To be annoyed my DH had a naked private dance

[maybunny]

OK my DH wasnt naked, but the stripper in the stripclub in Los Angeles was :-(
He went to LA on business (PR - so mostly socialising rather than what I consider 'work'!) last month, and he has only just told me that a colleague paid for him to have a private dance after they all went to a strip club. I was most annoyed because he had kept it a secret from me for a few weeks, and that he had put 'saving dace' in front of colleagues before my feelings.
He said he thought I would be a bit annoyed about it which was why he hadnt told me about it at the time (esp as I was having huge sleep problems with DD - ie surviving on 2 hours a night!)
I am so upset about this and apart from apologising (which he has done now he knows how I feel) I dont know wht he can do to make me feel better. I am realy struggling to forgive him.
:-(

People who get really upset about this tend to conflate about three or four entirely separate issues and act in a really extreme manner.

Firstly, is this about unfaithfulness or a principled objection to someone joining in the exploitation of women. If the latter, would any woman expect her husband to go wild if, on a drunken evening out, she had happened to frequent a bar and been served by an Eastern European immigrant paid in cash below the minimum wage?

The "family" money argument is spectacularly crap unless you are genuinely on a tight budget. In any decent relationship, both people either have their own money or some part of the joint account is allocated to each partner for discretionary spending. This is the argument I hate the most because it would make a relationship feel like being at school, having to account to one's partner for every penny of "family" money.

The only valid argument is the "breaking of trust" one. If you have made clear to your partner that this is something you hate and he still does it, then he has clearly broken your trust. However, if you have not, there is no way that anyone can guess that three minutes of no-touch titillation is a breaking of his marriage vows.

Lap dancing is a very weird phenomenon. I remember being rather surprised when I was taken to Stringfellows and I still believed it was a bar/club (that is how it started) to find the "cabaret of angels". However, it is now a "normal" part of the corporate entertainment world and you cannot blame a guy for participating in this with colleagues. Whether it should be is another matter. It probably should not be. Corporates are starting to look less kindly on this kind of entertainment but, until corporates ban it (they will), it is crazy to judge someone too harshly for just going along with the norm in their business.

I wonder if this is why (sometimes) men cheat, they feel trapped because they their other halves will kick off about this and other small things.

I think we are coming at this from wildly different perspectives.

I believe in personal autonomy. Other people do not make you do things. If somebody is making you feel bad then you have full control over how you wish to react to that and perhaps work towards changing the situation.

A woman expecting a man to abstain for patronizing the sex trade in its many forms is a perfectly reasonable expectation within a monogamous relationship. A man re-framing that reasonable expectation as "trapping" and creating an excuse for himself to ignore the needs of the partner and indulge in his own wants, is both infantile and intellectually dishonest.

The second aspect where we appear to be on different pages is that both my husband and I acknowledge the inherent fallibility of being human. Nobody is immune from behavior that can lead to betrayal of their partner. Our policy is that each partner takes personal responsibility to avoid placing themselves in the path of massive temptation.

To give an example, when I first went back to work after our son went to nursery the very first client I had was drop dead gorgeous, a terrible flirt and ticked every single box of my "yum" list. DH and I were emerging from two years of new parent shock, I hadn't felt sexy for a long time and the day to day "mundane" of our lives was in sharp contrast to the sudden attention I was getting from this client.

By lesson three I realized I had spent the evening before planning what to wear for the lesson. So I canceled, Went to see my DOS and asked to be replaced.

TEFL is not known for its staff rights and consideration of teachers' needs. I took a huge risk cos I had only just returned to work and was new at the school. It was a risk I was prepared to take because I placed a greater priority on avoiding placing myself in the danger zone of temptation when i was least able to resist it.

I expect my husband to operate from the same perspective. Unsurprisingly neither of us regard having a vagina or boobs waggled in your face as taking steps to prioritize the stability of the family since that is a deliberate placement of one partner in the face (or fanny) of temptation that could easily be unsucessfully resisted.

It is much easier to trust somebody when that strategy forms part of the bedrock of your relationship.

Neither you nor I know if our partners have cheated 100%, without a GPS system and hidden webcam following them, to a certain extent you just have to allow your gut to decide if and when there is cause for concern.

Given that reality, I am not willing to collude in placing my relationship and family at risk of collapse by sanctioning my husband's participation in the sex trade as a client. Especially when considering that alcohol and peer encouragement magnifies the potential for temptation to prove too much. I really do expect him to take the same steps of avoiding inviting trouble to the same extent that I do. I consider that to be equal partnership. I couldn't live with the alternative. Neither could he in the reverse. Trust can only work for me if I have reason to believe that my partner is doing his damnedest to make sure that by trusting him I am not hanging myself over the edge of a cliff while he dithers about occasionally stepping on my fingers without taking into account the risk that I could lose my grip and end up all broken at the bottom of the drop.

