What is it about Mardi Gras beads that makes women do anything to get them and makes other mean feel less manly for not having them? Even if it is April and nowhere near New Orleans or Mardi Gras?
If you’re seeing men wearing beads, I’d say you’re in the East Village. 
Catching beads thrown from parade floats is a Mardi Gras tradition. Some beads are long and lovely, while others are just cheap, colored plastic. During Carnival season, people compete to get the best beads, and for the drunken collge kids in the Quarter, getting the best beads involves some barter. Generally, this is limited to Mardi Gras season, although in my visits to N’Awlins to see me mum, I have noticed that there has been some spillover into the rest of the year.
I’ve got a freaking TON of beads and I didn’t do anything to get them besides stand or sit by a parade. Most of Mardi Gras is NOT the insanity you see on the news. I’m never getting near the Quarter during it. Ewwwwww…
It’s a helluva lot of fun, though. One of our neighbor girls likes to ride her bike up and down the sidewalk, practicing throwing beads and cups. You gotta learn young, I guess. 
More or less.
Some of my friends have this tradition when we do a pub crawl to wear Mardi Grai beads to help everyone keep track of whos in the party (since it’s diferent groups who don’t all know each other). What I’ve noticed is that in true Mardi Gras form, girls come up to you all touchie feelie and guys are all like “uh…where did you get those?”. Yeah…I got them at the secret bead factory:rolleyes:
Wow. Women are really impressed by those stupid beads? I wish I would have known that when I was single. I’d have hit up one of those seasonal Mardi Gras stores and bought a boatload of them.
Yeah. Now you fucking tell me.
Haj
The beads don’t lead to instant hookups, it’s supposed to be a ‘request’ for the girl to lift her shirt from what I’m told.
Why’s it work? Same reason for everything else at Mardi Gras: because everyone involved is completely hammered.
If you watched COPS yesterday, they went to New Orleans for this years festival. A few women, not all of them, show their breasts & then they get beads–which are usually thrown at them. Odd thing is that the more beads you have the less of your breasts that show.
I didn’t see any hookups from the beads throwing.
Obligatory Simpsons quote:
“Hey, how 'bout some beads?”
“They’re not for dudes!”
For those who have never been, here’s a typical Mardi Gras conversation:
Me: Can I see somethin’ for some beads?
Her: Hmm… what kind of beads you got?
Me: How 'bout these? (shows one of many strands of beads around my neck)
Her: No, I like THESE better…
Me: Hmmm… ok.
She flashes bare breasts, I enjoy, I thank her, and give up the beads.
Taking photos or copping a fell on some boobage usually costs more beads (in quantity and/or quality). However, it’s not unusual to be able to enjoy/photograph some boobage for free as a third party to someone else’s transaction.
There are a ton of females who will flash for beads at Mardi Gras. I’ve seen people making out for beads but nothing “worse” than that. I’ve seen women ask men to flash sausage for beads.
Why this happens? Alcohol & fun. I don’t think there’s much more to it. It’s sorta like drinking games… no real point.
My understanding at Mardi Gras is that there are only two rules:
- Don’t get in a fight
- Don’t piss in the street
Well,
In a bar, it’s been my experience that anything unusual that you’re wearing/doing/etc. (within the bounds of polite society) will lead to more interest from others. The reason is that it’s something to talk about, it’s a conversation starter. The Mardi Gras beads are just that, even if they have a certain cultural significance beyond that.
If a girl wants to talk to a guy, for fun, and there are two equally desirable guys, and one has some sort of unusual thing about him that signifies he’s having a good time and not taking himself too seriously, that seems like a good in.
Beads are just like money. Does money have any intrinsic value? Can you eat it or do anything useful with it? It only has value because we all agree it has value… same with beads. In this case, though, it only has value with regards to certain limited activities such as flashing and kissing.
If the beads are REALLY nice you can get more interesting behaviors though, such as the naked pushups I did in the street. In my defense I had just downed about a litre of handgrenades and they really were great beads. (FYI I am a guy.)
Consider them an excuse to flout uptight societal rules.
When I did the Mardi Gras thing, after a while seeing some breasts was not enough. So if I had some particularly good beads that a girl wanted I would request ‘a close encounter of the third kind’. Now if you don’t remember a close encounter of the first kind is a visual sighting. The second kind leaves some kind of evidence (at Mardi Gras this means photos) and the third kind is physical contact. I got some good kissing done with a fair ammount of groping from both participants.
It is strange as I think it brings out the competitiveness in women. They want to get the most beads which would indicate (to them) that they are the most desired. So they go all out to get beads. Stranger is when a boyfriend or husband is bacisally pimping his gal so she can get a ton of beads.
Also some women like having the beads and the purchasing power. It was very great, to me at least, to have a women approach me and say I want to see your butt and I’m willing to pay.
So I did ‘earn’ beads and in my expierence that was pretty fun.
I had no idea this worked outside of ‘Mardi Gras’ though.