stag do strippers - AIBU?

[SadSheila]

Sorry if this is long, I just don't want to drip feed.

We moved to Australia about a year ago when DH's company relocated him. It's a short term move (a couple of years) and although it's been hard with 2 young DCs and I've given up a lot (family, friends, job, car, my own money etc.) I was happy to try it out for the experience and for the benefit of DH's career. It does mean that I've got pretty much no support other than DH and I've lost a great deal of independence from him.

I'm 33 weeks pregnant with DC3 and at the stage where I feel pretty vulnerable. I'm huge and I feel horribly unattractive at the moment. A couple of months ago DH went away on a stag do. A group of his friends rented a house for the weekend and did the usual things like paintballing and playing poker. It was hard for me being on my own with the kids all weekend, we were all ill and didn't really sleep. I let DH know this, he was sympathetic at the time but later said whenever he goes away I waste no time in telling him what a nightmare it is for me.

Anyway a few weeks ago I found out from a friend that during that stag do they had hired strippers to come round to the house and serve drinks and deal cards whilst topless. I think they also put on a show involving the stag. I felt quite hurt by this. I thought perhaps they'd been to a strip club but felt silly for asking, but there's something much more intimate about having topless, beautiful young women serving you drinks etc. When I asked DH about it he said he'd kept it quiet because he knew in my pregnant state it would upset me and because I hadn't had an easy weekend, so it was the last thing I wanted to hear. He was genuinely surprised that I was upset by it, to him it was just harmless stag do fun.

While I was in the dark about the strippers, I agreed to DH going another stag do (that's he's currently on) and it turns out exactly the same thing is going to happen. If I had known I would have said "no" because of how awful I was going to feel about it. It's a lot for me to be completely on my own with the DCs for 4 days whilst heavily pregnant, but knowing that he's going to be in presence of perfect naked women is just making me feel really sad. I sat in the bath this evening and just sobbed. Before I had DH's kids I had a body to be proud of and a career and a life, now I feel all washed up and spat out if that makes sense? That being said the DCs are my life and I wouldn't change that for anything.

Am I over-reacting due to hormones/feeling really unattractive? Do I need to get a grip?

If you've got this far, thanks for reading. It's 4am here and the DCs will up soon so I'm going to try to sleep.

DH and I talked about this thread last night - in his experience stag dos involve either getting drunk in your local or a day out climbing a mountain, paintballing, go karting etc and then an Indian and getting pissed.

No sexual kicks involved.

What's a regular stag do? I thought they were all about celebrating a "last night of freedom" ergh...

i think they depend very much on the man and how he thinks.

My exdh had 2 stag dos with different groups of friends. One was just the go and get drunk thing, which was fine. One was involving a stripper. there were lots of pictures of said stripper totally naked and all over him, with him in just his pants/ or naked.

To be honest at the time i felt humilated - this man was going to be my husband, but all my friends did the ' you are making a big deal of nothing - its what men do, buy some shoes - type thing. And i did, i was young.

In hindsite it was indictive of his respect for women - ie - none. He began cheating on me 6 weeks after we got married. It continued for our whole marriage. he also became emotionally and then physically abusive.

I do not, and never will understand why women are meant to be ok with this. I do not and will never understand why men do it.
I will not and never will, ever, be with somone who thinks its ok.

OP- i feel for you, having been in such a vunerable position myself ( abroad, pregnant, no friends or family etc) i know how hard this is. I dont have any advice on what you should do, because its an impossibly hard situation to be in.

Have you not read the thread my view. I've already explained my feelings on strippers (both genders) and hen as well as stag dos.

Are the Chippendales still going? They always used to be about having a bit of a laugh with the girls, there was nothing remotely stimulating about going to see them. And correct me if I'm wrong but the Chippendales dont masturbate at their shows, or use a dildo up their arse to titillate the ladies. (Like it would!). Oh and they don't suck each other off or fist each other for the audience either. Female strippers are known to do all of that. 20 years ago it happened in working men's clubs type establishments now it happens at stripper house parties and some lap dance clubs.
It's naive to believe that female strippers just take off their clothes and do a bit of a sexy dance. It often goes much further than that.
Strippers of either gender I don't agree with, but male strippers for women, in my own experience - and I'd be interested to hear if other women have seen different - don't turn their show into a live porn exhibition.

Re male strippers, I feel the same.

