Should I be cross if DH went to lap dancing club?

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...and spent £60 on private dances (we aren't poor and he doesn't spend money on much that is frivolous).

Other people seem to think I should be cross but I can't see it. Am I being a mug? Is it a sign of disrespect?

He got a bit of female attention outside the marriage. He was consenting. They were consenting. I knew he was going there. There doesn't seem like there is a risk of him forming a relationship with the women but if a woman behaved that way with him in a regular nightclub that seems more of a threat to me.

He came home horny as hell and seemed like he had a good break from the stress of his job.

Dittany: are you really trying to argue that prior to the event of lapdancing/widely available porn women had to put up with less widespread sexual abuse? Women in the days before the sexual revolution/easily available contraception/the permissive society got put in lunatic asylums for being raped, thrown out of their homes or beaten or killed for becoming pregnant outside of marriage, were expected to put up with routine rape in marriage; if they were poor and didn;t have a male protector they could get fucked by their employers and then blamed for it, if they tried to assert any autonomy they got raped and/or blamed for it... making a big deal of the distinction between 'respectable' women and 'whores' is very popular with patriarchal sexist men because they feel that a) they can use the threat of 'whore' status to make women modify their behaviour and b) being classified as a 'whore' must be seen as the worst thing that can happen to a woman because otherwise women might decide that they don't need to give it away for free.

Dittany: I said to my partner last night 'Now that we have a daughter I would rather you didn't go to any lapdancing clubs anymore.' He replied 'Really? Fair enough'.

Hi Dittany,

I think you've really reinforced my point about your posts. I just tried to represent a different female point of view from yours and your come back again that I am in denial and don't really know what my husband or relationship is really like. Don't you think that's a bit patronising? My point is that you make a lot of negative assumptions about women who have any other opinion other than yours or about relationships that may be different from your own. I consider myself a feminist and I get really fed up with women putting other women down like this and undermining them...you are doing the chauvanist pigs work for them.

Yes, I admit that I do find it offensive when you call my husband a cruel scum bag and a liar. It is quite rude when you think about it and again all wild assumptions based on him making different choices to what you believe in!

The challenge you set me to tell DH not to go to lap dancing bars shows that you think I don't actually have that power. That's a bit of a put down to me really. Again, that's what I mean about you being a bit of a woman hater when you claim to defend women. The reason I don't tell him not to go lap dancing is because I don't believe I 'own' my spouse and I believe in mutual trust. I wouldn't accept being told where I could and couldn't go by a partner and I think it's generally a bad way to behave in a relationship. I also think trying to test your husband like that is playing games and very immature. Simply, I don't feel that I need or want to control him. And no...that doesn't really mean I'm secretly scared of him or down trodden or worried he'll reject me or what ever other rubbish you might want to imply...

can I add my own story here? I read "I was a Playboy bunny " by Gloria Steinem and I cringed for her and the "girls". However, I decided that if women choose this job, then good for them. Until one night, a "stripper" came into the (rough) pub where I worked. She got changed in the toilets and we chatted. She was lovely. What the men said to her was unbelievable, so explicit and disgusting. She laughed it off and I ran off crying. I hated her for taking the abuse as I saw it,(not so much the men for some reason ), not showing her revulsion as men pawed her. Was that what all men thought of women, that we were silly, vulnerable and tough?
I thought being liberated meant being cool with your dh/dp whatever going to a strip club. I realise that for me it means mutual respect, which means respecting all women's integrity. If you don't have a problem with your dh visiting a strip club, don't feel that you have to for some feminist reason. My (brief) exposure to it made me abhor it.

One bat mother - sorry didn't mean to offend, I meant I believe sexuality is commoditised by our society at large - not specifically in your house!

To all those people who think that men who visit lap dancing clubs are 'scumbags'...do you realise how popular these bars are? That's a lot of women's dh and dp's you are calling scumbags...just wondering, do you really feel comfortable doing that?

Just curious, are there levels of scumbags amongst this vast proportion of the population or are they all black at heart would be rapists? Just wondering as that's all my male acquaintance written off! Feeling sorry for the poor chap who was pressured into going on a work's do and now he's going to rot in hell!