I'm grateful that by luck or judgment (leaning towards luck) 16 years of consistency would point to my having met and married a man on the same page. No guarantees in life obviously, but so far, so good.

Great post fastweb.

"Some of you who are shouting the loudest need to realise that a huge cross section of the male population visit lapdancing clubs, whether they tell you about it or not. Intelligent, self respecting, working class, middle stump anglican whatever."

Yes and those are men that some of us don't want as partners. As SWC said, there's an option to remain single rather than have skanks like that our homes. If 99% of the available male population were like that and the other 1% were married to Mal and you like sex, then the option to have them as lovers but not partners is availalbe. A man or woman who functions as a pleasant interlude, doesn't after all, have to come up to the stringent standards you'd want from a partner.

Larry you are so off the wall comparing having someone waving their genitals in your face with handing over a drink to you. Are you just playing devil's advocate, or do you seriously see no difference? If your wife paid a man to titillate her with dancing, heavy breathing in her ear, pelvic thrusts, etc., so that he aroused her desire, would you honestly seee that as being the same as her handing over a couple of quid for a drink? Because I think most men (and women) would find that a bizarre proposition.

If your wife paid a man to titillate her with dancing, heavy breathing in her ear, pelvic thrusts, etc., so that he aroused her desire, would you honestly seee that as being the same as her handing over a couple of quid for a drink? Because I think most men (and women) would find that a bizarre proposition.

I think perhaps the more telling "reverse" example to offer as comparison is how many men who have an expectation to be "allowed" to indulge in sexual titillation in exchange for cash, would feel willing to submit to similar social coercion (gotta be cool, non prudy) to accept their wife and daughters being the person doing the heavy breathing, pelvic thrusts and waggling her vagina at people.

If the context of a strip club\lap dancing club is neutral in terms of the family's expectations of each other, then the above "same sauce for the goose" is a more realistic a proposition to contemplate and would be as hotly defended as that of being the client, using more or less the same supporting rationale.

Interesting last post fastweb but the scenario you described with your client is entirely distinct from OP's.

You appreciated you were in a danger zone and got yourself out of it. See my earlier post on why I think relationships at work, messaging old friends on Facebook is high risk which could lead to an affair, and something I would never stand for in my relationship.

This is entirely distinct from a lap dance club. The men can't touch or get intimate in any way. The women stand there dancing night after night for man after man and the chances of them taking it further are low. They must get men coming onto them all the time, bet most of them have partners anyway, and / or don't care it's just a job.

The chances of a man having an affair with someone who gave him a private dance for ten minutes is remote.

If you had an agreement with your partner that attending such a club was beyond the remit of your relationship, and the man went ahead anyway, the breach of trust is the main point.

But you can't compare your scenario to a night out at a lap dance club IYSWIM.

wonder if this is why (sometimes) men cheat, they feel trapped because they their other halves will kick off about this and other small things.
This is so, so true!!! Treat them like kids and they will respond accordingly when are finally allowed out for a jolly or whatever.

Mare11bp

I think it is entirely naive to presume that simply because a club claims to have a zero tolerance policy on solicitation taking place on its premises that this is always the case.

You also have to consider that the sex trade has a tendency to "cluster".

Where you have a topless bar with a hands off policy you will most likely have in the vicinity establishments that go further and private brothels who have chosen their location deliberately, to take advantage of a steady stream of customers exiting from clubs primed for being amenable to the services offered by their establishment. It's just good business sense to put yourself where there is excellent foot traffic of your kind of customer, who has been attracted to your location and stimulated to spend thanks to somebody else's marketing budget rather than your own.

If you do not regard that as a scenario of deliberately placing oneself in the face of some serious temptation then that is your call. I don't agree.

I'm not sure what the unlikelihood of an affair has to do with the equation, that is not the only form of betrayal.

Having your cock sucked for a few quid when you are drunk after a couple of hours of visual stimulation also counts as cheating AFIAC.

Certainly according to my yardstick it would still fall very firmly under the banner of placing oneself in the face of significant temptation, thus prioritizing the desire for titillation over the family's need for its security and stability to be the primary consideration.

Mare11bp - messaging old friends on Facebook is high risk which could lead to an affair
This does seem a bit controlling. Why do you get to decide what constitutes high risk? FWIW, I think if your partner is that way inclined, they will find a way to be unfaithful come what may - hence putting these restrictions in place is simply delaying the inevitable.

