What do you know about Gentlemen's Clubs?

[lacroixsweetie]

DH came home absolutely plastered at 4am this morning. While I was pregnant he occasionally went on to a lapdancing venue after work drinks, usually while utterly soused (or at least that's the condition he came home in). He was fairly upfront about it, no where else to get a drink after 11pm and is usually scathing about men who get off on it. I did the cool wife thing though I felt fat and increasingly unhappy as the frequency of these late nights grew but didn't tackle him about it. They ceased as soon as our daughter was born. I emptied his pockets this morning and found hundreds of pounds worth of credit card receipts - a few which are obviously for drinks but others which are £200/ £400+. If a lap dance costs £25 what can you buy on a credit card for that kind of cash? Everything I read says no touching but in a private booth for that kind of cash ?
He claims he was somewhere else and walked back etc etc but doesn't know I've seen the receipts so I'm going to tackle him tonight about the bare faced lies. IMHO I think I am kidding myself if I think that services of some sort weren't rendered.
I know you'll have lots of opinions on his conduct (feel free to stoke the flames of my rage) but what I really want is to know what really goes on. I'm too humiliated to ask any close male friends.

I have no idea what services can be bought for that kind of cash but I imagine the girls take great advantage of stupid, drunken men and would readily take them for as much cash as possible for the least possible outlay .
The only things I've ever seen on here from women who have been lap dancers or who who know them, say that there is never any touching or extras but I have my doubts.
If I were you, I would have all his stuff on a bonfire in the garden by now, it's vile that he would do this to you.
I take it you've never seen card statements?

He is an idiot.

Have you tried googling reviews of this particular club? You never know.

I have been to one, being a cool girlfriend and it led to a horrendous row, but, as far as I am aware it really is no touching at least in more reputable places. However, my biggest concern with this would be firstly, that it's just very sad and cringy, just ask him what he thinks these women think of the sad ba**ards who will part with so much cash just to see them naked. Secondly, I would question his view of women if he thinks it's appropriate behaviour married or not to be PAYING someone to take off their clothes, it's just tragic.

Have you checked his bank statements for cash withdrawals, that is more relevant. The girls do go home with clients which is always denied but that would be a cash transaction. Sometimes men get fixated on a particular girl and pay for dances from her. Is it always the same club? My ex was into this, sorry to hear you are going through it, however you spin it in my opinion it's a variant of infidelity and in my case this behaviour preceded a full-blown affair but not with a dancer. It is the frame of mind I object to: I felt it was incredibly disloyal and insulting, he went a lot, and it represented him distancing himself from the marriage.

they are full of pretty women who dance with very few clothes on or none at all, private dances the women are very very close

its not a place a man should be who has a partner, and yes many of the women are prostitutes too (these places are not brothels though and the drinks are very high priced) who have controlling violent pimps. its sad that this has become acceptable as a place of entertainment

i have been to one, a well known club in london, with my last job. rather than just have a dance, if you liked a girl you could pay something like £350 and she would sit on your knee for an hour and whisper shite sweet nothings in your ear. it was still strict no touching but the girls were topless and wearing only their thong.

also, if you paid for a girl for an hour, you were expected to provide drinks during this time for them. you could only buy spirits by the bottle and a bottle of grey goose cost £200 (remember this because i was so startled at the price of everything!!)

i am not implying your partner has been with one of these girls, like kallima says its the drinks that cost so much

Some are blatant undercover knocking shops, some aren't. Impossible to tell, really. I have known girls that worked in upmarket gentlemen's clubs were the private booths were for blowjobs and the like. The 'no touching' rule was really a 'no touching unless it's in private and you pay me a one-er for it' rule.

He is an utter shit either way, though. Going out on the lash, spending hundreds of quid on seedy nightlife, while you're at home with his kids? Arsewipe.

