Ate While Cry-ng.”

 

If it Is Past Midnight and No One Has Compared Boobs, Go Home. Your Female Sharing Evening Has Failed
It is a truth universally known but rarely acknowledged that every young woman in possession of a set of boobs wants to look at other boobs, just to see what everyone else has going on under there. Don’t be shy.

 

It Might Get Heavy. Don’t Be Scared
Life is hard, female life is harder. Statistically, if there are three or more women in the room, someone’s experienced sexual assault. Someone’s had an abortion. Someone’s life has been touched by illness. These are big topics that don’t get nearly enough airtime in regular conversation and can be hard to discuss without the right audience. If someone starts to open up about these or other taboo topics, do not back away. Congratulate yourself on being a person deemed safe for this kind of thing, understand how much these conversations need to happen, and then just listen. For as long as the person wants to talk. This will sometimes lead to a Group Cry, which is also a very important part of the proceedings. If things need to lighten back up (the person sharing the Hard Topic is done/everyone has cried but the night is not really over yet), and you’re not sure what to do, take a risk on a sing-a-long. I say “risk,” but there is a 99.99% probability the ladies will be into it; 100% if the song of choice is a Lilith Fair classic. I have never taken a ’90s singer-songwriter risk that has not paid off.

 

Women Speaking to Women about Being a Woman Remains One of the Best Parts of Being Alive and One of the Most Important Things You Can Do. Do It Often, Do It with Care, and Goddamnit, Put Some ’90s Singer-Songwriters on Already, It’s 11 PM and We’ve Got Work Tomorrow
Jewel’s got your back, Don’t worry.