This is to Mrsmplus3: Dear Ma'am your sweet naivity is touching, and long may it last (I really wish that for you). You have clearly never been disrespected before, and I am so glad you still navigate the world where two people care about eachother, and meet eachother half way. You have no idea it seems of a world of lies, manipulations and deceit which serve to ensure the needs of ONE person is always met, and the other's distress is ignored. It is understandable that, being in a world of healthy interaction you make the assumption that the hurt person can control things, it has taken me 3 years to accept that, actually, you can't. May you NEVER encounter this world, where you realise that trust can be innocence and not reality.

Here is your dose of reality coming up:

When I was in Australia, I saw with my own eyes photos from a stag do, in which two 'strippers' (one dark, one blond), attended. What harmless fun, eh, topless women serving drinks and doing a bit of a dance. Nothing to get uptight about...

Except the one photo showed the groom ball deep in the dark prostitute, at the feet of his future father in law. Yes, that was the angle of the photo. His balls, and a revolting ring of dark hair around the anus of the prostitute. Sorry TMI.

The other photos showed blow jobs, and hand jobs on penises at the point of eruption, as it were.

This was in Sydney. But the thing that horrified me most, was the impassive face of the father-in-law, and the ring of hair....

So this wife is absolutely correct in pulling him home. Her instincts are spot on, and she is protecting herself. Talk to us Sheila, some of us know what it is like to be alone and isolated in another country. You aren't crazy, and you aren't worthless.

Babbling, I agree with every word of your last post.

OP, what a horrible thing to go through. I'm sorry some posters are trying to minimise what's happened - it's really shit and I would be going mad if I found out OH had 'lied by omission' about something so seedy. Lots of and sympathy

What do I think of male strippers like the chippendales? Well a bit tacky and dated, but generally harmless.

I've been to a few in the past and it was more a bit of laugh and cracking jokes and certainly not a sexual turn on at all. I'm not saying women don't throw themselves at them sometimes and shag em back stage but its not the same as what the op is describing and not the same as some stag do mentality which is to actually have some real sexual contact as a last fling. Yuck.

And wobbly that is horrific with the brides dad involved too. Can u imagine. Some poor woman getting involved with such an aresole and his family. I believe it happens though and I've read of stripper do's where a smaLl group of women (prostitutes) perform a sex show and give blow jobs.

Years ago, there was a pub by me that used to hold a strip night and it was a woman with dildos and also inviting men up to shag her. I am amazed that people have no shame of being involved in basically live porn in front of their mates. This is absolutely nothing like the male strippers I have seen. Nothing.

What bothers me too about all of this is that 'normal' men, the ones who on a regular night out with their mates, wouldn't dream of going to a bar and chatting up a woman and having any sort of sexual activitiy with her, seem to justify having physical contact with 'strippers' at stag dos. They don't view it as cheating....
Abitwobblynow got it right, they are often not strippers, they are prostitutes. The stripper moniker makes it sound less harmful, just as lapdancer sounds even more 'respectable' than stripper.
And men the world over won't discuss this or even admit it goes on because they don't want their women to know...

Agree with babbling.

I even read something online once, may have been grunternet. With a bloke discussing how he was organising his mates stag do and did anyone know any lapdancer type of girls who would on a show and maybe give the groom a bj. Would you just love him as a mate? Presumabaly after the party he went to the wedding with no shame and congratulated the happy couple.

I hope to god, my dp doesn't have any charming mates like that and if he has I hope to god he would not be game to that shit.

I've been thinking about this thread, about being called a 'fucking brainless woman, having a 'spineless pervert of a husband' and trying to minimise the OPs distress.

OP, I'm sorry if I minimised your distress, I never intended to do so. I was simply trying to provide a counterbalance to the majority of the posts up to that point that were leave the bastard. I don't believe that a relationship should usually be judged on one incident. Obviously it depends on the incident, but the OP knows her husband and we don't. As lots of posters have said, lying by omission about a second stripper at a private house when the OP is 33 weeks pregnant is an issue, I would never disagree with that.

As I stated previously DH had been to one strip club on a work do, twelve years ago. It isn't a pattern of behaviour, its one incident. Malificence, yes really, I do know it is only one incidence and he didn't participate, he would never do it. I know my husband, you don't. Oh and the stag dos, getting pissed and ending up with a nan bread on his head.

I should add that I don't think this goes on at every stag do. But how many men would come home to DW and admit 'oh by the way I shagged the stripper' ?

