To feel a little uncomfortable that my partner got a lapdance?

[GreenEyes101]

He is on a stag in Barcelona so I knew a trip to a stripclub would probably be on the cards and initially had no issue with it. He told me today that they went and he had a dance which I laughed off - but then he proceeded to tell me he had 2 at €50 a pop! AIBU to be a little uncomfortable/upset? One still may not have bothered me but €100 for 5 minutes cheap thrills got under my skin a bit!

Oh god. This thread is such an amazing relief to me. My (now ex) husband had a lap dance on his stag night and it absolutely ruined our wedding and newly wed period. I was so utterly, utterly disgusted by him. I would never, ever have thought that he was the kind of man who would commodify women. In fact when a female friend of his had gotten married a couple of years before, she had tasked him with making sure her husband's crappier friends didn't get him drunk and take him to a strip club. It hadn't even occurred to me to tell him I'd have a problem with it because I never imagined that he'd ever be comfortable with it.

Once I knew that he had, it made my skin crawl just to look at him or think about it. He wasn't the type of man I wanted to marry but finding out about it, 5 days before our wedding meant that everyone I talked to about it, pressured me into accepting it as a silly little thing. I was disgusted and furious at him, part of what made it so much worse was that most of his friends actually left the stag night once it was decided to go to a strip club because they were proper, decent men who don't commodify women like that. Especially knowing that there is a possibility the women were trafficked.

I had posted on an advice forum at the time and almost every single answer was that I should get over it, that I was too immature to get married if something so innocent could upset me so much, that there must be something else wrong and I was projecting. For a long, long time afterwards, I felt a need to justify my upset as a projection of a possible deeper problem. But it wasn't. I just really was that disgusted by him. He'd gone down so, so, so far in my estimation of him. I would never have knowingly dated a man who I knew went to strip clubs and by the time I found out that he was that kind of man, I was committed to marry him in 5 days and made to feel like that wasn't a valid reason to end things. And this morning, I finally, for the first time in well over a decade feel like my feelings really were totally justified.

Tringley

I hear you, Tringley.

Ahh tringley
I'm totally with you on your initial reaction in sorry it's only now you realise that actually your reaction was valid

Dp knows if he ever had a lap dance it would be over , don't thing he ever has and don't think he would but you never know do you so Iv made my stance on the matter perfectly clear .

Other people are clearly ok with it and that's their decision obviously . But I'm not ok with it at all and I can't bare the whole "boys will be boys attitude "

trigley flowers too. It’s a bit crazy how women collude in normalizing porn or strip clubs. Saying other women are uncool or prudish for not liking it instinctively. It’s how women oppress themselves.

I thought that when I was younger. I was ‘cool’. Because I liked sex and was open minded. Before I realised that liking sex has nothing to do with not liking seedy behaviour. You don’t have to look like a prepubescent girl with shaved hair and loving ‘porn sex’ to be sexual. You don’t have to accept men paying for any kind of sex online or in strip clubs. We make it ok like in the 70s we made serious sexual harassment ok by putting down a woman who has her arse pinched for not ‘having a sense of humour’.

Am with you, Tringley 👍

I think many of these men would be deeply hurt/angry if they walked into a party to find a naked man writhering all over their girlfriend. It's the utter double standard that I can't stand, women are just expected to accept it.

It is weird the way we collude in these things. Tbh, I've always felt quite gaslighted by the experience. I had people assume I must be a prude and/or that I must have been very insecure at the thought of my husband enjoying such an attractive woman. Yet I am and always have been extremely sexually uninhibited. I'm open and adventurous and have done and enjoyed a lot of things many people will barely admit to fantasising about. I also had a very positive view of my body (and had a great body at that point in my life) so wasn't insecure that my husband would prefer her glamorous dancers body over mine.

What I did feel was total disgust at his actions. Both at his lack of respect for women in general that he would be willing to have a woman be 'bought' for him. His willingness to participate in an industry where he knows that there is a reasonable risk that the women's participation is forced. And his lack of respect for me that at the point in time that our relationship should have been at a high point, he destroyed that with an act that would have been cheating if money hadn't changed hands. I also felt that possibly a few of his friends pushed him into it and he chose not to disappoint them rather than not hurt me. I lost so much respect for him because, lastly, I think he utterly debased himself. How little respect do you have to have for yourself to be willing to pay someone to titillate you? I would hate for anyone to have sexual contact with me for any reason other than some form of genuine mutual desire. Wtf, is the point in sexual contact where, at best, the other person is probably just counting down the minutes to their shift ending? And why in the name of super fuck would you choose that sort of joyless encounter when you are currently in a happy, sexual relationship?

