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The History of Mardi Gras Beadwhores

In this edition of ‘Wonks Gone Wild,’ one researcher finds an answer to the Mardi Gras question: How do I get someone to throw me some beads?


The practice of female festivalgoers exposing their breasts for beads during Mardi Gras began in the 1970s but increased in 1987. (MRHSfan/flickr.com)
February 12, 2010 • By • 9 Comments
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In a 1992 issue of the journal Deviant Behavior, Craig Forsyth introduced the term “beadwhore” into the academic literature. The head of the criminal justice department at the University of Louisiana, Lafayette, recounts hearing it for the first time at a Mardi Gras parade.

He was wondering why the float riders weren’t throwing any beads to his 3-year-old son, whom Forsyth was carrying on his shoulders. The ritual of tossing trinkets to the crowd had been part of the Mardi Gras tradition since the 1830s, and Forsyth and his son were yelling out the traditional plea of “Throw me something, mister!” Why were they leaving empty-handed?

A “well-dressed older woman” provided him the answer: “You can’t catch anything with those beadwhores around.”

New Orleans’ annual Mardi Gras celebration has attracted a parade of social scientists over the years. For more on the scholarship inspired by the provocatively licentious pre-Lenten festival, check out in the coming days:
Unmasking Mardi Gras Deviants (Feb. 13)
Studying Drunken Promiscuity at Mardi Gras (Feb. 14)
The Evolution of Mardi Gras Rituals (Feb. 15)

 

As Forsyth quickly ascertained, she was referring to female festivalgoers who expose their breasts and, in turn, have beads or other small gifts showered down upon them. This practice, he reported, “began in the late 1970s, but its occurrence sharply increased from 1987 to 1991.” (Ah, yes, those wild and crazy years of the first Bush administration.)

After interviewing 51 women and 54 male float riders, he concluded these “parade strippers” were primarily college students engaging in “a playful form of exhibitionism” in which everyone involved experiences a rush of pleasure. “Some forms of deviance apparently do ‘work,’” he concluded, “and parade stripping is one of them.”

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More like this: Culture, January-February 2010, Research in Summary
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About Tom Jacobs

Staff writer Tom Jacobs is a veteran journalist with more than 20 years experience at daily newspapers. He has served as a staff writer for The Los Angeles Daily News and the Santa Barbara News-Press. His work has also appeared in The Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune and Ventura County Star.

  • Anonymous

    Worthless without photo documentation.

  • C

    I graduated from the university at which the term “beadwhore” appears to have been coined. I have lived in this town for 10 years and am a life-long Louisiana resident. I have a master’s degree in folklore. I have never heard this term in my life. So one woman used the term and a professor decided to use it in an academic paper – that does not mean it is a widespread term. Also, Lafayette does not have a widespread occurence of flashers for beads, and you definitely would not see that in daylight around children. If you did see someone flash for beads, the crowd around that person or those persons would call them down for it and the police would have something to say about it as well. Mardi Gras may be a time of revelry but don’t think that the law isn’t present – it very much is. This article is based on the observations of one man who coined a phrase that appears to have been spawned from the comments of one woman. This is not really what Mardi Gras is about or what is is like. Congrats to this professor for making it and us look bad yet again.

  • Anonymous

    Pics or it didn’t happen.

  • The Truth Fairy

    I find this article to be disturbing. Telling women they have to show their flesh for beads?

    Imagine what this world would be like if women had to use sex to get what they want! You people are sick.

  • Jacob Thoms

    I feel as though this is just another writer attempting to inflict another stain on a another popular tradition to benefit themselves at the expense of others. Google his source, Craig Forsyth, and check out the papers accredited to him.

    “Buckle Bunnies: Groupies Of The Rodeo Circuit.”
    “Bareback Sex, Bug Chasers, And The Gift Of Death.”
    “The Structuring Of Vicarious Sex.”
    “A Deviant Process: The Sojourn Of The Stripper.”

    Hey C! I lived in La. over 30 years and I’ve never heard that term either. I’m gonna guess his source probably researched the arrest records. If so then that info would be inaccurate. During around 1987 and various years flashing laws were enforced some years they were not. I guess you just had to be there.

  • Anonymous

    May not happen much in Lafayette (also my town) but it sure happens in New Orleans, and I’ve been hearing the word “beadwhore” in this context for at least 20 years.

  • Anonymous

    We called them beadwhores when I was in high school in New Orleans… girls would gossip about who at school was a “beadwhore” and how they were acting like “repressed midwestern tourists” (because that’s who the “good girls” thought brought the beadwhoring to Nola- no “real” locals would do that! haha!)
    I graduated in 1991, so it was a commonly established term in the N.O. Catholic high school community by then.
    No clue how “C” could have missed ever hearing it!
    I do agree tho that Lafayette (where I attended college for a few years) doesn’t really have the debauchery prevalent in N.O at MG. I presumed the beadwhores at the parade in the paper n this article were in Nola, not Lafayette.

  • muggo11

    If you want to put the beadwhoring in a GLOBAL perspective, check out the excellent documentary, “Mardi Gras: Made in China” which introduces the girls who make all those Mardi Gras beads, their pay, their working conditions and their giggling observations about the breast for bead exchange.

  • Donald Waits

    I have heard this term for years and use it myself. When I ride in parades I NEVER respond to the “beadwhores”, but toss beads to the old black women and little kids. I try to seek out those who might not be gifted with the trinkets we all love. The basic term, as applied to certain current public personalities, which will remain nameless, is “attention whore”. The fact that almost all of them are women is not lost on most of us. Nothing new, here.