My first thought was that it was for drinks. They are extortionately priced and he could've bought a bottle of champagne for 200 quid.
I can't believe he did this when you were pregnant and feeling unattractive.
Your H sounds like an insensitive wanker.
He should have been making you feel good about yourself not spunking your family's money on other women in a seedy strip club.

My first thought was also that it's for drinks. Typically they pay £200 for a bottle of champagne for the 'girls' to spend time sitting and talking to them. For a private lapdance prices range between £80 and £200 - but obviously if he's shouting his best mate that could easily add up.

I think he's been an arse FWIW. How untactful can you get with a pregnant wife exactly?

yeah, some of the more upmarket ones, you have to spend a lot on drinks
or are expected to spend a lot. Champagne, fancy bottles of vodka.
I also know one guy who got completely fleeced at one of those places, they put loads through on his card.
Doesn't mean he has been up to no good. But the whole lapdancing thing is just horrible. Downward spiral imo.
And bollocks to it being the only place open after 11pm

I used to go quite a lot, back in the days when I was "cool"

Sometimes they are the only place open at that time that isn't noisy and where you can sit down, although they are very expensive. Private dances are very close, and often the woman (I refuse to call them girls, it feels creepy, they are fully grown women, usually) touches the dancee (usually a man), but the dancee doesn't touch the dancer, if that makes sense.

Creepy creepy creepy. I used to be "cool" with it, and even enjoy it, until I stepped back and looked at what is actually involved - sitting there, looking at a naked or nearly naked woman, all shaven and trussed up like some kind of Christmas present. Anyone who finds that sexy, except I suppose maybe in a bondage way when acknowledging the inherent weirdness, needs to start looking at themselves. It's like fancying a load of anatomically correct Barbie dolls, and the woman might as well wear facemasks or be robots, for all the customers care about them.

It's odd, I used to be OK about my husband going to those places when we first got together, and I think I might be ok ish if he was out on a stag night or something, but the idea of a man I have regular sex and intimacy with (not always the same thing) going on any kind of regular basis fills me with revulsion. It just shows such a disconnection from real life.

When I found out he had been going to these places recently, I looked up some of the porn he had been looking at, and I'm going to have a hard time getting those images out of my head whenever he comes near me - what used to be my soulmate and life partner, with all his quirks and our plans to be together and face whatever comes as a couple, has become a sleazy faceless twat who thinks that grown women with bodies that no-one over the age of 25 (or with children) will ever healthily have, and no body hair, is somehow alluring. No, alluring isn't even the right word, that would imply some kind of love of mystery. It's not even sexily sordid, it's just disgusting. It's the realm of dirty old men who don't think women are people. It's the realm of "Barely Legal" porn. It's the realm of exploitation.

I want to be fancied as myself, not because I let him see my boobies. I can't love someone who can participate in the out and out objectitfication of women, and then come home and kiss his wife and daughters goodnight. We're trying to work things out, and I hope we do, but he needs to sort himself out.

...sorry about the rant.

But yeah, quite possibly drinks, but it is the regularity that concerns me.

I'd ask if you can afford it?

I find it abhorrent that a man spends that kind of money on a lapdance, the drink charges in a lapdancing place are around a tenner a pint, whereby it would cost 3.00 for a pint in a pub.

I've no problem with porn it's free on the internet, but to pay for it makes it highly distasteful.

A lapdance would cost around £200. Not £25 they wear hardly any clothes, probably a thong and are topless and sexy dance in their laps, shoving their pussys in their faces rubbing their boobs across their lips, simulating sex.

When I used to go it was £20 for a fully nude dance. It was about £6 for a pint, compared to about £2 in a normal pub (northern small town, about four years ago)

Surely any town with a lap-dancing club will also have normal nightclubs? His 'reason' for going there is very weak.

Even if he's not having lap-dances or extras, I'd be tremendously pissed off that he was spending that much money.

This is not a gentleman's club.

Sorry to say, but lap-dancing clubs aren't necessarily no-touch.

