Husband went to a lap dancing club as part of stag do and had private dance

[Koala34]

So my husband went on a stag do and went to a lap dancing club and had a private dance which he says his friend paid for. He said he thought I wouldn’t mind (!) We have 2 children one being 4 months old. I feel devastated and I’m not sure how I can get over it. What would you do? I just can’t get the image out of my head. I wish I was ok with it but feel like he’s crossed a line.

@Richielogic

A quick google of even well known clubs like Spearmint Rhino finds some of them even closed down after undercover reporting finds a lot of sexual touching and offers of extras, breaking their licence

These are not the downmarket dodgy clubs or clubs abroad in well known stag do locations, so imagine what happens there - oh no, stop imagining, I forgot you might like that!

Quite.

Dick doesn't appear to be very bright.

Touchy by asking a question? Okay then.

Gosh you are hard work! You weren't asking a question you were being patronizing.

It's depressing that when men post about this they seem to be arguing against the women in this situation telling off their husbands. All the 'I didn't know' 'I was drunk' 'it's completely normal' is all about them not getting into trouble like recalcitrant boys. They're even prepared to come and say that on a thread full of strangers, about how mean and unfair it is that they got into trouble or how their lovely wife didn't punish them and neither should any other men get into trouble.

But it isn't about getting into trouble. It's not about screeching fishwives just waiting for their H to do something wrong so they can run after them with a rolling pin or divorce them as punishment. If your husband goes to a strip club and/or pays for a lapdance it HURTS YOU to feel he has cheated on you. It hurts to think that he considers women as objects that can be paid for to twirl around like sexy puppets. Unless you have specifically talked about why it's OK beforehand I would be hurt to live with someone who views women like this because how do they view ME? It's not about punishing you is about what I can live with. The fact that the men posting on here don't even get that, and make it about them and why they haven't done anything wrong and shouldn't be punished, rather than thinking about how the women FEEL about it is just making their case even more fatuous.

@ValK

what a load of apologist bollocks.

All of this 👏

‘Apparently it’s a ‘rule’ that the club have that they can’t touch so the bouncers tell them to sit on their hands.’

that’s bullshit. Your DH sounds like an absolute pig, to behave like that when his wife’s just given birth. What a shit.

It's not bullshit, that is a rule in many places.

It's a shit way to behave irregardless. It doesn't matter whether you're pregnant, just given birth, have older kids or never want them. But OPs question here is whether it's a marriage deal breaker and if that's the only shit behaviour in 12 years, imo it's not. If he did it again it would be, but as a one off he'd be on his one and final warning and I'd expect a heck of a lot of grovelling.

Well said.

👏

The situations are 'objectively' not the same. The idea that men's bodies are equally fetishised, objectified, and bought and sold in the way that women's are is objectively incorrect. The idea that as many men as women are trapped in sex work either financially or through violence is incorrect. The idea that a lone man attending a hen do as a stripper is in as much danger for his safety as a lone woman attending a stag do is just plain wrong. A woman is less safe than a man walking just in the area of a strip joint that serves men.

I don't use sex workers of any type because I don't enjoy the objectification / exploitation that goes hand in hand with that type of entertainment, but to suggest that 'what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander' in this case is just (deliberately it seems to me) missing the point.

Though I think your incomprehension is completely fake I will answer the question about this 'opaque and mysterious' point because actually it's very clear.

As a woman you don't assume that your male partner sees you as a set of body parts that exist to stimulate men sexually and can be bought and paid for. If you discover that he has in fact bought and paid for a particular arrangement of body parts to be ground against his face you realise that actually he does share the societal view that women's bodies are commodities. And if he thinks that about one woman what does he think about me, a woman? Perhaps he has hidden his attitude towards my body as something he can own. Does he instead think I'm not that 'type' of woman? in a way that's even worse, because if there are 'types' of women what 'type' am I supposed to fit into rather than being a living and breathing person? Are women actually just very slightly less than human? Finding out that you live with someone who thinks this - and probably thought this all along - is upsetting.

The same cannot be said for a woman using a sex worker because men are not displayed everywhere as sexual objects for women's gratification. They are not their bodies in the way women (societally) are.

And actually I think there are plenty of women who would be hurt or angry because the naked girl her husband paid to dance in his lap might be somehow exploited because as well as any sting from the infidelity, he has also shown himself to be fine about exploiting someone for a quick thrill. Not someone I want to be married to.

I appreciate some feminists here think all men are rabid dogs that will fck anything but sorry to disappoint but that is NOT the case for ALL guys.

@Richielogic your username is ironic, as your point of view is completely illogical. It’s not feminist thinking that “men are rabid dogs that will fuck anything”. It is feminist thinking that “men are like that” or “boys will be boys” is damaging and untrue.

Men AND women can and should be held to higher standards than paying to shove their faces in strangers genitals. Understand?

I applaud you being so upfront . I never worked as a stripper but quite a few if my uni colleagues did to pay for uni as you . Their stories are very similar to yours so I know things can get very hands on with some guys .
no judgement at all from me ( nit that it matters ) we are young and all do silly stuff .

All this plus the fact that it's sexual interaction that, if done with another woman outside of the walls of a lap dancing club, would be classed as cheating and probably be a possible marriage/relationship ending deal breaker.

But somehow, I side the walls of a lap dancing club, is not.

It's the biggest scam/hustle/delusion.

It's not a delusion most of the men who do it apply to their wife or partner doing the equivalent though. That's where the convenient delusion is revealed not to reciprocal.

Personally I felt like my sexual and intimate exclusivity with my partner, established since we'd gotten into a relationship..... Had been fractured.

I didn't care that strippers/lap dancers do the same for any man who enters the club and pays (an argument put forward by some people, women actually, who were told about it) ..... It wasn't any man, it was my partner.

I was told it was insecurity on my part. It wasn't. At the risk of sounding vain, I could've worked as a stripper myself if I'd wanted to.

I was told it was "no threat" to my relationship, he wasn't going to leave me for the stripper, it was just a few minutes Interaction she did for other men (back on that theme).
I responded that it was actually a threat to my relationship because of my )the person who's actually one half of this couple's) feelings about it. Because I now felt anger, disconnection, disgust, alienation, and resentment towards my partner. I had great difficulty wanting to be intimate with him for quite some time, I got pissed off and told him to gtfo every time some strip club scene came on TV/in a film.

Women don't have come out with some BS on this subject, usually when it's not them whose intimate partner has been physical with a naked woman.

The only other women who was affected in that incident was reportedly "not happy" but her financial etc circumstances meant I knew she'd go nowhere, and didn't.

The woman who are ok with it IME, are generally naive/head in the sand/brainwashed by patriarchy/some combo, or ..... The ones who would be pulling the male strippers shorts down themselves on a hen do/at a show, and possibly worse.

*Women don't half come out with some BS on this subject,

paid for a particular arrangement of body parts to be ground against his face

It ain't usually their face they're being ground against.

I think this perfectly explains how I would feel.

If he wont go again then take the equivalent fun money, put him in the doghouse for a bit and keep it in the bank as a trump card for when you make a fuck up one day. Like the Simpsons movie- in every marriage you get to ask 1 thing but in this case you drop it on the understanding it never happens again and you get one in the bank.

Alternatively have months of rowing because you dont actually want to LTB and he cant turn back time. Be pragmatic.

Realbecca's post has reminded me that my female Japanese acquaintance commented that some married men in Japan went for lap dances, naked massages, naked showers etc. and if their wives found out/knew, the wife demanded and got bought a new designer bag.

I asked her what the wives/partners might do if they could afford to buy their own designer bag or didn't want one .... No answer.