He's just been to a nude lap dancing bar :(

[RunnyBum]

H just back from nude lap dancing bar, he has been on stag dos before and he knows I hate it. I'm gutted, he says I should forget this one "mistake" as he (allegedly) didn't has a private dance as he knows I would hate that. He claims he was just curious (inspite having been before and knowing all about it!!) Being in front of a naked woman that isnt me, for kicks just feels like cheating on some level. Oh and he wasn't on a stag tonight just out with a friend.

Found out as I Where's My Iphone'd him as he was meant to just be in our town, and I thought he'd be heading home.

We're meant to be going away on a romantic break in a few weeks, but a the minute I don't want him near me :(

How would u deal with this?

oh yes, inadvertinently

that's the best way

Is that a mixture of inadvertently and incontinently?

Keep leaning on a spelling mistake, ladies, you obviously need a moral crutch.

ladies.

That is an odd term of address.

How can a spelling mistake be a moral crutch?

Can you get moral crutches on the NHS, or do you need BUPA?

Which is of course entirely different from the moral crotch, which can be found on display to the sweaty, lecherous, inadequate, drunken deadbeat losers who frequent lapdancing clubs.

sweaty, lecherous, inadequate, drunken deadbeat losers

wow - I've been called a lot of things in my life, but never a drunken deadbeat. Or do those insults only apply to men?

I'm always struck on these threads, by how many women see fit to judge with no personal experience themselves. Talk to the women, go to the clubs. If you come out with the same opinion you went in with, at least it will be an informed opinion.

Talk to the women

Some of them have written whole books about it.

www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/nov/10/truth-lap-dancer-clubs

Hmm. Let me examine that comparison.

Brad Pitt, earns gazillions, calls the shots on which film he stars in (or produces), jets around the world with his superstar wife and a legion of nannies. Admired by millions for his charitable work.

Stripper in dingy club, earns pittance, is abused by customers and staff, lives in a tiny flat. Has to lie to family about her job.

It's not the ogling (ie. silly women being jealous of their husbands looking at other women).

It's the plight of the women who work in the sex industry, many of whom are abused and prostituted while others pocket the profits.

Comparing them to a millionaire superstar is laughable.

olgaga - there are also books out there detailing positive experiences too. I'm not going to discount anybody's negative experience - they didn't like it and found it demeaning. That's their experience. I've spoken to others who have had a more positive experience.

When I say "talk" I mean just that: face-to-face talking, so you can see all the nuances of non-verbal communication.

"www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/nov/10/truth-lap-dancer-clubs "

Have read this and it is highly anecdotal. One of the only proper surveys (the only one I can find) on this is the below:

www.sociology.leeds.ac.uk/assets/files/research/events/PreliminaryMediaAug2010.pdf

Among the conclusions:

"Education: All of the dancers had some education and had finished school with some qualifications. 87% had completed at least Further Education, while 25% had completed an undergraduate degree. Just over one third of dancers were students. 31% of dancers were currently in some form of education, making students a significant proportion of dancers. 3.8% were taking further education courses, 13.9% were using dancing to help fund an undergraduate degree and 6.3% for a postgraduate degree

Job satisfaction amongst dancers was strikingly high. Asked to score their job satisfaction from 0 to 10 with 10 being the highest, a significant proportion (84.4%) rated their satisfaction above five and only 5.3% rated their satisfaction

Respect: Dancers were also asked how respected they felt within the workplace. This time, the majority (59.2%) were neutral, stating that they neither felt respected nor disrespected. Despite this neutrality, significantly more dancers said that they felt Respected or Very Respected (33.8%) than Disrespected or Very Disrespected (7%).at less than five."

In the interests of balance, it is far from all rosy and Leeds University published their comments on all the positive comments received in the media here:

www.sociology.leeds.ac.uk/about/news/lap-dancers-degrees.php

The chief negative commentary is below:

"Dancers told Dr Teela Sanders and Kate Hardy about unsafe working conditions, lack of insurance, inconsistency of income and fines or high fees in some clubs. The reports also tended to disguise the profound variations between the standards and management in different clubs. Researchers found some clubs were well run but others were significantly more dangerous or exploitative.

This important research was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and involved a survey of 300 dancers, and interviews with workers, industry management and regulators. "

Of course this was a survey of 300 dancers (better than anecdote, though) and maybe, to some extent, they were self selected. However as a reputable survey by two academics and peer reviewed, I assume they attempted to balance for this.

The reality is that, whist some in the industry may be exploited, in reputable clubs, the majority are clearly not.

Why on earth would you assume the survey was not anonymised before dismissing it crudely ()? I would assume the interviews would have been in private, spread across several clubs and anonymised.

How can you dismiss proper academic research so frivolously? Nothing to do with it coming to the "wrong" conclusions of course...

WereTricksPotter,

Well, that is a matter of personal opinion but has nothing to do with the survey I cited nor the Guardian article nor a lot of people's objections to do with most dancers being exploited.

When I went (90s mainly), I did not know of anyone male (and a fair few females) in the City who did not occasionally go. I guess we may all have been pathetic inadequate sheep but that would be an awful lot of fairly successful men and women of an ovine persuasion.

.....and now I'm a pathetic inadequate sheep.

Nice.

I can't open the links on my phone but will say that the important part of that is that some clubs treated their staff well and some didn't.

