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Original poster

DH went to a strip club

142 replies

octopusrus · 13/11/2023 09:38

Wow sounds such a fucking cliche.
Was a weekday night, not a stag or anything, just two blokes.
Can't get my head around it, of course he said no private dances went on blah blah but I just feel totally sick.
Can't sleep the last few nights from all the images in my head. He says they 'just went for drinks' but I actually want to explode that he thinks I might just think it's fine and like going to any old bar.
We have young teen DC and I'm just honestly reeling. I don't see how I'm ever going to be able to sleep with him or even kiss him without these images coming into my head.
I know realistically we can't split up a 20 year marriage over this but I honestly can't see how I'm going to get over it. I called a friend when I found out and she said it was just 'boys being boys' and not to overthink it, and it's really not a big deal. So why in my head do I feel so betrayed. Maybe I was expecting too much and being naive with porn on phones etc? Not that I've ever found him looking at that but of course doesn't mean he doesn't.
Just wish I'd never found out in some ways.

OP posts:
ShenleyWillow · 13/11/2023 21:07

He shouldn't have gone but he seems to have been honest with you and when we're drunk we make bad decisions. You've been clear to him how it makes you feel. Has he apologised, said it won't happen again? If so and this is an isolated issue I would try to move on.

Sayitaintso33 · 13/11/2023 21:15

Masterofhappydays · 13/11/2023 20:48

I thought as you were quite coherent so there’d be some level of intelligence. Dang. You really need it explained or are you just deliberately being obtuse?

I’ll bite anyway.

Margot Robbie stripping in wolf of Wall Street - the likelihood of a regular man interacting with her is likely never going to happen. She doesn’t talk to him, make him feel special. He doesn’t pay her to do things. He isn’t parting with his money to own her time. He therefore doesn’t begin to think “I’ve paid for this women so she owes me such and such”… she is just a 2D pixelated character on a screen who he cannot smell or touch or talk to. It’s not real.

Me or some other woman stripping in a club. The man is paying directly, therefore usually feels he has paid access to our bodies. We are there, real, within touching distance. You can feel body heat from one another and smell one another.
We interacted with these men, on a personal level. They told us about their wives and jobs and kids. Margot doesn’t know that Alan is an accountant and is married to “a fat pig called Sheila who doesn’t put out”.
We are paid to make the men feel special so they pay us more. Margot doesn’t make anyone’s husband (other than her own) feel like he’s the most incredible man on the planet.
There is no screen. Do I need to explain that things on a screen and things in your lap are different, one is more personal than the other? Do you know that watching an actress like the beautiful Margot stripping in a movie is not personal for the viewer. She’s stripping because she is acting, it’s an art, she is stripping for the sake of the movie, not because Alan and Steve paid her to. Me stripping, if a paid dance, is deeply personal. I can smell them and they can smell me. They are inches from my body while I gyrate on them. They could hurt me if they wanted to. Margot stripping in Hollywood is safe. My colleagues and I weren’t always safe.

I suppose a lot of it comes down to interaction. A lot of women accept their partners watching porn but will not tolerate only fans because of the interaction element. But a Hollywood actress stripping in a movie isn’t personal, real-time or creating a feeling of obtainable for viewers. Those men who watched us strip were usually so self assured, they would have thought we’d want them.

Show quote history

You missed my point really - so I apologise for making it badly.

MN (and I know that MN isn't a hive) disapproves of all sex work whether on a screen or not. You make a distinction between that sex work on a screen and that in person.

I stand by my point that if the OP happily watches Hollywood nudity with her husband she can't sensibly object to him going to a strip club.

But to deal with some of your points at face value as you dealt with mine.

You argue that stripping is dangerous but so is being a firewoman.

You argue that stripping is personal but so is being a therapist, or a social worker or a probation officer.

You argue that men have paid for you so they think they own you. Well just about every boss in a factory thinks he owns you at work. Work is often dehumanising. Many on MN don't allow tradesmen to use their toilets - how dehumanising is that. Read the current thread about the woman who disobeyed her boss and parked in a forbidden parking space. Most of MN made it clear that it is the worker's duty to follow the orders of their superiors.

Would you rather have worked in a warehouse on minimum wage, or as a plumber unblocking revolting toilets or as a slaughter woman in an abattoir or as a well paid stripper? You might be ashamed of it now, but if you were twenty again would your choice of work be different?

JenniferBooth · 13/11/2023 21:15

ShenleyWillow · 13/11/2023 21:07

He shouldn't have gone but he seems to have been honest with you and when we're drunk we make bad decisions. You've been clear to him how it makes you feel. Has he apologised, said it won't happen again? If so and this is an isolated issue I would try to move on.

Yes people do make bad decisions while drunk including getting behind the wheel of a car. You dont hear any excuses when it involves this though Funny that

ShenleyWillow · 13/11/2023 21:22

JenniferBooth · 13/11/2023 21:15

Yes people do make bad decisions while drunk including getting behind the wheel of a car. You dont hear any excuses when it involves this though Funny that

Show quote history

I said he shouldn't have gone in my first line...

