Ladies who don't mind their DP going to lap dancing clubs ....

[nappyaddict]

Do you mind them having a dance in a private room where even though touching is not allowed it is common for the girl to sit and dance cms away from their crotch/face?

If DP did not remember my birthday I would not be happy unless there was a good reason for it like a lot of stress at work or a death or something.

I don't "see" housework either really so that doesn't bother me.

If it were a hen night and there was a male stripper who wanted me to rub body oil on him or something I wouldn't want DP to say I wasn't allowed to do so. I wouldn't actually want to cos I'm quite shy like that but if I did want to join in with all the other screaming women I would want the choice to be able to.

No one moans about male strippers being exploited and they are only doing the same thing as lap dancers.

Like I said my problem comes when sexual activity becomes involved. If someone is an escort and chooses to include that in their time then that is their own choice and I am fine with that. But sex on the street, brothels or excuses for brothels is not out of choice it is out of either desperation or because they are being forced to do it. If DP was to take part in sexual activity with an escort it would still break his fidelity and that would be it for us. But if he were going to cheat anyway I would rather it was with an escort who has made an informed choice of what to allow to happen in the time with her clients than with some poor exploited woman.

So what you're saying then is that as long as your DP doesn't engage in sexual activity, you're okay with him going to places that objectify women? And as long as people in the sex industry are working in it out of choice, you don't have a problem with it? And you can't see the difference between male sex workers and females?

Then I'd say your views on this are entirely personal and not political - and are far removed from mine.

Thought some readers might be interested in this:

"There are exceptions, but most of the girls who end up lap dancing have complicated pasts. 'Out of all the girls I've met, definitely more have come from a bad background. Most girls that come in have got a drama behind them.'"

"Drugs are rife, particularly cocaine, which customers share with the girls. Then there are the extras, where the line between dancers and prostitutes starts to blur. 'I worked in a club where all the girls were giving extras,' says Fiona. 'You'd go into the VIP room and the girls were giving blow-jobs or having sex.'"

the Times, 2008

"Watch out, they knock their drinks back real quick. If you don't pay for a private dance with one of them by the time they've finished, it's time for round 2 in the drinks department.

15 minutes after arriving, you're already £60 down. There is a dancer on the central pole. However, you're surrounded by other dancers asking for drinks and private dancers, so you don't get the chance to look at the stage at all.

Now for the private dance: yeah, good full nudity. Real pretty lady from Italy. No more than three minutes later (could have timed it, but let's face it I had other things on my mind), the dance was over.

She asked if I wanted another one, suggesting that it gets 'really really very very naughty'. My guess is, from that point it also gets even more 'really really very very expensive' too."

User review, Secrets Euston, 2009

"Also as soon as we walked through the door five girls literally pounced on us and wouldn't let us breath. One Chinese girl even offered me her services at her apartment!

My two colleagues stayed on and sat on a table. When the bill came they were forced to pay a waiter £200 (just for serving them) and then had to pay the two young Brazilian dancers a obscene amount of money just to sit with them for a short period."

User review, The Windmill, London, 2010 (the Windmill doesn't have private booths and is couple-friendly - if you don't mind seeing half-drunk men come in their suit pants)

i don't have a problem with strippers.
i have a problem with men who pay women to get naked and pretend to like them. if my husband was one of those men, i'd have a problem with him.

My DP has been to a lap dancing club a couple of times for Stag nights, apparently hated it and would be happy never to go again. Whilst I don't feel completely comfortable I certainly would not go as far as to say I would leave him if he went to one again.

I also feel at times us women can be pretty tasteless with strippers for hen nights and birthday parties with butlers in the buff! I'm not sure if that is fully acceptable either.

I agree with your last paragraph Ilovecoffee. One of the more ridiculous female responses to our patriarchical society was trying to objectify men for their sexuality, an action that is wholly unacceptable on a humanitarian level and utterly pointless in its objective to redress inequalities in our society.

I had a row with XH about that - and, unusually, won! When you watch the faces of men in a strip club, they are mostly hypnotised by a sort of predatory lust. For them it is sex. The women at a male strip, though, are mostly doubled up with laughter. Male strippers ham it up because they know their female audience wants humour. It's a whole different kettle of fish.

Lapdancing is just the windowdressing of prostitution.

Lapdancing objectifies women and is, therefore, unacceptable, full stop.

DH knows my views.

I agree lap dancing is wrong and on a different level to male strippers, however I personally feel really uncomfortable with groups of women shouting at men to get their kit off, it?s not helping our cause.

However I do agree that it would be hard in a stag night situation to duck out of going to a strip club (please don't shoot me down) just as much as if I was on a hen night and they booked a stripper, I?m not sure if I would leave as a point of principle.

One of DH's clients is the owner of one of the most well known lapdancing clubs in London. So he has been there a few times and quite enjoyed it.

If it was the other way round and I was in an establishment where semi-naked men were thrusting their bits at me I don't think it would bother him really. Gawping at the naked bits of another human being would just be mild entertainment and wouldn't replace him in any way, so equally that's how I feel about him being there.

