LAPDANCE

[reeniemartini]

Hi,

I'll try to keep this as brief as possible but my head is a bit all over the place.

I'm getting married in October, we've been together 8 years and engaged for 18 months. I have always felt that i hit the jackpot with him, talented, funny kind and trustworthy. he came back from a stag weekend with mutual friends on Sunday night - and last night he told me they went to a lap dancing club and he paid for a dance. £20 - 3 mins.
I was floored. I always thought I was cool with that kind of stuff, thought it was even a bit of a giggle, one of my friends was even a lap dancer for a few years - so I am surprised how angry and upset I am.
He cried. He said he was sorry, he was stupid, he was too drunk and got caught up in the moment. He said he had to tell me because he never wanted to have any secrets from me, he said he was also upset because he didn't think it would feel like cheating but it did.
I asked for all the details even though I didn't want to hear, what did she look like? How/why did he choose her. Apparently it was as soon as they got through the door and she was the first that offered. It wasn't in a private area, she knickers on, a fishnet top and no bra. (God I feel sick just typing that)
I guess I'm so upset because I would have bet my life that he would NEVER do such a thing and now i feel stupid. I took my ring off - more to show how angry I was than anything and he looked like he was going to throw up - he just crumbled.
The groom didn't get a dance - and for some reason that makes it worse. His other friends did - they have all been married less than a year. I said it feels like the first chance you had you all disrespected your partners without any question or forethought. You all just conformed to the worst stereotype when I so much more faith in you than that.
Am I being unreasonable. i just don't know how to feel. I'm angry, upset but on the other hand am I just being a drama queen? He's promised me he'll never do anything like it again, that I don't deserve it and it was a stupid mistake. I just don't know how to feel.

Yes that's because I don't just read Wikipedia. Passing a motion does not mean that the motion succeeded in it's attempt to repeal the law. That failed because the research behind it was flawed and factually incorrect.

The law has been in place for 13 years. Society has changed as a result.

You made that statement that I am asking you to prove before you read Wikipedia this evening. What evidence did you have then, given that you haven't found any since?

For those who prefer facts, the Centre party in Sweden is a minority party that attracted only 6.6% of the vote in the last General election and occupies 23 of the 349 seats. The Centre Youth Party has no seats and is the Swedish version of the Young Conservatives or Labour Youth. The motion that was passed was no more meaningful than one that is passed at the Cambridge Union, although one would hope that our scholars would have asked to see the evidence before taking the vote.

At the time this motion was passed by the youth party, official police figures showed that reports of human trafficking had decreased from 44 in 2005, to 26 in 2006 and 15 in 2007 and 2008. The motion was therefore factually incorrect in that an increase could not be proven, was not adopted by the parent Centre party and therefore didn't stand a chance in hell of repealing the law.

Reenie,

You need to get over yourself. It was 3 minutes without any contact. To consider this unfaithfulness is really stretching a definition so far that it loses all meaning. Next you will be saying that if he notices a topless woman on the beach, that is also unfaithfulness.

I have never been a believer in this idea that you need to tell your partner absolutely everything and, in this case, it has clearly backfired on you and your partner. You have both ended up seriously exercised over something which was completely meaningless to all the participants at the time. A successful relationship allows those within it a little bit of privacy and space, especially one that is going to last.

If you do tell your fiance's friends that he has told you, they will probably find the whole thing rather amusing. I would imagine that, in RL, it is only a tiny minority of women who really care about the odd lapdance on a stag do and most see it as entirely equivalent as to what an awful lot of women get up to on hen do's these days.

Do you realise that you will both, over many years, do things that your partner will disapprove. These may be as minor as putting the butter in the wrong part of the fridge. The reality is that if you push the concept of "deal breaker" too far, you will pretty quickly end up in a divorce court.

Or, to cut a waffly post short... Women: know your place.

I think Larry if he paid the topless woman on the beach money to push her breasts into his face etc, we might then have a promlem with this.

Hmmm. larry. Butter in the wrong side of the fridge the same as paying a woman for a sexual experience. Riiiight.

I think the fact he has told you right away shows the love and the fact he wishes to be honest with you. I was the one who was told in front of friends 9 and a half years down the line. It nearly wrecked my marriage and broke my heart.

What made it worse was I asked him after the stag night if he'd gone to a lap dancing club and he looked me in the eye and said no. That I think was the part which really upset me. That he lied and then decided he should tell me one night.

Here we go, the gospel according to Larrry, again,
my 30 year relationship is very succesful thanks, it's a partnership with total honesty where we do tell each other everything, during those 30 years, my DH has never been to a strip club or some stupid stag do, nor would he, he has been invited, guess what, he said no thanks, it's not difficult.
Privacy within a relationship is not the same as secrecy - omitting the truth about deal breaking behaviour is a deal breaker in itself for most people.

I don't know any women ( including my 22 year old DD with whom I've never discussed the subject ) who think a man visiting a LDC as anything other than what it is - utterly pathetic.

Women don't generally want pathetic men as their partners, unfortunately they sometimes end up with them.

It IS hard to avoid strip clubs on a lot of stag nights, unfortunately. My dh just goes to the closest pub and they meet him when they are finished. Depends he easily you can stand up to peer pressure, or how much you want to.