Thankfully it's not so much of an issue now as we are no longer married. But this thread really has been helpful. I was dreading opening it as I was expecting the poor OP to be ridiculed as a prude like I was. Finally getting such total validation for my feelings and beliefs is fantastic and incredibly helpful when/if I ever start another relationship as I will know I'm entirely normal and reasonable to expect a man with higher standards for himself.

trigley can so identify with you. I think your experience will help the OP not to feel insecure about her own instincts too.

My Ex in a different way did this. He moaned all the time about ‘not getting enough sex’ when we had our baby, which meant not enough more porn style sex, said I must be quite a non sexual person, bit prudish (because I didn’t dress sluttish and had a brain) Watched porn when our baby was born and went to a lap dancing club one time with his minor pop star friends on tour. I didn’t leave him for this. But the combined misogynistic and aggressive sexual attitude damaged our marriage. It really struck my self esteem for a long time.

Took me a while to realise I was quite a sexy hot woman! Took a man who didn’t watch porn or go to a lap dance club to make me feel like that.

Tringley I agree with a lot of your post. My husband has no interest in strip clubs and says he wouldn't want to go to one either. I don't think he needs me to tell him that I would end our relationship if he went to one, he wouldn't go anyway.

When men are going along because they say they feel pressured to, it just makes me think less of them. Where's your backbone and individuality? Where are your morals? Why are you happy to pay for women as if they are commodities? Why can't you think of people other than yourself? It's very unattractive and unappealing.

I'm not a prude and think that sex life is better without the influence of this type of thing and porn.

I think because most women tend to be people pleasers we are sometimes complicit in this sort of stuff. No one, especially when we are young, wants to be the prude, the one who's husband is pitied because we are so uptight and uncool. When you get older you don't give a shit about being uncool, your dp paying a young woman to rub herself all over him is fundamentally l wrong and I for one am no longer afraid/embarrassed to say it.

I wouldn't be marrying a man who thought that that was ok.

I don't understand why women are alright with marrying men who think buying women is normal.

Would he like it if a naked man were writhing all over you AND if you’d paid 100€ for it? I doubt it.

It’s entirely your call but I would leave my DP for less.

''To say you don't understand why it's a big deal (or whatever you said) because 'its only a one off and a novelty' implies everyone should be okay with things if they're only a one off novelty. You didn't answer the extended question as to what you would think about something similar in your own relationship... Ie. Something of a sexual nature, which you didn't agree with. Murder is actually illegal, so is incomparable''

I maintain they're not comparable. Lots of strippers won't have sexual contact with customers for the very reason they are different things. It doesn't imply everyone should be ok with a one off thing but stating there are degrees of behaviours and different intents that factor in.

I suppose it would be comparable to this situation if ops partner knew "he was doing something sexual that -op- wouldn't agree with'. Then I'd say that's bad fullstop. But it seems he didn't realise by telling her. That's where the whole, it seemed like a one off thing really came from.

My point was never anything is fine if it's once so don't put words in my mouth. If op said my husband slept with a sex worker I wouldn't say, 'o well never mind'. These are different cases.

''read, think, educated yourself, realise that people don't always feel the same about events.''

''Your world must honestly be teeny tiny.''

Just because I have a different opinion doesn't mean I'm uneducated or my world is tiny. I've been to uni, had other work in other industries, travelled and have friends of all classes and backgrounds and take interest in lots of things.

Loosen up, wife, Octavia gets it! You're just being uptight!'.

I said I was shocked at ppls decisive opinion. Not for others to loosen up.

No, I didn't say you said others should loosen up. I said that men use that line when they use opinions like yours to justify going to strip clubs. They will dismiss their wives' feelings and most other women's, because some women (like you) think it's totally normal and fine.

You said that you honestly have never met a guy who hasn't had a lap dance at his stag.

Yes I think your world is teensy tiny. Staggeringly small.

I really cannot believe that anyone is actually shocked that so many of us find this a deal breaker.

My DH did not go to a strip club or have lap dancers at his stay do. He held his stag do in a pub. When he heard that some of the twats he had with him from work had arranged a stripper he was so worried that he left his own do and was home by 9pm. I was surprised to see him.

Stag do, not stay. Bloody auto-correct!

Just because I have a different opinion doesn't mean I'm uneducated or my world is tiny.

it isn't that you have a different opinion. It is that you are shocked that other people have a different opinion.

''It is that you are shocked that other people have a different opinion.''

Ditto to you!

For me, it would be grounds for divorce if he even walked into one.

''You said that you honestly have never met a guy who hasn't had a lap dance at his stag.Yes I think your world is teensy tiny. Staggeringly small.''

I think you seem very small minded in your arrogance.

Why? You've honestly never met a guy who didn't have a lap dance at his stag-do?

It's just remarkable, not one single fella. No I don't believe you've met a variety of people at all.

How about women? Have you never met a woman who didn't- I dunno- go to a spa on her hen do?