February 11, 2015
Carnaval is celebrated the week before the start of Lent as the last hoo-rah before Easter. Each region in France has its own to traditions and this lucky duck got to experience "Carnaval Biarnes". Everyday leading up to Mardi-Gras had a different event. One of the first big events, "Chasse à l’Ours," was today.
The story behind this region's Chasse à l’Ours:
The bears awake from hibernation and descend from the mountain. They are voracious and attack the young women to have sex with them (only pretend, but frightening nonetheless) and the village men attempt to save the women.
Luckily I missed the first part so I have a second-hand story of what happens:
Men are dressed in full-body bear costumes with belts precariously attaching red balloons as penises. The bears are scattered about, around the Place where the main event is going to happen, and surprise attack young women with aggressive sexual motions. I heard one American girl got sandwiched between two bears and another girl got knocked to the ground with four bears. Apparently, the bears are not very selective and every girl got attacked. Contrary to the tradition people don't come and save you, you just have to grin and bear it (pun!) for what I can imagine to be a very long minute. After some shenanigans, the village men, who are women dressed as men with army green coats and drawn on mustaches, come to save the day (finally) and cut of the bears' penises.
Now the part where I showed up:
Then village men (women) and the bears (men) all danced around while the live band played the traditional music. Next... there was a BEAUTY PAGEANT. I didn't see that coming. All the participants, males between ages 20 and 40 dressed in their most revealing dresses, gathered on stage. I bet you didn't see that coming either. #whatacountry Each man took a turn going up to the host and sharing his woman name, a hobby, and striking a pose for the crowd. There were a lots of blond wigs, and scandalously short and form fitting dresses. During the pageant, there were some bears on stage grabbing the dolled up men and faking sex with them. But it was incredibly aggressive and disturbing. After all 20 guys were introduced, the crowd yelled the name of their favorite and the lovely man sporting bunny ears, a blond wig, and short silver-sequined dress was dubbed "Miss Rose". Now the party moved to the chateau and tout va bien.
I just can't look at bears the same way.
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