Did you go to your prom? for Questionland Seattle

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Did you go to your prom?

This thing with Constance McMillan and the Itawamba School District has reminded me just how obsessive we Americans are about the idea of Prom as a central life-changing moment in the lives of teenagers. The outrage for Constance is not just for the insult of being excluded because she's not straight, but more importantly, because she is being excluded from the _Prom_. Horrors!

So, I'm curious: did you go to your prom? Who did you take?

For the record, I went to mine. As I've mentioned elsewhere, I went to a small catholic girls' school, and there were only a few dozen of us in my graduating class. Our prom was held in the formal private dining room of a fancy restaurant, and we hired a dj who played songs like "Lady in Red" and "Jump!" I wore a pretty ivory dress, had my makeup and hair done.

My date was my girlfriend, which seems way more remarkable today than it did then. I made no apologies for her; I introduced her to my teachers and classmates _as_ my girlfriend. No one was flustered, and my teachers especially -- who were potentially in a position to uphold Catholic bigotry -- were gracious and lovely.

The evening so unremarkable but for the gender of my date. We bought each other corsages, we slow-danced to cheesy outdated soft-rock schlock, and we even got our photos taken by a photographer with an airbrushed sparkly backdrop. That photo now is mortifying -- but that's because I was so earnest in the picture, and because the girl and I broke up when I discovered three months later that she wasn't the love of my life.

Anyway. I'm so glad now that I went, and I feel lucky to have attended a school that was so progressive, and so relaxed about letting me be who I was.

MyrnaMinkoff asked in Sex & Relationships over 2 years ago | Report

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e.strange

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I went. I wanted to have the experience, and also I felt like I had to go since I was nominated for prom queen. (It's a long story but the short version is that I was pretty much a nerd and was nominated on a fluke.) I didn't have a date, though. There wasn't really anyone I wanted to ask and I'm not sure if I would have had the balls to ask someone back then anyway. I was getting a bit panicky, when a boy from the grade below me who I barely knew (I was in jazz choir and he was in jazz band and we'd talked on the bus on the way to events once or twice) asked me. Of course I said yes. The entire evening was awkward because he was extremely nervous and neither one of us was socially adept to begin with. I ended up being the prom queen (it was an easy victory once I was nominated - there are WAY more geeks than popular kids and they all voted for me, plus it was the 90's so it was kinda cool to be weird). After they gave me my tiara and flowers, I was supposed to have a solo dance with the prom king, but he wasn't there (he'd missed a ferry or something). I was just standing there in the spotlight on the empty dance floor and I had no idea what to do. My date was nowhere in sight, but my best friend was pretty close to me, so I grabbed her and we started dancing. We were booed off the dance floor! I'm from a small, conservative town, but it never occurred to me that people would have a problem with two straight girls dancing (or even two lesbian girls, really). It was an interesting night, for sure.

e.strange answered in Sex & Relationships over 2 years ago | Report

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Yup, took my boyfriend at the time to my senior prom. We had fun, no bad experiences, and I got laid afterward!

One funny thing that happened: the limo driver was a little bit scary looking to me, like a bearded biker dude, I was slightly concerned for our safety, but we were with a big group of friends. Anyway, as my bf and I got back into the limo he stuck his head in and asked if we were "together." I answered yes, hesitantly, and then he proceeded to tell us how great he thought that was and that he had just recently come out and wished that he could have taken a boy to prom.

boxofbirds answered in Sex & Relationships over 2 years ago | Report

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Nope. Taking my black boyfriend to my prom in Roswell, NM in 1996 would have gotten us both killed, and there is no hyperbole in that statement. We seriously would have been dragged outside and beaten to death and no one in authority would have been able to stop it.

