...to think that off-duty police shouldn't go to a strip club?

[TheIckFactor]

Name change here.

My STBXH has admitted that when we were still very much together, he and his police buddies (only the blokes) went to a strip club in another city on their Christmas get-together...

Now it makes sense why they'd travel 100 miles - not for the Christmas markets...

I got the bullshit 'didn't want to be left out/I was drunk'. Yep, a married man, a copper, in his 40s can succumb to peer pressure apparently, poor thing. Yeah, right.

Oh yeah, and it was two Christmases! So that bullshit excuse is stretched real thin the second time. Lovely. Happy Christmas, darling.

So, the rights and wrongs of strip clubs in general - and I'm very much of the view that they're exploitative of women; and of husbands/partners doing this on the sly aside,
what do you all think of off-duty police officers going as a group (probably 10+, I'd guess) to strip clubs?

I feel it speaks to a culture of misogyny within the police, that they would think this is ok, but AIBU?

You are being ridiculous.

To be honest OP I'm surprised it wasn't a brothel.

Sorry but over the years, the interactions I have had, male police officers see women as a subspecies, not quite human.

In your circumstances he knew it would upset you if you found out but his need to bond with the other misogynists was more important, twice.

You are right to be upset and angry.

I can't understand how so many women on this thread (apologies to the exceptions) think this is OK when every single day police officers commit vile crimes against women or are reported for sharing unspeakable messages and photos (of raped and murdered women for example). A recent report confirmed endemic misogyny. The old trope of "one bad apple" is bullshit. A high proportion of the police force stinks to high heaven and is nothing more than an old boys club.

Maybe OP should have said he was a transwoman. The outpouring of hatred and support would have been eye watering.

Whoa, whoa whoa, calm down, the overwhelming majority of police officers are good decent caring people. Yes there are bad ones. It is not the majority, nor by far. That’s why it makes the news. There are nearly 150k officers in the uk.

your post is deeply extreme. It’s like saying all catholic priests, school teachers, nuns, etc all commit certain heinous crimes because some did.

it’s not ok to decide they are all like that due to the few.

Exactly.

The Police force are in the firing line at the moment and many want to think they are a misogynistic force that hates women and should not be trusted.

Which leads to a lot of unfounded criticism and abuse of the Police force as a whole, which is over 100k UK members including female officers. Many of whom are in senior positions.

Recent research into surgeons, both NHS and private in the UK uncovered shocking rates of misogyny , sexual harassment and sexual assault, they aren't being discarded as misogynistic abusive bastards like the Police are.

Not surprised. It's only a generation from the time some police regarded this stuff as a perk of being on duty, never mind off duty.

I would agree with the OP if she were to apply the same rules to parents, people are easily critical of teachers having a social life but never say anything about parents doing the same.

Because you said the women working there would end up with “less confidence” in the police. That only makes sense if you assume all police that go to a strip club off duty are there to exploit women, hassle them for sex, and act as enforcers for their pimps (if they are trafficked). It’s usually off duty law enforcement that is able to blend in enough to see the signs of exploitation and trafficking, and covertly get evidence. If cops go in on duty and in uniform, no one is going to tell them, anything, and the entire club will be putting on the performance of their lives to convince the police that everything is above board.

Are shows like the Chippendales still around?

Men are so weak when out as a tribe, it's pitiful really.

@Cosywintertime

Well, given that there are only 150k police officers in the UK and at least one of them is in the paper every day, that's a pretty damning percentage. It's not even headline news any more.

What you've said doesn't make sense to me.
'Dirty cop' is a pretty strong description and usually implies serious corruption and often a link to organised crime. I don't for a moment imagine that the average police officer would be corrupt to that level, or even a bit 'bent'. You're way off in what you think I'm saying here.

As to going in covertly, then they would be on duty - otherwise the 'evidence' you suggest they could be gathering wouldn't be of use in a prosecution. As I've outlined in posts above, police are required to stick to a code of conduct that applies even off-duty. They're not my rules. A judge would toss 'evidence' gathered when officers were pissed in a strip club on a jolly - which is what I'm talking about. A boozed-up work Christmas party - reiterating here for the benefit of everyone who seems to have failed to grasp that.
I think you jumped to a conclusion and are now trying to validate that - but it doesn't hold weight.

For clarity, there's a world of difference between 'covertly' - a covert operation, and just going in on your own time in civvies. I don't think you can conflate the two.

My h has a friend/acquaintance who did a stint on the Met...he and his colleagues went to brothels.

When it comes to protecting women, they are foxes "guarding" the chickens. (Or should that be wolves?)

Anyway, they probably justify the strip clubs and being entirely legal and ignoring any ethical issues ...both with the strippers'backgrounds ... and with their relationships.

I am of the opinion they are inappropriate for anyone in an exclusive relationship, end of.

I'm also of the opinion that the vast vast majority of men who go into them while in relationships would find their partners doing the equivalent totally inappropriate/unacceptable.