It's not just stag parties though, as Blueberry mentioned. I have a close male friend who works in sales, executive position. Whenever he has foreign clients or colleagues come over to London they get taken to a strip club. Same when he travels overseas. It disgusts me that this is all seen as necessary 'corporate entertainment' and that this is how business is done even now.

I would be seriously disturbed if my dp had a job where entertaining clients meant trips to a strip joint.

To be honest I don't the idea of 'entertaining' clients full stop. Can't people just go to work and do a job? Bars, restaurants and especially strip clubs(gentlemens clubs lol) have nothing to do with work. What a bullshit environment to be in.

lord, that just reminded me of when exDH came back once and told me how all the boys had chipped in and paid for a sex show by two lesbians. except then how some of the lads then shagged them on stage. but he was the only one that didnt.

it makes me want to throw up.
of course he bloody did.

or how 'they' all visited a brothel ( we were abroad) and they had all lent one guy money to shag this prostitute, but no, not my husband, he told me he went next door to the ice cream parlour.... liar.

its just horrible.

probably the poor op wont ever get to know what actually happened at these tihngs. or if her husband was involved or not. I supose, what she needs to look at, is the whole tihng in context, how he treats her, and other women, if this is a one off, or not. if he excuses it and tells her its her problem, or if he never does it again and tries to make admends andwell as offering more support to his pg wife.
Difficult choices for a woman in a very vunerable position.

Carmen, entertaining clients can be useful a lot of jobs require some element of networking and getting and keeping business. However, it is awful when that entertaining is at strip clubs and I wonder what it would be like as a woman to work in that type of environment, from both sides.

"Except the one photo showed the groom ball deep in the dark prostitute, at the feet of his future father in law"
That has to be one of the worst betrayals of all, betrayed by your future husband and by your father in one sickening event.

Not sounding like just innocent fun now, is it ?
It's sick, and the men and women who participate are sick.

Re entertaining clients - my DH works in an industry where this is expected but fortunately he is man enough (and senior enough in his company) to turn down trips to lap dancing clubs. His boss is the same and they tend to choose activities such as go karting, going to olde worlde pubs for meals (foreign clients love this kind of stuff) etc.

If my DH ever went to something like that at any time it would be curtains for our relationship. Yanbu to be upset.

When I read the heading I was going to say oh just shrug it off. Because I thought it would be some sort of stage show lasting a few minutes as part of a night out. But it was not this. YANBU. It sounds awful and I too would not like it at all if my DH went to something like this. But maybe he has just been sucked into this and doesn't want to be the odd one out by not going if that is their culture. But it is not a good one.

Vile. My ex worked in HK and had a group of professional middle class friends. The men went to Bali for a golf weekend the women stayed in HK. My ex (for all his faults) wasnt a perve and stayed in HK with the women. The guys weren't on a golf weekend they went to a brothel in the Phillippines. Rang back to their wives and girlfriends to lie about what they were doing when they were all shagging prostitutes all weekend. My ex found it sickening that the women had NO IDEA what was going on and were getting off the phone telling each other how much their partners were missing them etc. Awful.

How are you doing, OP? Has your husband (I hesitate to say 'D'H) got back yet? Thinking of you, and hope you're ok, however you decide to handle this. x

Except the one photo showed the groom ball deep in the dark prostitute, at the feet of his future father in law"
That has to be one of the worst betrayals of all, betrayed by your future husband and by your father in one sickening event.

If i was the bride to be in this scenario i would be dumping the prick of a fiance and making sure that i chose the cheapest shittiest hole of a nursing home for the father when the time came.
As well as any blackmail oppurtunity that arose from this.

Thanks for all the replies, it has given me a lot to think about. Some of the stories are absolutely horrifying. Apart from being horribly abusive to women, why bother with a long term partner if you feel the need to shag strippers/prostitutes? He's saying all the right things, but having been recently deceived I don't know what to think. I'm still really angry. I asked him to imagine explaining the whole thing to DD, why I was upset, what they were all planning to do. That made him think.

It's not just about this weekend though, although it has acted as a catalyst for me. How did I get to the point where I'm heavily pregnant and sobbing on my own in the bath with nothing other than childcare going on in my life, and everything else on the other side of the world. It's been a process of attrition and it has to stop. I just snapped yesterday, I've been putting everyone else first to the point where I have ceased to exist (if that makes any sense?) and I'm not going to do it any more. I want to go home actually. H agrees that I can't go on like this so that's a good start.