Whatthefnow · 13/11/2023 21:34

I went to one earlier this year, we actually watched people having full sex. It was rather boring.

Bumblebeestiltskin · 13/11/2023 21:40

JenniferBooth · 13/11/2023 20:45

. Many called their wives ugly fat pigs or frigid bitches. So very heartbreaking that these ‘men’ were making babies with these poor women

So why stay with them then? oh wait yes i already said why. They just see them as a human domestic appliance and are frightened they would have to clean up their own shit if they leave

But the point is, their poor wives were, on the whole, completely oblivious.

CurlewKate · 13/11/2023 22:30

@Sayitaintso33 "MN (and I know that MN isn't a hive) disapproves of all sex work whether on a screen or not."

This is categorically not true. Mumsnet is an overwhelmingly "sex work is work" pro porn space. I know this because I am neither-and an often one of a tiny minority trying to stand against the tide of cool girls.

Masterofhappydays · 14/11/2023 00:57

CurlewKate · 13/11/2023 22:30

@Sayitaintso33 "MN (and I know that MN isn't a hive) disapproves of all sex work whether on a screen or not."

This is categorically not true. Mumsnet is an overwhelmingly "sex work is work" pro porn space. I know this because I am neither-and an often one of a tiny minority trying to stand against the tide of cool girls.

Exactly this, completely agree.
Probably why I “missed her point”, which I still don’t quite understand what it was.

Panaa · 14/11/2023 01:24

I stand by my point that if the OP happily watches Hollywood nudity with her husband she can't sensibly object to him going to a strip club.

@Sayitaintso33
Of course she can, and trying to make out she's not being rational is like gaslighting.

It's actually interesting, I've asked many women on these threads who are ok with strip clubs if they'd be ok with their husbands paying for cam girls and they say absolutely not 😂

The only obvious conclusion there is that it's social conditioning which has made women accept strip clubs because they've been around for so long, and seen as the done thing and women are made to feel uncool or controlling if they have an issue with it, and that they'd be fighting a losing battle anyway seeing as 'boys will be boys' 🙄

However, I guarantee if strip clubs were a brand new trend then the majority who say they are ok with them now would absolutely not be ok with it at all!! because they're not ok with cam girls because women haven't been conditioned to be!

Siawouldwannabeya · 14/11/2023 01:43

Sorry for how you’re feeling OP , I’ve been there and it makes you feel compared and less desirable when you only want him to look at you . The reason men think any of this disrespectful type stuff is ok is because they tell each other it’s ok - But it is NOT ok. If it’s upsetting you then you’re feelings are valid x

VanityDiesHard · 14/11/2023 09:25

CurlewKate · 13/11/2023 22:30

@Sayitaintso33 "MN (and I know that MN isn't a hive) disapproves of all sex work whether on a screen or not."

This is categorically not true. Mumsnet is an overwhelmingly "sex work is work" pro porn space. I know this because I am neither-and an often one of a tiny minority trying to stand against the tide of cool girls.

Of course sex work is work. What else would it be!?

CurlewKate · 14/11/2023 10:03

@VanityDiesHard "Of course sex work is work. What else would it be!?"

Exploitation. Misogyny.

VanityDiesHard · 14/11/2023 10:17

CurlewKate · 14/11/2023 10:03

@VanityDiesHard "Of course sex work is work. What else would it be!?"

Exploitation. Misogyny.

Most work is exploitation in one form or another. Not all sex workers are women, either.

Iwantcakeeveryday · 14/11/2023 10:24

I couldn't get over it I'm afraid. I think its a form of cheating, especially when you don't ask your partner first. I will never understand why some people think money sanitises something that would, without money, be considered cheating. If he sat round his mates having drinks with a bunch of women they knew dancing naked and no money changing hands, you wouldn't be talking yourself down form the betrayal you feel. It's a way for men to carry on objectifying women and not having to be loyal to their partners while some poor young women have to strip to make ends meet. Every part of it is gross. I am sorry this happened to you.

Iwantcakeeveryday · 14/11/2023 10:25

VanityDiesHard · 14/11/2023 10:17

Most work is exploitation in one form or another. Not all sex workers are women, either.

Show quote history

Most sex workers are women though, and most customers are men.

CurlewKate · 14/11/2023 10:25

@VanityDiesHard "Most work is exploitation in one form or another. Not all sex workers are women, either."

  1. No it isn't.
  2. And?
KnowYouAreLoved · 14/11/2023 10:38

Most work is exploitation in one form or another

It really isn't. Most work provides value to the community around it, and a sense of worth to the person performing it. Most workers are protected by employment laws and conventions and human decency. Most work is not based on one person intimately degrading another. In most businesses you don't run the risk of inadvertently engaging the services of someone who has been trafficked or is in slavery. Most work does not overtly celebrate men commodifying women.

The fact that strippers are paid does not automatically make it comparable!

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