Gitai Ben-Ammi answered in Sex & Relationships over 2 years ago | Report

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No but I wish I had

Stephanie Lundgren answered in Sex & Relationships over 2 years ago | Report

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Kristin Bell

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Surprisingly enough, I went to Prom Junior year. I'm fairly certain the guy who took me is gay, but I'm not sure. We were friends, but I'm not sure why he asked me out. I wore an ugly dress and my shoes were so slippery that I fell on my ass, but people weren't around at the time, so I don't know if anyone noticed. The night was very awkward. I accidentally cut my finger on some metal that was sticking out on the girls' bathroom door and my rabbit died that night too.

It wasn't a horrible night, but I don't really like dances and I don't like parties, so I probably shouldn't have gone. I am glad that I went though, just so I could know that I wasn't actually missing out on anything by not going the next year.

Prom and Homecoming and all those other dances like Tolo and Sadie Hawkins were big in my high school, but I only went to two dances during high school and that was enough for me. People do make a HUGE deal out of them, or at least they did back then, but once you get there it isn't like it is that exciting. Most kids go out on the town to some restaurant for dinner before or after, and of course there are some who make it an all night party. Probably the smaller the town, the bigger the deal it is.

I can understand how it would be a big deal for that girl who the controversy is about. In my high school those kind of things were very important and popularity was important too. Obviously, no one has anything better to think about in high school, or at least everyone is made to believe it is the most important thing in life. It is kind of sad, but true.

Kristin Bell answered in Sex & Relationships over 2 years ago | Report

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Hooray!

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I went. I took my good friend Kendra. I'm gay, but was not out in high school. I lived in a very conservative small town and bla bla bla.

Anyway, the school board/school admin. decided to invite the cops to our prom and allow them to give random breathilizers. I had not been drinking, I was just a little stoned. The shitty thing, was that way too many of my favorite class mates had been kicked out for being drunk, the dance floor was lightly salted with a few special-ed girls all pastel and satin and old lady perfume and enough hair spray to last Ruth Stoops(Citizen Ruth)a lifetime.

Needles to say, we werent there long. The post prom however was fun. I, being the resident closeted gay, was of course always the limbo champion. I won the limbo, but my pot fell out of my pocket as I contorted for competition and a Mom chaperone picked it up. I noticed at the last second as she just bolted out the door with it. Nothing was ever mentioned about it. But I know that bitch took ma shit home.

Would have been cool to have went to my prom with a cute boy. I sent an email to Theresa McNeece, the Superintendent at the Itawamba co school in my support of Constance McMillen.

Hooray! answered in Sex & Relationships over 2 years ago | Report

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A week before prom I found out my boyfriend was cheating on me, so I beat him up (literally), sold his prom ticket and bought myself some silver platform high heels with the money.

Then I took my friend Katherine instead and no one gave a shit (gotta love Seattle). A bunch of my friends went as a pack and we all took ecstasy and danced all night, then went back to my friend's house whose mom was gone and spent the rest of the night singing drunkenly along to the Pogues, and wandering around Fremont with a container of marshmallow fluff.

It honestly was one of the best nights of my life.

Cedarthvader answered in Sex & Relationships over 2 years ago | Report

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Good lord, no. When I was in high school I could barely talk to girls; I certainly wasn't going to ask them out on a date, especially not The Most Important Date Of Your Young Life, as it's advertised. A bunch of us bad kids didn't go. I can't remember what we did instead; probably smoked a ton of pot and listened to terrible Robin Trower records instead. I honestly don't even think it occurred to us to go; that was one of those events that was Not For The Likes Of Us. I wonder how many of those "us" turned out to be gay? I never knew, and I never saw most of them again after high school.

Fnarf answered in Sex & Relationships over 2 years ago | Report

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No. The next year after I graduated I went to my girlfriends senior prom and we left after about ten minutes and had a hell of a lot more fun going back to my house to lay in bed, watch movies and ruin her prom dress.

Hooves answered in Sex & Relationships about 1 year ago | Report

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Yes. Knew she was the one. Still is. The Prom itself sucked though - dancewise and musicwise too. Spent 50 bucks for a suit: pretty sure prices haven't changed in 20-some years (and neither have most of the suits).