The issue is that if I were to work in a shop and my manager was a prick, then I would have ways of sorting it our (complain to HR, take company to court, leave the company ...)

The women in the 'bad' clubs would often not have any options. If they were already so desperate that this was the only job they could find, they can't just leave. Who should they complain to? They might be frightened of protesting in case it led to more abuse.

MmeLindor,

I think you are making a lot of very positive assumptions about every business that is not involved in lap dancing. I suspect a lot of retail outlets, especially smaller ones have no HR, do not employ unionised staff and would be very hard to "take to court" by your average worker with zero free cashflow. And, as for leaving the shop, they may have no other options either.

I suspect the places I went to were the top of the lapdancing foodchain in that they were in Central London and generally expensive household names. I am sure there is a far tawdrier side to the business. However, the fact that some people are exploited is not a reason to kill an entire industry.

I am actually quite sympathetic, having read all the arguments, of trying to end lapdancing based on its pervasive influence of men's attitudes, especially younger men. On the other hand, while it is still going on and normalised, I do think that, on an individual basis, someone should not be too badly judged for going very occasionally with friends to a reputable establishment. They are most likely dealing with people in it for the money and perfectly comfortable with their choice. On that basis, it is what it is; slightly tawdry but not the end of the World.

daddancer. I'm ok with porn and watch it myself from time to time. Lap dancing is completely different as it is interaacting with a real life person. And getting turned on, so is webcamming.

larrygrylls, I don't think I set a low bar for dealbreakers in my relationship. No cheating. I.e sex or intimacy of some description, paid or otherwise. Or paying to interact with women online. Lapdancing I'm a bit mixed on. Wouldn't be too fussed if it was a one off and no private dance. Though I'd hope he would think going in the first place would be tacky and a waste of money

I don't have to discuss this with my dp as I would think he would be dim if he didn't think these things were dealbreakers. Just as I'd expect him to think it was a dealbreaker if I did any of the above.

Of course he is quite free to do what he likesbut he wouldn't be in a relationship with me. He freely entered a committed relationship with me and being in such a relationship means getting a sexual thrill from paying for nude dances is disrespectful at the very least.

Larry that research you've cited is flawed.

All the strippers and sex workers they asked were currently working as strippers and sex workers at the time they took part in the research. There was no adjustment made for the cognitive dissonance that happens when you do a job that you know on some level is impacting your personal boundaries, your emotional health and all at the expense of your private, intimate life. They have to tell themselves they enjoy it and they're fine with it.

If you look at research done on EX strippers and sex workers, once they're out of the industry entirely, the evidence tells a very different story and an overwhelming number admit that they hated it at the time but wouldn't admit it to themselves.

There's even been research done on how this sort of cognitive dissonance skews research on topics like this.

I would give you citations but I'm at work and not even supposed to be MNing right now .

I just had to post this.

Madonna,

Appreciate you prob don't have the time, at least until later. However, if and when you get a chance, I would be curious to read the research on ex lap dancers. I think it has to be done on ex lap dancers rather than ex strippers or prostitutes, or any other sub category of the sex or "exotic" entertainment business. See where you are coming from in your cognitive dissonance argument, though (having recently read the Kahneman book :).

If there is a reputable study which undermines the one I have cited, I will have to accept it. However, it has to be a proper rigorous academic study, not something anecdotal such as the article written in the Guardian.

I don't agree with Larry about the employment rights - I read an article where the women are 'self employed' rather that being employed by the club directly - so they don't have the same rights as a shop worker. They have to pay 'rental', 'costume hire' and such like.

As for thinking lap dancing clubs are normalised - well they're not are they? Or there wouldn't be so many threads on mn like this one. Saying that 'everyone you knew in the city went occasionally' does not mean it's normalised. I worked in the city too, and several of my relatives still do. I have worked with colleagues who frequented these places - only men I might add - and let's just say they were a certain 'type' of man that I avoid like the plague. The type that think it's 'a laugh' to pay women for sleazy sexual services. Not all men are like that.

Sabrina,

The men I went with have included some of the most gentlemanly individuals who worship their wives and would consider themselves to be (and in my eyes are) 100% faithful. They would not have ever considered any implications of their behaviour beyond being convivial with colleagues. I suspect some may have regarded it as more of a work obligation than a pleasure. They had very strict lines (as did I, although I was mainly single in that period) of no private dances and just drinking and chatting with everyone together.

I don't know when you worked in the City. For me, although I worked until 2008, I only really went to lapdancing places in the 90s. The craze did peter out as HR departments clamped down on them and more and more females came into trading departments. I don't know what is normal now wrt lapdancing. However, I have been there on nights where the whole trading desk went along, 5-6 guys. I think statistically it is highly unlikely that all of them were of a "certain type", as well as it not being the case in my judgment (which you will argue is skewed, so that is a bit circular, hence my use of statistics).

This is the male experience of what lapdancing is, especially as it was when I went. It is easy to dismiss as "decent males wouldn't", "most men are not like that" etc. However, that is not my experienced reality. The men who went were normal, well adjusted, with plenty of female friends etc and I am sure that the majority of the people here who are very anti will include among their trusted male friends some who have been lapdancing but are not going to shout about it. Would that change your perception of them 180 degrees?