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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To be pissed off DP went to a strip club....

689 replies

NancyShrew · 25/10/2013 11:13

When I made it perfectly clear I'd be annoyed about it.

DP doesn't seem to find it an issue and I'm fuming. He wanted to go to a strip club to "see what it's like", I said I wasn't happy and we'd discuss it at a later date.

He went anyway on a works night out last night, but apparently it's fine because it wasn't an enjoyable experience.

OP posts:
TheOffspring1983 · 25/10/2013 20:28

I have to say I don't for one second believe any woman who says she's is more than happy for her partner to go to a strip club, and that it doesn't bother them at all. Not for a second.

zippey · 25/10/2013 20:42

If it was just a one off I would say not to make a big deal of it. Just a bit of harmless fun. People do say you should try things before deciding wether you like them or not.

Strip clubs in general are just about men losing money to women and the club making the money. It's a means to an end for many women trying to earn a living. They are adults making an informed choice about their job.

JoinYourPlayfuckers · 25/10/2013 20:45

"Strip clubs in general are just about men losing money to women"

Oh yeah, the women are the ones exploiting the men Hmm

Anonymouswasawoman · 25/10/2013 20:47

“Katherine Frank used her status as a stripper to gain access to male customers and interview them. Her work is most revealing on the motivations of buyers (Frank, 2003). She studied men in traditional strip clubs that did not provide lap dancing, and reports that none of the men she interviewed said they went to the clubs for ‘sexual release’. They had other motives, of which the most common were the ‘desire to relax’ and visiting a place where they could ‘be a man’ (Frank, 2003, p. 6). Frank explains that the clubs ‘provide an environment where men, singularly or in groups can engage in traditionally “masculine” activities and forms of consumption frowned upon in other spheres, such as drinking, smoking cigars, and … being “rowdy”, “vulgar” or aggressive’ (ibid.). Strip clubs recreate the gendered spaces for men that were challenged in second wave feminism.”
— Jeffreys, Sheila. “The Industrial Vagina: The Political Economy of the Global Sex Trade.” Routledge, 2009. (p. 103)

fairylightsintheautumn · 25/10/2013 20:52

Well I'm sorry you don't believe me offspring but its true. On the odd occasion DH has been to these places it has been part of lads nights out (he got "dragged" because he was totally pissed by this stage of his stag do). It has nothing to do with reality for him and me. Same as the porn dvds that we went and chose together in a soho shop. Just because YOU can't countence something, don't assume everyone else is the same.

Anonymouswasawoman · 25/10/2013 20:53

In other words, a strip club is a place where a man can feel that he is in charge and relax because the women there are decorative objects not people he has to interact with like equals.
It's not harmless fun, if you're female.

JoinYourPlayfuckers · 25/10/2013 20:53

"It has nothing to do with reality for him and me."

Even though it actually happened?

I think you're kind of making her point for her here. :o

quietbatperson · 25/10/2013 20:57

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

marriedinwhiteisback · 25/10/2013 20:57

My DH has been taken to a Burlesque club by clients. I thought it was hysterically funny - they probably did too - he is straighter and staider than an ironing board. He quite enjoyed it and found it entertaining and interesting and we laughed about it. I could have gone too actually but I had another function to attend.

fairylightsintheautumn · 25/10/2013 21:00

no I meant it has nothing to do with US as a couple in the "real life" we live. He is perfectly capable of seeing the lapdance and porn as escapist / silly / over the top fantasy. I don't feel threatened by it in any way. As I said way upthread, I have no interest in discussig the morality of the sex industry as that was not the point if the OP. For me, it wouldn't be a problem, but for her it is and generally you would expect your DH to respect your wishes so it might have been nice if he hadn't gone, just on that basis.

zippey · 25/10/2013 21:21

If it was just a one off I would say not to make a big deal of it. Just a bit of harmless fun. People do say you should try things before deciding wether you like them or not.

Strip clubs in general are just about men losing money to women and the club making the money. It's a means to an end for many women trying to earn a living. They are adults making an informed choice about their job.

Darkesteyes · 25/10/2013 23:05

Been following this thread today and i agree with Lazy If hes so ok with having lap/private dances then he shouldnt mind you working as one OP Or any future daughter of his come to that.
Oh and i agree with the consensus Keep The Bag.

Caitlin17 · 26/10/2013 01:10

You are not being unreasonable. I'd be furious. I simply would think less of him;a lot less.

stopgap · 26/10/2013 01:19

YANBU.

My now husband has been to strip clubs, mostly before we met, although there have been a couple of trips as part of stag dos. The last time he wentthree years agohe had a private dance for the first time, and it absolutely crushed me. Because I'd been fairly blase about the trips prior, he honestly didn't think a private dance would bother me.

I did a lot of soul-searching after that incident and decided to stay with him, but it was a hard couple of months, not least because we were about to start trying for our first baby.

EBearhug · 26/10/2013 01:36

Regardless of any views on it between people in any particular relationship, I'm a bit taken aback that any works do goes to a strip bar in 2013. Why would any employer want to be associated with that sort of thing? Well, okay, if they're involved in the sex trade somehow, then they can't really have moral objections, but most employers aren't.

MyBaby1day · 26/10/2013 02:41

I love a guy so much who paid for sex in one of these seedy places, YANBU, no love in them, these people just want money and to earn it in that way-YUCK!.

MiniMonty · 26/10/2013 03:22

Chippendales... (oh that's just SO different)
How?