For us, it was all about the company we kept.

Also, When I was a junior or so I had gone to prom with someone else at another school, and my classmate Emily was there and had brought her good friend Mona. They were the belles of the ball, both girls were in tuxes.

Rev.Enant answered in Sex & Relationships over 2 years ago | Report

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Geni

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Yes, junior year I got asked out by a senior guy that I had a crush on. He ended up asking me to catch a ride to the after-prom party with one of his friends, as he had to do something else. I'm at the party, and I keep asking, "where's Ben?" and his friends all look sort of shamefaced and say nothing - until Ben and a girl he used to date come out of the bushes, straightening their clothes. (He ended up being my first serious boyfriend - we dated for about 8 months, during which time he repeated a version of the prom incident several times. I guess I'm slow on the uptake.)

Senior year, I went with a friend, because he yelled to me across the room in Civics class, "Hey, you wanna go to the prom with me?" and even I am not enough of an asshole to say no in a case like that. We actually went as a large group of freaks and weirdoes, and had a good time.

I do remember several of my guy friends dancing with one another at my 10th reunion - they were trying to make a point, and we all kept ruining it by joining in. Nearly every guy I was friends with in high school was out of the closet by then. That's what happens when you hang out with theatre nerds, I guess.

No one would have remarked on two girls dancing together at my prom - that was actually pretty common in those days, for the shy or nerdy girls who didn't have dates. Maybe some were gay, but in those days, most people just assumed that more girls than boys wanted to dance.

Geni answered in Sex & Relationships over 2 years ago | Report

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Oddly, I did. I didn't have a date...I had BARELY managed to eek out an invitation to a girl I was interested in but she already had a date.

But a nice girl in a class I had learned of this and she asked me to go, as a friend, with her. She had an older boyfriend who didn't want to go.

I was coming out of my shell at the time and trying to be more social so it was nice to go.

Arsenic7 answered in Sex & Relationships over 2 years ago | Report

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Peter F

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I went to two junior proms at my high school...

In my junior year I took a friend to our prom, a sweet deaf girl who lived down the street. She and I had sort of flirted a bit all year, and though nothing romantic ever really came of it we got along well. One funny thing is that we ended up sitting by the speakers and having roles reversed because she could read my lips when I talked, but I couldn't hear a thing she said (and I didn't know much sign language). She was able to dance by feeling the bass vibration through the dance floor with her feet, which was kind of cool.

In freshman year of college, I started dating another neighborhood girl on weekends, who was a junior at our high school that year. We ended up going to her prom, which was a little surreal, but fun. We've been married for almost 20 years now.

I remember almost nothing about the proms themselves, mostly just being there with those girls, who had my full attention all night. I think the first prom's theme was based on a Bob Segar song (complete with a Segar cover band) and the second prom's theme might have been an Eric Clapton song.

Peter F answered in Sex & Relationships over 2 years ago | Report

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I didn't go to my prom because I was visiting schools on the East coast. I spent my prom night eating room service and watching bad cable tv in a room at the airport Hilton. Kind of a shame, too, because I had a totally cute boyfriend and it probably would have been fun. Was I sad at the time that I didn't go? Sort of. Do I regret it now, about 10 years later? Not at all.

Emily Steed answered in Sex & Relationships over 2 years ago | Report

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No, but I was asked and went to an adjacent high school's prom. So, I guess I went to someone's prom, where I was unknown, and I enjoyed the theme "Knights in White Satin" back in 1974...

But I didn't go to mine, cause I didn't have a girl then, and wasn't terribly socially comfortable. So, nothing really happened. But I did buy her a flower and she had a white one for me.

I still remember the evening, but I didn't try to do much dancing and NEVER would have thought about doing anything afterwards. I was a perfect gentleman. (And probably, much to my date's annoyance!)

"Cagey" answered in Sex & Relationships over 2 years ago | Report

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