Husband had a lap dance....?!?

[Hitchy83]

Hi all, this is the first time I've posted on here but just needed some impartial opinions!!
Back in August me and my husband planned a weekend away in Leeds as a break before baby arrived, I was 7 months pregnant. While watching TV a few nights before we went I looked at his phone and the normally stupid messages between him and his best friend (I know stupid of me to do so, it's not that I don't trust him but I've often found him telling his best friend things e hasn't told me, nothing major but stuff I thought we would have talked about). Anyway his messages referred to my husbands stag do which was 3 years ago and joked if he would be going back to the strip club in leeds to get another lap dance, I was absolutely mortified. I trust my husband completely and we've always been very open with no secrets, I did joke to him no strip clubs before he went on his stag do but he assured me that wasn't his thing so I didn't think anything more of it. When I confronted my husband he started by saying he had forgotten all about it as he was drunk, but the more I probed the more he released information, his friend had 2, he had to have one as it was his stag do etc! I tried to laugh it off as I wanted us to enjoy our weekend away but when I came home I became obsessed with finding out about the club and looking at you tube videos of lap dances to see what happens, and became really upset by it all. We never had an proper argument about it as he kept laughing it off and telling me it was his stag do and that in being silly but I couldn't help but picture a girl girating all around him in her lingere and him getting off on it. I'd managed to push it to the back of my mind but since I had our son 6 weeks ago and I look at my stretch marks and wobbly belly all I can think of is that my husband will always have this image of the girl all over him on his stag do and now ill never compare to this :-( I've since looked at his messages to his friend and they keep sending half naked pictures of celebs to each other talking about how hot they are etc. I honestly had this halo over my husband, we've been together more than 11years and I thought I knew him inside out and never thought he was just like every other man oogling these images and going to strip clubs, it's broken my heart to find out about his lap dance :-(
I just don't know if I'm over reacting and being completely naive, is this to be expected on a stag do? I spoke to one of my friends who was just as shocked but she seemed to think it was his stag do so may have been pushed into it. I don't know what to do, I love him so much and I know we won't split up over this, but I'm so secretly hurting I don't know how to get over it?
Has anyone else been in a similar position or any ideas how I can get over this?
Thanks
H x

Ah, seriously, I did try and find it!

"i can?t speak for the porn industry so much, but as far as the strip club world i saw it happen constantly. strip club managers belittling/degrading their employees/dancers, pimp ?boyfriends? forcing their dancer girlfriends to work and hand over their money, club bouncers letting customers get away with things that are against the rules (verbal abuse, unwanted touching, etc)? i could go on.

i used to think stripping was empowering because men would give me loads of cash just for being a hot girl. i felt as if i was exploiting men. these lonely men would come into the club and pay me just to keep them company, talk to them, pretend to like them, dance for them, whatever. but like i said in my previous comment, it didn?t take long for me to realize that there is nothing empowering about spreading open my vagina for a stranger for a dollar.

in my opinion, i am confident in saying that the majority of sex workers wouldn?t be doing sex work if it wasn?t for the money."

This from a real woman, who went into the industry willingly. When she was relatively new to it, she would have been one of those who extolled it's virtues...now ? Not so much. This is just one example. I don't care about statistics, and how they can be manipulated to suit an agenda. The Leeds report used testimonials from women still heavily involved in pleasing men sexually for money, they have to say they are not harmed, that they have "job satisfaction)...I give you "well they would say that, wouldn't they"

FB I would say that people with your attitude towards sex workers as being somehow "other" is part of the problem.

But they would say that, wouldn't they? You don't bite the hand that feeds you.

It would be interesting to see them interviewed 5 and 10 years later.

Did they ask questions about dancers backgrounds, father boyfriend, relationships, abuse, rape, etc? (Sorry, I can't make the pdf big enough to read).

Oh, no, sorry but its completely the other way around.

We both oppose the sex industry thats what we have in common.

Yet thats were it ends. For you think anyone involved in the sex industry should be absolved of blame automatically if they possess a vagina.

That is not looking at the full picture. You cannot see things in black and white. Yes some women are blameless but Im talking about them. some aren't. They are part of the problem as are you by excusing them.

Its plain odd to me you have put these women under some golden glow of innocence rather than treat them uniquely as independent humans not based on their sex. Thats where I think you are part of the problem.

Furthermore using your extract that woman did willingly go into, found out was quite shit -yet chooses to stay. Again why is she helping enable this industry? She can get out. Why should anyone feel sorry for her when she could quit?It sounds grim and soul destroying.