I was on a friend's stag do the other week which stopped off at a gentlemens 'club'. Not my thing at all, but we were in a group. I left like a scalded cat after one girl offered me a private dance, with all sorts of extras. Not sex as such, but suffice to say I was invited to breach the no-touch rule on her body. I didn't hang around long enough to ask the price!

I don't like lap-dancing clubs at the best of times, but that was far too real.

Not saying they're all like that, but some can be.

Did you confront him LS?

I remember my brother saying that he'd been to one with friends, and his best mate (who is good looking with a lovely girlfriend) had been plastered and blown £400. Apparently he just kept having one dance after another, and having two girls doing lesbian shows for him. He also spent loads on overpriced drinks.

A friend got a blow job from lapdancer on my DH2B's stag do. I think it depends on the club, some are more strict than others.

Hi Lacroix, I'm not entirely sure tbh but I know the drinks are very costly. I feel your pain. I know loads will disagree with me on here but I would not have it in any relatioship of mine. full stop. If he wants to act like a single desperado, he can, but he wouldnt be stringing me along with him. Like someone said above - its just a downward spiral from here. If you don't like it or if its niggling away at you, tell him straight. I can never understand people who want to play the 'cool' wife/G friends because I believe to some extent it would hurt us all even if some say they couldnt care less.

My ex twat used to frequent these places when he was a high flying banker. He said that they really sting you with a cover charge. So you go in there thinking you'll only pay for a few drinks and a lap dance, and at the end of the night they'll whack £200 on your bill for 'cover', whatever that means.

Pretty seedy and totally unacceptable that your DH is going to these places and rolling home trashed at 4am and spending upwards of £300-£400 of the family's money in one night. What kind of man does that make him? I wouldn't stand for it.

Cheers for the heads up on costs. It looks like it is pretty easy to spend a couple of hundred just on a lapdance and more again on booze in an upmarket club (online reviews all say this). He spent considerably more than a couple of hundred and clearly made some girl(s) very happy that evening - idiot.

So I confronted him, after some chit chat where he dug himself in further and further. Told him I couldn't believe the barefaced lies when I knew exactly where he had been and it was several miles from the west end (london) club he claimed to have been in. Suffice to say that he looked utterly shellshocked - debatable as to whether or not it was down to being caught or not being aware of the credit card bill he had run up (claimed he hadn't checked as he was late for work, not sure I believe that). Has been wearing a hairshirt ever since, sworn off booze, nights out etc etc. and is clearly v p*ssed off as he has been saving for something which this episode has completely wiped out.

In short after tons of apologies and I can't believe I am such a terrible person, the basic story is that men have needs etc etc and our sex life is sh*t. Which it is. It's never been amazing - I'm v v rubbish at initiating it and things went v south when I was pregnant as he stopped too. Assumed I was totally putting him off. DD is 9 months old and we have only just started again. I feel like a fat frump and we never seem to be in the mood/awake at the same time. Now it's a vicious circle. I've thought all day about giving him the benefit of the doubt but I can't bring myself to touch him without thinking of him in some club with a semi naked amazon gyrating in his face. Marvellous, such a turn on.

I think I have made things very clear that this is now totally unacceptable in any shape or form so I'm hoping there won't be a repeat. I feel like sh*t though, a total doormat for taking this because I feel in some small way responsible even though I know it doesn't excuse him in any way and all your points are totally valid. I'm not such a doormat that I will stand for it again though.

You both need to work at your sex life, it isn't on that you should bear the brunt, he could have talked to you about it not gone to a lapdancing club.

It takes two to make a relationship work not just one.

Sex for women starts a long time outside the bedroom and our heads have to be in the right place too.

Right now you are pissed at him for the Lapdancing stuff and rightly so, he has to prove himself worthy before you are going to want to have sex with him.

I'd be mad he got so drunk and wasted so much cash. I don't have a problem with these places except they are designed to milk cash out of drunken men.

I'd say at the minimum you now have a sizeable shoe fund!!