why do i hate that artist thing that people keep posting on my facebook so much? why am i such a jerk?

I thought it was implying a wife swap sort of thing.

they are probably conflating it with suburban mom sex toy parties.

which is a thing i only know about from t.v.

did i use the word conflating correctly in that sentence?

Yes you did.

Also that's what I was thinking, too, but having been to one of those sex toy parties, let me tell you they are not actually that sexy.

It's not a thing I would cite when explaining to my child that I had a crazy, independent life before Jeff yolked me into patriarchal slavery and made me stop drinking Canadian Club.

Key parties? Are they thinking of key parties?

yeah i have heard of them as key parties -- everyone puts their keys into a bowl, you pull one, that's the person you make it with that night, you might smoke some acapulco gold and listen to todd rundgren and then maybe retire to one of the rooms upstairs to see if you can manage to get it on with this man/woman who is someone else's spouse.

no idea what tupperware parties have to do with that?

note: i asked my mom about key parties once when i was a kid because i think i had seen it in a movie or something and that's the description she gave me, only i added the acapulco gold + todd rundgren. the rest is what she told me.

maybe the keys are in a tupperware bowl

http://static.someecards.com/someecards/usercards/MjAxMy1lYjZlZjQ2MmIyZmM3YWY1.png

maybe in the 80s they changed the name to tupperware parties?

the ice storm. famous for that. i'm pretty sure my parent's suburban 70's connecticut potlucks weren't as steamy. though they did hang out with lots of unitarians, so you never know.

i actually remember that ice storm. from the ice storm book/movie. i was there, man.

tupperware parties were just tupperware parties! in the old days someone had to come to your house to sell you plastic bowls. very primitive society.

i wouldn't mind reading/seeing/hearing some firsthand recollections of 70s key parties
how old would those people be now?

i love the ice storm

xp 115-120

my hometown newspaper on the ice storm:

http://www.newstimes.com/news/article/Region-remembers-ice-storm-of-73-97594.php

Don't see any action happening with Rundgren on the box. Lightfoot, maybe.

i remember coming home at night and we had this loooooong steep driveway and it was just covered with sheets of ice and i had a big red stuffed mouse toy and i rode my mouse down the driveway. kinda fucked up its fur. the world looked so amazing.

how old would those people be now?

Old enough to where you'd regret hearing about them?

I saw a sky blue Plymouth Reliant K parked on the street with VIETNAM VETERAN plates. Seems like yesterday those guys were a bunch of Jeff Lebowskis, and now they're all more like these Lawrence Tierney type guys.

You know you're getting older when old people start getting younger.

I would never regret hearing about them! I love it when old people talk about their wild days.

Honestly, there are sooooooo many better 70s choices for getting it on than Rundgren or Lightfoot that I pity anyone who had to give it a whirl with those two. It's part of what makes those stories painful and poignant. How awkward!

xp http://www.humansofnewyork.com/post/60712616205/what-was-the-happiest-moment-of-your-life

"Key parties" just sound so sleazy. I don't think I would want to hear any details. I just imagine polyester and orange and avocado and those round metal fireplaces in the center of the living room surrounded by people's parents boning each other next to the hi-fi.

I hear you, and I was being half-facetious about that.

But, this goes along with what I said in the last sentence of my previous post. It was one thing to be so far removed from the generation that came of age in the late 30s, hearing about juke joints and prohibition ending and going dancing to the big bands.

But with this generation right above ours, where I've been exposed to their shenanigans all my life, hearing from some grandma about how she had her pussy ate out on a water bed by a strange neighbor while an 8-track of Three Dog Night blared from the living room hi-fi ain't high on my list right now.

my brother and sister and i ready for ice.

https://sphotos-b-ord.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-frc3/268718_10150738504840298_3545626_n.jpg

my mom says that some of the people in her chicago north shore suburb were into "wife-swapping," I hope not my grandparents though.

awesome scott

jfc pplains

Funny how they never husband-swap, not even on the TV show.

Was talking to a dude last week about how he accidentally took his friends to a swinger party once. None of them knew it was going to be, and the atmosphere was pretty chill but there were definitely people kind of wandering off to bedrooms.

I guess that's the thing with key parties, did people have an idea of whose keys they were grabbing? Seems like it couldn't have been random.

Yeah, I'm still curious. I don't care how sleazy or avocado it is. I want to hear! My parents were total squares, but not far removed from people who weren't. I don't want details, just recollections.

I've met a few swingers or people claimed to be swingers. Seems like they're always either kind of homely boring types or really neurotic in my experience.

I don't think it's about swinging or key parties. women spending time together without men present used to be inherently suspicious activity. the most benign explanation is that they were having lesbian sex, thus the innuendo.

disappointing, but probably accurate

that's going to be the title of my textbook about the real history of 20th century america.

key parties sound suspiciously like something that didnt actually happen

that's another reason why getting some first hand stories would be illuminating!

i was reading a 70's paperback the other day that was just transcripts from a feminist awareness group. suburban-types. its a pretty sad book. the stories are really sad.

the first and last time i heard about key parties was the ice storm.

does that periodical you collected have any references to such parties, LL?

Key party[edit source | editbeta]
"Key party" redirects here. For the cryptographic identification event, see Key signing party.

NPR's Fresh Air ‏@nprfreshair 17m
TODAY: Jonathan Lethem's politically radical family, growing up on a commune, + Grandma's sex life inspired his new novel Dissident Gardens.

Side note, the fact that Lethem's new novel is set in Queens makes me suspicious that he's actually an agent of gentrifying real estate interests. That said, I will probably read it.

haha

does that periodical you collected have any references to such parties, LL?
i was wondering just that -- i haven't looked through all of them because i was saving them for later -- they are a finite resource -- but maybe this calls for some investigation.

Key parties split my parents up. My mum was attending them, my dad wasn't. /therapy

I'm not about to ask my mum about them tho eugh gross

that sucks, but also it's v interesting. probably not an isolated incident.