Rent a movie and watch Brad Pit or Daniel Craig take his shirt off - you're at a strip joint.

As a bloke I have to be honest and say that you all sound like such cry babies. "it crushed me" (for goodness sake)...
Go to a hen night, have a fake fireman waggle his thing at you, sit on your lap and it's "oh such fun" but a guy does EXACTLY the same thing and you're "crushed"....

Ho hum..

DropYourSword · 26/10/2013 03:36

I'm with fairylights on this one, but when I stated that previously on this website I was accused of being a professionally unoffended MRA! Halloween Hmm

ForwardSheCried · 26/10/2013 03:49

YANBU. Mine'd be booted out the bloody window.

verysomething · 26/10/2013 04:06

The private dance was Hmm but as others have said, if it's a one-off from an otherwise decent man then probably best forgive and forget at the end of the day. But trust is not an infinite resource and you have the moral high ground here... and a Bayswater.

Not that the two are comparable.. but that handbag is a classic Wink

ForwardSheCried · 26/10/2013 04:24

I think the issue here is that the OP's DH completely went against her wishes on something very important to her. That's downright disrespectful and not something I'd tolerate in my relationship... and nor would my fella.

verysomething · 26/10/2013 04:34

forward quite right.

OP has chosen to make light of it but her DP should not expect this as a right.

ThoRAVENomiki · 26/10/2013 05:21

The disrespect to OP is the issue here. Issues surrounding the adult entertainment industry are completely separate.

Why is it a separate issue? The two things are linked in my mind and the OP indicated she felt the same in her second post. My objection to my DH going to a strip club and paying for a lap dance is not because I am insecure. The thought of my OH leering at a woman's body and paying for sexual services from her makes him less of a man in my opinion and that would be a turn-off for me.
Like Grennie said it's not boobs it's a human being.

Letting your partner know your deal-breakers, in the interest of your relationship, is not controlling. Trying to educate you OH on why you object to something is not controlling. Saying I don't want you to go to a Strip Club because it will spell the end of our relationship as we know it. Is not controlling it is just being honest. What he chooses to do with that info is up to him.

Why are there always people who want to tell the OP on these threads that she has no right to her feelings? Why are you so keen for it to be ok for her partner to behave as he wishes. As long as he comes home? Hmm
Does it make you feel better if you can convince other people to put up with the low standards you expect from your own relationships?

Go to a hen night, have a fake fireman waggle his thing at you, sit on your lap and it's "oh such fun" but a guy does EXACTLY the same thing and you're "crushed"....
I don't remember reading anyone saying that they had received a lap dance from a male stripper but were upset when their partner did the same with a woman... are you confusing two separate women for one whole one?

OP The most important thing here is that he disrespected you and your feelings. His intrigue was more important to him. It doesn't have to be game over if you don't want it to be but he does need to know how strongly you feel about it (a few nights in a cold bed perhaps?). If it is a deal breaker for you don't let other people make you feel that it is your fault that you break up just because they'd be fine with their husbands doing this. This is your relationship.

DropYourSword · 26/10/2013 05:29

I know in this case the partner DID have a private fame, which I think is really disrespectful because he knew how his partner felt. However, going to a strip club is NOT synonymous with having a private dance. I don't think he should have been "told" not to go, but I do think he should have respected his partner enough to not have had a private dance.

I wonder if this is where we got arguments about wives being "cool" about their partners going to strip clubs. I for one wouldn't mind my partner going, but I wouldn't be happy with him having a private dance.

SugarHut · 26/10/2013 06:00

I worked as a dancer for years. It was a fantastic job, and the notion we're all "tits and arse and no brain" is hilarious. Dancers are some of the most shrewd business women you are ever likely to meet. When I was there I worked with a trainee lawyer, a midwife, a girl who ran her own bakery, a forensic scientist, several beauticians, a physiotherapist...and many more. Right now, I'm a qualified accountant and a model. Believe me, the women are not exploited. The biggest misconception is that a girl is doing it to pay her rent/her way through uni/her debts off. So not the case, I've probably worked with 300 girls and not once have a met a "poor uni student." The men that come in are mugs and we fleeced them.

OP, having said this, I would go stratospheric if my boyfriend went to a strip club and danced. The thing is, you have two kinds of dancers. Clean and dirty. The clean dancers are the very pretty girls who attract guys no problem and who will pay to talk to them, dance with them. The dance will be fully naked, no touching, from £40 for one song up to £480 for an hour. It's not a sexual service, it's a dance. Then you have dirty dancers, who don't have the looks to earn money that way, so they perform extras. They snog the guys, they allow groping, nipples to be licked, touches of their vagina. It's fucking horrible. In any club, 50% are clean dancers, and the other 50% are dirty dancers. The two clans do not get on, the dirty dancers thought we were sanctimonious prudes looking down our noses, and we looked at them as whores and wondered why they didn't just piss off to a brothel.

Firstly, knowing that it would annoy you, he did it anyway so that's a lack of respect. But as a former dancer, if my boyfriend went to a club, I'd be fine if he didn't dance, but if he did, firstly I'd be cross about the waste of money as all the dancers do is bleed the men dry and it is absolutely not value for money, it's what their good at though, and what they're there for, and secondly, there's a 50/50 chance of whether he wanted to or not (if he got a dirty dancer) he may have had her bits rubbed in his face as it's her only way of enticing more money.

Buy another bag.