I think its very telling that you are trying to wrangle it so you find some women somewhere to blame, anything other than suggest men may be the root of the problem. I'm sure there are lapdancers and prostitutes, the odd one, who look back at the end of their life and are glad and proud they did what they did. But I think that's not the case for the majority.

Do you also wonder why women stay in abusive relationships where the door's not actually locked - they aren't prisoners

Were has anybody said men are blameless?

The industry is kept alive by supply and demand. The men (and some women) create the demand but the supply is keeping it alive. The viewers are a much larger part of the problem , the suppliers much smaller but that doesn't absolve the ones willingly supplying it. What is the point of trying to convince yourself and everyone that ONLY the viewers are to blame?

Though at least you admit some women are willingly it finally.

Comparing a woman prepared to dance about in hot pants on saturday for money in a nightclub is HIGHLY offensive to compare them to an abused women trapped in a situation.

Really distasteful fives Im afraid.

GetAll like I said, the findings of any study can be extolled or dismissed depending on the readers's viewpoint, which is why I generally don't keep putting them forward to support an argument of mine. My opinions speak for themselves, no matter what anyone else thinks of them.

Agree or disagree, but to repeatedly parrot "what about the Leeds study, what about theLleeds study" does little to strengthen your argument

it's ok though, I know that feeling is a mutual one

FB...I expect you tell women who are otherwise trapped in shit situations to "just get out" don't you ?

Well why on earth would you encourage them to stay? Of course you would help somebody to leave.

I wish somebody helped me when I needed it frankly.

Hmm, well, as I said before what lapdancers think isn't as interesting to me as the ramifications of clubs on wider society. However, it is interesting why it is important to you that lapdancers love their jobs?

No, Getall, I wouldn't say any study of a profession is invalid if it only takes into account current opinions. (Although I think my idea of re-visiting them 10 years later would get a fuller picture!). However, I think calling lap dancing a profession is odd, and I would expect the same skewed answers that you might get from "professionals" in the porn and drugs industry.

One sociology study from one university does not a body of evidence make.

FB, you are being wilfully obtuse now.

GetAll it's Any Fucker to you...did you mean to sound so rude ?

"Also where did i say about not caring how happy or unhappy the women might be who work there?"

Well, do you care? How do you ascertain whether the woman dancing for you is happy? Or do you just assume they all are, and blithely go ahead? Being as you are, absolutely, unquestioningly entitled to your 'softcore' 'fantasy'.

GetAll - doesn't it not strike you as slightly incongruous that the experience of ex-sex workers is often quite markedly different from the experience of current sex workers? In a way that it is not for, say, teachers, or architects, or receptionists or shelf-stackers?

" FBworry

Comparing a woman prepared to dance aboutinhot pants on saturday for money in a nightclub is HIGHLY offensive to compare them to an abused women trapped in a situation."
I didn't compare them. I asked you a question about your attitude to women who are trapped in a situation and feel they have little or no choice.

Just looking at life satisfaction as a measure of their true state of well-being is incredibly naive and is done only to serve a purpose of normalising lapdancing and minimising the risk that women are put under in the sex industry.

Income has a positive relationship with life satisfaction - so this could be a causal factor for higher results as opposed to a standard group of women (lapdancers earn well over the average wage) - and low income is the strongest factor influencing low life satisfaction.

Also taking a one-off life satisfaction measure is in no way an indication that the stripping is a causal factor of increased or high life satisfaction. You would have to measure longitudinally - have a before and after, and also after leaving stripping preferably, to attempt to measure any effect stripping has on life satisfaction.

As the actual authors of the Leeds study note; "The media coverage also tended to focus on other ?good news? elements of the findings, such as the dancer?s positive body image. Less attention was given to dancers? experiences of customer harassment, including verbal abuse or touching.

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."

But if you keep telling yourself that it's OK to pay for another human being to sexually service you, then I'm sure you will continue to believe it, despite the evidence,logic and total obviousness to the contrary.

Im talking about the ones who do have a choice as I have said all along.

Could you explain how a woman chooses to be a lapdancer, then we can avoid further cross wires?
I mean, the exact sort of things a woman might say in order to make the choice to go into lapdancing as a "career of choice".

I think there is an array of reasons. Not everyone will give the same answer.

however Look at anyfuckers post

" I used to think stripping was empowering because men would give me loads of cash just for being a hot girl. i felt as if i was exploiting men. these lonely men would come into the club and pay me just to keep them company, talk to them, pretend to like them, dance for them, whatever. but like i said in my previous comment, it didn?t take long for me to realize that there is nothing empowering about spreading open my vagina for a stranger for a dollar. "

That train of thought would make sense to me. Mainly reasons of empowering, feeling flattered initially, easy quick money but some cases insecurity.