Herbex,

Once again you have conflated the "unfaithfulness" argument with the exploitation argument. If you are concerned with women being exploited, they are analogous. In both cases, women MAY be being exploited.I deliberately separated the arguments against.

If my wife went with a bunch of friends/colleagues to a club where men gave provocative dances, I would think it a bit tacky but not have any insecurity issues about it. If she were in a job and had to take a female client out to a seedy place on her request, I would think it was a part of the job and expect her to conform to the norms of her profession (whilst maybe also questioning them).

I would certainly not think it had any bearing whatsoever on the state of our marriage.

Fastweb,

In my time (about 10-15 years ago) I have been on several nights out to lapdancing establishments. Everyone I went with stayed together in a public area and no one had any "extras". I am sure it does happen but it is the exception rather than the rule. Surprisingly, to a lot of people who have commented on this thread, most men have no desire to be unfaithful (in the definition of the word that I understand) when they go "lapdancing", just some safe titillation and comfortable place to have an overpriced drink whilst staying in the same banquette as one's clients/colleagues throughout.

There is more temptation (and a fair few prostitutes hanging out) in any overpriced trendy bar in London (such as the 5th floor of Harvey Nichols).

english fail

"I think it is entirely naive to presume that simply because a club claims to have a zero tolerance policy on solicitation taking place on its premises that it is always enforced".

Was it always with clients/colleagues larrygrylls? If so, would expect blokes to be a little more restrained in their behaviour in any case.

Seriously, you would be shocked to your core if you were to take a peek into the real world. Men visit gentlemen's clubs for a variety of reasons. I do not see what is harmful about a but if titillation. I also wonder how your husbands feel about apparently having no privacy or freedom; by the sounds of things you apparently know where they are and with whom 24 hours a day and exactly what they get up to on the internet. What a nice life for them.

Incidentally, of the men who do visit gentlemen's clubs on a regular basis and have what are termed as 'regulars', ie: a particular girl who they come to see and pay to sit in a quiet corner of the club sharing drinks and pleasant conversation tended to be the ones who were kept on a tight rein. Do you think their wives thought that they were doing that for even a second or ever would?

You don't need to move in particular circles or be part of a group. And as someone who did shake my backside in front of these men for money, the vast majority were not skanks at all. Just nice normal booked seeking a bit if fantasy, titillation and fun. Some of you should try it yourselves sometime, you might relax a little.

Gotta laugh at another woman telling me I am uptight and need to visit a lapdancing establishment in order to "relax"

I am perfectly relaxed, thanks

Your perception of relaxed is obviously different to mine. A woman who would divorce her husband for visiting a lapdancing club is not what I would cojnsider relaxed.

larrygrylls - this is a ridiculous excuse: "However, it is now a "normal" part of the corporate entertainment world and you cannot blame a guy for participating in this with colleagues. Whether it should be is another matter. It probably should not be. Corporates are starting to look less kindly on this kind of entertainment but, until corporates ban it (they will), it is crazy to judge someone too harshly for just going along with the norm in their business."

I'm sure you well know it is also "normal" corporate entertainment to hire a hooker for the client in many countries - is it only a matter of time before this too is "normal" in the UK and wives and partners will just have to suck it up?

Any self-respecting woman or man should expect their partner to uphold morals and commitments no matter what others prefer to claim is somehow "normal."

And is it just that we've been conditioned to think these places are normal, under some sort of quasi-respectability of calling them gentleman's club and making them out to be "classy"? Paying women to dance naked is not classy and not respectable and should not be part of a modern, civilised society that purports to promote gender equality.

We do not have to accept this as normal and you can blame someone for doing it. What next, rape is 'normal' so rapists have to be tolerated? (don't anyone remind me of how depressingly close to this scenario we actually are).

Chandelina,

I do know that it is normal in many countries. However the tide is going out, not in, as regards these places so I doubt we will import the "hooker" culture.

Not sure my view on the places themselves and would be happy to see them closed.

However, I find it weird that most young women completely shave their pubic hair due to conforming to a cultural norm which seems entirely imported from porn. However, I doubt you would blame your daughter or friend for conforming, you would blame the culture around it. In the same way, I don't think you can blame an individual to conforming to a cultural norm as long as it is not egregiously evil. That is where I would separate lap dancing from prostitution. Whatever the peer pressure, I think going to a prostitute is egregiously wrong if you are in a committed relationship. I think lapdancing is tacky but not terribly wrong.

Good to see this discussion has got a bit calmer and more interesting.

fastweb You've made some really interesting comments, but I think you've got an inconsistency.