I was just wondering the other day whether strip clubs still existed. They seemed to becoming normalised in the early 2000s and it seemed we just had to get on with feeling unsafe.

There used to be one on Gray's Inn Road and another near Warren St and I resented them being there and having to walk past them to work with a load of dodgy punters hanging about.

I think anyone in the police force should be thinking really carefully about what they do in their spare time these days and what it says about them.

@TheIckFactor not being funny but if you thin its against a code, dont you have a moral duty to report your ex husband?

Morals are personal. Do you think it's more important to grass up Stbxh because he has broken the Code or are you going to turn a blind eye because you wanted validation from mumsnet that hes a bastard (but wont hold yourself to the same standards by reporting a breach of the Code?)

Please don't apologise, gina. I'm only getting back to this myself.
Exactly that - an all-male piss up at a sexual entertainment venue. All very 1970s. And as ChristmasQuestions and mewkins allude to, there's the question of the women who work with these guys. Their female colleagues were not in attendance and very much aware of the men going - what they felt about it, I don't know.

You can gather evidence covertly whether off duty or on duty as part of a covert op. So it isn’t true that everything seen & done covertly is always whilst on duty.

A judge isn’t going to toss evidence because the cop was off duty. Evidence gathered off duty when the police are where they have a legal right to be as a member of the public is completely admissible evidence.

Perhaps I did jump to a conclusion. Can you explain then why you think women in strip clubs would then automatically have less confidence in police if off duty police were occasionally in their strip club? I think you can only have this conclusion if you think only a “bad” cop would be in a strip club. So if it’s not that then, why?

Also, answer me this, how can police protect the vulnerable if strip clubs become a no go zone when off duty? They’d be limited to going for a shake down in uniform- which will leave them empty handed because snitches get stitches. Or doing the official covert operation- which they are not funded to do because society doesn’t give two shits about working class girls dancing naked on a stage. They’d rather have the police catching murderers and drug runners. So, no plain clothes off duty police in any strip club means owners need not worry about trying to stay legal. They can abuse the women, traffick them. It will all be behind closed doors- what do you think that feeling of “no cop is going to come in here- they’d lose their job” would do? It would embolden the ones we know ARE exploiting women in the sex industry.

I think you are conflating two things, covertly recording or gathering evidence doesn’t have to be done as part of an official covert operation by on duty law enforcement.

Any member of the public can do it. Many cases in the courts involving assault, robbery, murder, terrorism, hate speech and so on rely on covertly recorded evidence by a member of the public- off duty cops have the same right to do this.

if we are willing to pay all these public sector workers 24/7 365 wages, maybe you have a point. Free time is free time. Having personally taught the children of many women who worked at strip clubs ... Peter stringfellows etc ,they are the ones in control and had more disposable income and a better home than I could ever imagine They were totally in control and made 10x i did as a teacher

sex trade is a different topic !

No, Toad, it's a good question.
A few people on here have wrongly thought I'm hellbent on revenge - when the reality is that our split has been as amicable as possible. I'm not that sort of person anyway and neither could I see how 'ruining his life' as one put it would benefit me.

But I have thought about whether their professional standards people are aware and indeed if I have an obligation. That code that I quoted in an earlier post is undoubtedly open to interpretation - by everybody. So I was wanting, genuinely, to get a sense of whether the majority of people would see it as a problem. If a straw poll on Mumsnet suggests a majority don't see it as a problem, then I may just have to accept that these guys aren't doing something that goes against public opinion, bringing the force into disrepute, if you will - which is what the code is based on. Do you get me?

The circumstances in which evidence is gathered very much dictates whether that evidence is admissible in court.
You've introduced this line of argument to somehow justify the boys' boozy strip club Christmas jolly along the lines of an evidence gathering opportunity. It's not rooted in reality. The CPS would bounce back any such 'evidence' long before a defence barrister could laugh it out of court.

Remember, my question was specific to those particular circumstances. I should have framed it better, I see that now. 'AIBU to think that a police Christmas work night out shouldn't take place in a strip club', perhaps?

I'm guessing you might want to keep justifying your line of argument but I'm going to politely bow out of this exchange, if you don't mind. I think it's gone off on a tangent.

@TheIckFactor

Yep, it's like an episode from "Life on Mars". As you say, it is an exclusionary event. What about female colleagues or those with other faiths and the welfare of the women at the venue itself? Below is a paragraph from the Hansard Report presented to the House of Commons after Sarah Everard was murdered. There is much more to the report and most of it very damning. Any woman who thinks it's fair game for police officers to organise a works do at a sex venue should read the full report.

"Women fear that an internal culture of misogyny might also affect how police treat members of the public. I have had women get in touch with me to share their experiences of having complaints of stalking and harassment dismissed—even laughed at—by Metropolitan police officers, leaving them feeling powerless and abandoned, and as though the behaviour of their perpetrators had been normalised."