You made that statement that I am asking you to prove before you read Wikipedia this evening. What evidence did you have then, given that you haven't found any since?

Wikipedia plus the Swedish parliament is perfectly good enough evidence, its very clear that all this law has done is push a lot more of it underground, the police say they can't police it anymore, the only empirical measure they can come up with is "prostitution hasn't got worse" and there has been increasing disquiet over the 'noughties about it, breaking out in far more serious questions n parliament and elsehere in the last few years.

But I suspect you will just keep on finding fault with anything that contradicts your viewpoint, so I am going to leave you to live in your lala I'm not listening land....

That's not nice larry. There's no need to mock and patronise the op for being upset about it.
If I was in your position op I would be pretty fucked off too. But I would also be grateful for the fact that he has told me and is remorseful about it. Now is the time to make clear any boundaries you have with things like this, so that if he is ever put in this situation again he will have no excuse.

I've been to lap dancing clubs a few times so I can see it from his point of view. The girls do come over pretty much straight away, chat/flirt for a bit and then offer a dance. Not much time to think about it if you're drunk. I'm not excusing him, just trying to see from his point of view.

Anyway, he sounds pretty cut up about it and if he is normally a loving respectful partner I would be inclined to forgive him. If he did it again he'd be straight out my life though.

Hope you're ok op

OMG he sounds wet to me. Overthinking it. He didn't have to tell you. What would you prefer?

Charbon the evidence that it would be taken over in criminals is all around you and steeped in history! Everywhere is something illegal,. there are criminal gangs providing the service anyway. From drugs to soliciting prostitution (Prostitution itself not being illegal, at least not in Scotland.)

If porn were illegal it would make it difficult for actors to enter into legitimately paid work and thus the number of actors severely reduces. It would not be logical to assume thereafter that instances of abuse would significantly rise as the undeerground element that would not, I imagine, be very scrupulous about where their actors came from.

Making porn illegal won't take away the abusive element in the industry away. Abuse is already illegal.

*taken over by criminals

*it would be logical (Sorry, morning brain)

Larry you are getting gooood.

I'm impressed by how smooth your justification of the sexual exploitation of women, for men's titillation and financial benefit, has become. You need to edit the butter bit out because it is crass and sounds like you think women and breakfast spreads are, yunno, comparable.

Other than that, top marks for mansplaining how insignificant being truthful with one's partner and treating women as human beings not sexbots actually is to some men. And you managed to rope in the rest of womankind as 'imaginary' cheerleaders. Awesome!

Way to dismiss a women's feelings! Perhaps you think the OP is being hysterical and the rest of us shrill on the subject?

Maybe a lapdancer on here should explain if she feels 'exploited'?

I dont think you need to listen to other peoples comments, in your story you say you think you hit jackpot. your clearly made for each other, of course your hurt and no one can make it better but it seems you have a strong and most importantly HONEST relationship I think you can relax and trust him again as you know he will tell you. I hope you manage to work things out. 8years of love care and trust shouldnt be distroyed for 3mins of guilt

I know that the above post from Melica was addressed to Larry but I would like to answer the last question please.

The OP is well within her rights to feel annoyed about this. Every relationship has it's own set of boundaries and if two people come to an agreement that something is unacceptable then that should be respected within the relationship.

I actually WOULD class a lapdance as chaeting but I understand where other couples would not and wouldn't try to apply the boundaries that I have for my own relationship to someone else's. We all have our own comfort zones.

But my havinga personal problem with someone I'm in a relationship with going tor a dance doesn't give me the right to dictate to other women what they can't and can't do for a living.

Ashlee has it spot on.

"Larry you are getting gooood.

I'm impressed by how smooth your justification of the sexual exploitation of women, for men's titillation and financial benefit, has become. You need to edit the butter bit out because it is crass and sounds like you think women and breakfast spreads are, yunno, comparable. "

Anyone who does anything willingly and for decent money is not being exploited, be they man or woman. You (and many others) seriously need to get a reality check on exploitation. I believe the median wage for a lapdancer is something like £40k. For that, they are not required to do anything other than titillate.

And there is nothing sexist about my views on this. I would not want to know what my wife got up to on a hen night, any more than I would tell her the exact details of a stag. And she feels exactly the same way. A marital relationship is not, unlike many on this board seem to think, the same as between a confessor and a priest in the catholic religion. And, in terms of cheating, I see no difference between a man having a lapdance and a woman, dressed up like a lapdancer (pre strip), on a hen night and heavily flirting (without it going further) with men at a club. And than happends on most hens.

Lap dancers do not touch or allow to be touched.

Ya know, whether there is touching or not, going to strop clubs are a deal breaker as far as I am concerned. I would not waste my time even arguing with anyone about it. We all have things we feel strongly about.

I can't tell you what to do OP, you have to do what you feel is best for you.

Interesting larry. So you think flirting in a bar is the same as paying for a sexual experience?
What does it say about any man who wants a woman to perform for him even though she's not sexually attracted to him, has no desire for him, is doing it just for money? It shows that he doesn't really care what the woman in the equation feels- He just wants his own kicks.

I believe the median wage for a lapdancer is something like £40k.

Yes Larry and I believe workers in sweat shops love what they do, earn great money and have a passion for sewing shiny synthetic clothes.