You describe in a very honest way about the time you felt yourself subject to temptation and what you did to remove yourself. In a sense, the feeling of attraction you felt was juvenile. What made you an adult was the fact that you acknowledged it and knew what to do to manage those feelings. Only you could know you were subject to dangerous feelings and only you could know what was necessary for you to stay in control. You acted on that knowledge. Someone else may have needed to handle it differently.

But later you say "If you do not regard that as a scenario of deliberately placing oneself in the face of some serious temptation then that is your call. I don't agree."

Isn't there a problem with this?

If your partner had known there was a good-looking bloke at your work and that you might be subject to temptation (which was true) he might have said: "There's someone at your workplace that I know you find attractive and I know you're at risk of succumbing to temptation and that would be a betrayal of me so you must remove yourself. I'm sorry, but that's the way it is".

Isn't the problem that by taking this approach he's making you into a juvenile and preventing you from being an adult?

Tallulah - sorry but I find the idea of paying a woman to take her clothes off to be quite wrong. It is something I feel within myself and has nothing to do with my DW keeping me on a tight rein. I suspect that not many 'nice family men' who go to a gentlemans club would feel comfortable paying a female friend of the family to do it and just because it is some stranger in a licenced setting makes no difference.

It is not a divorcing matter but I think men should think about it a bit more than they do about what it really is they are paying for. I also think a woman has a right to ask their DP/DH not to do it and expect them to agree.

larrygrylls

In my experience of the "entertainment" sex industry, "safe titillation" is something of an oxymoron.

Alcohol and peer encouragement that normalizes the usually unthinkable is a powerful un-doer of initial resolve.

Some men are perfectly capable of setting boundaries that match their partners and maintaining them. But plenty more are not.

I have seen tens of relationship go under as one partner proved that his resolve in the face of the temptation offered by some "safe titillation" was made of sand.

I watched thousands of men fail to live up to their expectations of themselves and betray their spouses trust in them.

I worked almost exclusively with men who started out seeking a little "safe titillation" and very quickly shifted their perception of women as a gender, and not in a good way. It impacted me on both an emotional and practical level, so I feel perfectly entitled to have taken personal affront to how sexual favours in exchange for cash affected me as a colleague, an employee and a human being obliged to share the same working space and air.

I'm not going to ignore the specific wives and children who paid the bulk of the price for unanticipated feet of clay, or the resultant warped view of my gender as a whole, because some find it an inconvenient truth.

There is much to be said for living your life, male or female, along the lines of "don't play with fire if it's not just your fingers that could get 3rd degree burns".

I remain grateful that I met a man who does not have to be persuaded, or instructed to be on the same page.

If I hadn't I would have stayed alone.

I had\have no desire to spend my life coercing a life partner into respecting my boundaries to the same degree I respect his.

Ditto with regards to cherishing and treating trust freely proffered with the prudence such a generous, loving act deserves.

It would simply be too exhausting and unattractive a proposition.

Fastweb,

I am not going to dispute your own experiences and expectations of your own relationship. They are all entirely reasonable.

I do take issue, though, when you try to advise others to live the same way and judge by your own lights. As you have admitted above, some men (I would personally say most) are perfectly capable of setting and maintaining boundaries set by them and their partners.

It is horses for courses and if someone works in a particular industry where this kind of entertaining is the norm, and loses clients, promotions etc because of his perceived prudery, then it is up to an individual couple ot resolve this. Maybe they are both happy for him to change business or have a worse career, but maybe they are not. What is not acceptable is to try to apply a moral standard to one's partner at odds to that in his industry and still expect to be the wife/partner of a glamorous high flyer. This does seem to be the situation of the OP, does it not?

Your perception of relaxed is obviously different to mine

Yup

Tallulah, everybody's deal breakers are different

I presume there are some things you absolutely would not tolerate in a partner ?

So if that was made perfectly clear to him/her and they went ahead and did it anyway, would you take kindly to someone telling you that you just needed to "relax" a bit more ?

And you would be happy for your line in the sand to be ignored, and the best way to handle it was simply to accept that "these things happen" and you had no right to end your relationship over it ?

sadly i can't find the data quickly but i'm pretty sure use of prostitutes in this country is rising not declining, mainly because there are more opportunities to do so and because of a growing social acceptance. That is disturbing.

However, some data I did find, that around 5% of men (9% in London) use prostitutes indicate that 90%-95% do not. I don't know what the figures are for lapdancing clubs but it's safe to assume that not ALL men think they are acceptable entertainment.

on pube shaving - well I do blame the girls and women and have called friends out on this.