We have talked about all these sorts of things very openly though. It would bother me if he was frequenting lapdancing clubs or watching porn without my knowledge or involvement.

IMO those who do it happily out of choice have an inner strength and excellent sense of self esteem to be able to do it. They must feel very secure within themselves. Why is it so hard to believe that lap dancers might be entirely comfortable doing what they do, enjoy what they do and love their job? Let's face it the money's good for the amount of hours they do. A lap dancer told me that the average house fee was £60 and after that you got to keep everything you made. In really big clubs like Spearmint Rhino you can expect to make £200-£250 per night.

Supposedly during a private dance the lap dancer has to stay at least a foot away and there is no contact of any form allowed. Very few clubs have a license for fully naked dances in this country but there are some. They are only allowed to remove their knickers in the last few seconds and dancers are trained to do it in way so that the men see very little. A lap dancer once told me that where she worked any dancers who started to give extras were sent to Coventry so to speak and made to feel uncomfortable so eventually they would leave. She said the dancers had an unwritten rule between them that the only rule considered OK to break was the distance one.

So in places like that I haven't got a problem with it at all. The dancers there have made a fully informed choice to do it and I have no problem with that.

It's the places that are just excuses for brothels I have a problem with. Councils do come down very hard on clubs breaking the rules and they can take away their license but I think there should be regular undercover spot checks in place to find these places out more easily.

larry...if you must address me personally (again), take it off board and stop trying to derail this thread like you have several others

you are rather pathetically transparent, it seems

I don't have any difficulty believing that lap dancers, like some escorts, do this out of choice. I do have difficulty with them selling their own gender down the river, when they make that choice. The notion that women don't harm other women by the choices they make, is laughable.

If you are perfectly fine about all this OP, why did you start this thread?

It cuts both ways, I wouldn't want a private dance from a man janglining his bits in front of me...I would find it hughley embarrassing and also just damn right silly and neither would I want a partner to go for private lap dances, in fact I think that many men would also find it embarrassing. From a morale point of view I have utter empathy with women who work there..as has been pointed out, a lot come from from complicated and damaged pasts, but I view grown men who view this as a 'fun night out' as immature and irresponsible and so couldn't respect any man who enjoyed his sort of thing. I ceraintly wouldn't want to 'forbid' a partner from going, they bloody well shouldn't want to in the first place!

"I agree lap dancing is wrong and on a different level to male strippers"

Ahh, the feminist joys of having your cake and eating it.

Not all women are feminists, Larry.

Larry, when the existence of male strippers/escorts produces a matriarchical society, your view would have some credence.

However, what the majority of recent posters at least have been saying is that women reducing men to the sum of their body parts is also unacceptable. I have never wanted to attend a male strip club or a "chippendales" event and have no difficulty expressing those views when others have tried to include me. I have far more respect for men than that.

I am very secure and trust my husband implicitly. It is not that I worry he will find other women more attractive blah, blah, blah. I'm sure he see's women that are 'more attractive' than me often on the street and it is not like female nudity isn't all over the magazines and newspapers. It is not about insecurity for me. If DH went to one for a stag party I would think it was a bit pathetic of them but I wouldn't be upset he was going there as such.

If it were a regular thing for him I would think very differently about him. I have found out in the last few months that several of my friends husbands go to lap dancing clubs on a regular basis. I am talking at least 4 or 5 of them. I am starting to lose respect for them to be honest. What a disrespectful way to treat your partner. I think some of the wives know and say they are happy with it but I do wonder if they are just trying to be 'cool with it' to stop themselves sounding insecure which would be sad.

If you were doing something sexual like that as a couple (i.e. swinging or whatever) it is a different story. But lap dancing clubs are just plain sad.

If my husband wants a sexy dance from a half naked woman I would expect him to come home to me.

Luckily I am not married to the sort of man who does things like that to impress his friends (it also helps that he is teetotal so doesn't do mad nights out on the town with the boys).

Hi haven't read all of this but I know that an ex boyfriend of mine used to frequent a very well known chain of 'classy' lap dancing bars and if he is to be believed, extras were very much available in the private rooms. I'm not saying this was condoned by the clubs and I know some even have CCTV in the rooms for the girls' protection, but in that case I'm sure the girls probably thought they might as well make a bit of money on the side. I'm not judging whether it's ok or not, but just confirming that I think the private room thing is quite different from the main 'girls on poles' rooms!

Luckily am now with DH who is happy to settle down and has the view of others here - why pay for it when it's freely available at home!

WhenwillIfeelnormal Well the thread title does say quite clearly it is for people who DON'T mind.

I wouldn't be interested in seeing male strippers either, so that's a non-argument for me

Particularly if the male stripper was statistically likely to come from an economically deprived country or background and also likely to have been abused, as most female sex industry workers are.

Patriarchy or not, it would make me feel sick to be part of exploitation like that.