Get Your Date Before It’s Too Late

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“Next to my wedding, my prom dress will be the most important gown I ever wear” (Rachel Berry, Glee). “My prom is wherever you are” (Troy Bolton, High School Musical 3). “Getting you a date to prom is so hard that the hypothetical idea itself is actually used to cut diamonds” (John Green, Paper Towns). Prom: the climax of every teen movie, the moment where she proves them all wrong, the one where he finally gets the girl. 

Such importance has been placed on prom in pop culture that pressure reaches the real teenage world. In the weeks before prom, everyone wants to know who is going with whom, what they will wear, and how they will be “prom-posing.”

This consistent questioning only adds to the pressure. For many, it feels like an enjoyable prom requires a date, the perfect outfit, and the perfect promposal. An anonymous senior comments, “It’s insane. It seems like everyone is so stressed out about finding a date. Is it so bad to just go to prom with your friends?” 

“There’s a whole other pressure on queer couples in high school,” Senior Arissa Mangewala observes. “People have come up to me and asked if my partner and I would be doing a prom-posal and when I told them no, they’d tell us we should because we ‘needed more representation’… this on its own adds to the pressure of prom for queer couples because now, to be seen as valid, we…have to take part in the inherently heteronormative traditions surrounding prom for ‘representation.’”

“With prom, queer couples are boxed into heteronormative categories,” Sam King comments. He shares, “One of them has to wear a suit, while the other wears a dress.… It’s like when people ask ‘Who wears the pants in the relationship?’ …like somebody in the relationship needs to fulfill the dominant, inherently masculine role. Which is so obviously heteronormative.”

But where did prom even come from, and how did it become such a significant part of American culture? According to Professor Pamela K. Smith, “Current Proms can be linked to far earlier social promenades of the 1800s when courting couples strolled city streets on Sunday afternoons, chaperoned by female family members.”

Prom also has ties to debutante balls where a young man would escort a woman to a ball where she would be ‘presented to society.’ Smith cites these balls as the source of heteronormative pressure surrounding prom.

Smith describes heteronormativity as “the cultural norm whereby heterosexual practices are considered not just ‘normal’ but essential to the moral health of society.” 

Think about it. What kinds of couples are going to prom in every teen movie you watch? And beyond that, who is in charge of asking, and whose job is it to look pretty? 

While there has been some progress in pop culture surrounding prom, the inherent heteronormativity of prom traditions forces queer people to put themselves into binary boxes. This especially comes through when discussing gender performance and prom attire. 

Senior Phoenix Carlson comments, “There really are only two things you can wear to prom… there really aren’t any androgynous options that aren’t super expensive and high fashion, and no high schooler will be buying designer clothing for prom….”

Carlson concludes by commenting on the asexual experience at prom, “Going alone to prom isn’t a protest. It is just me living my life… The queer experience doesn’t have to be a protest, we should just be allowed to exist outside of the norm.”