Last time I went to Stringfellows, there were three hen do's in there having a whale of a time having male lap dances. Are all these women down drodden men pleasers too?

wasnt there a time further back,before the newer religions such as christianity and islam came about,where women and men were genuinley equal?when people worshipped both gods and godesses and sex was a natural act which was neither something to be ashamed of nor something to be shoved in peoples faces?

i feel sad when i read posts about women who dont mind their oh's going to these places because 'im confident and secure in my relationship and i trust my dp'.that is fine if you agreed at the start of the relationship that it wasnt going to be exculsive and that you would continue to have sex with other people,but if you go into a relationship and agree to be faithful,then isnt one of you going to a lap dancing club a betrayal of trust?!

Hi Divastrop. That is your defintion of faithfulness but it isnt mine.

I think betrayal of trsut would be promisin gnot to go to lapdancing clubs and then going behind your partner's back. Incidentally I know lots of men who do this.

Can I add my husband has been to ONE lapdancing club on a stag night! It is not an integral part of our relationship.

Reallyannoyednow: do you understand that your distress and revulsion were yours and not the stripper's? She isn't you and doesn't have to feel the way you feel.

Some people do seem to think that all male sexuality and sexual desire is inherently disgusting and threatening to women; that no 'proper' woman could be looked at lustfully by a man without wanting to be sick and bursting into tears and the women who don't express or display horror and revulsion at the thought of horny men in general must be mad or lying or too stupid to show the 'correct' reaction.
The myth that women will only trade sex for 'love' (rather than doing it for fun or for money of their own free will) is a deeply pernicious one that harms all genders as is the myth that men only profess love as a way of getting sex. Some people like to have lots of sex and don't take it very seriously, some people prefer love though not all of them think that love can only happen when partners own each others' sexualities.

Hi again

I don't think it's great that my husband has been to a lap-dancing club, it just doesn't bother me.

I think like most things this isnt a black and white issue. Some people have open relationships; some go to stripclubs together, some wives don't mind their husbands going.

I guess everyone has their own 'line in the sand'. Some women think it's unacceptable if their husband looks up Anna Kournikova on the internet or notices a pretty girl on the street. Some women I know don't like their husbands TALKING to other women!!

Dittany: were you seriously expecting Roundgirl to suddenly start laying down the law to her DH about where he can and can't go at the behest of a stranger on the internet? You don't know her, or her husband, or what their relationship is like, why should they want to alter the dynamics of it to fit your expectations?

And lots of women are happy for their husbands to have sex with other people in front of them. Swingers are not mad, or evil, or in denial, they just have a different opinion on sexuality to some other people.

SGB, If you think the poor old stripper in a rough pub is proud or truly happy with her career then both she and you are deluded. Why would anyone claim power in a situation where men paw and grope and call her sexually disgusting names asking her to 'get her tits out'. Likewise the jeering and testosterone, en mass, fuelled laughing at women in lapdancing bars in which she is paid to remove her clothes means that she does not have the power.
You have to be respected in order to have power no matter how you view yourself.
Love is not part of the deal but mutual respect is, where sex is involoved, and money negates the need for respect. In fact if you can buy it then I would say you definitely don't respect it.

But Ditanny saying our husbands should defend themeslves implies that they are doing something wrong.

They are in your eyes but perhaps that is your issue!

Shesells. I have met many dancers from Spearmint Rhino and stand by my observation that they were both stupid and with loose morals. It's difficult to get past the layers of makeup and breasts on display to even think about their characters, which is the point of the whole arguement I suppose.

12 legs out of curiosity in what capacity have you met all these strippers?

Well Twelvelegs I include among some of my closest friends women who have been or currently are strippers and sex workers. Those who are not doing it any more did it to fund (among other things) a medical degree, a psychology degree and a drama degree. Two are happily married (one monogamously, one in a mutually agreed open relationship). Sex workers are people with a wide variety of qualities good and bad.

But I do think there is something a bit unhealthy about people who are obsessed with controlling, condemning and restricting the sexual behaviour of others. It's either bigotry, paranoia or projection at bottom.

I think calling my husband a scumbag is out of line, Dittany. OK you don't agree with it, it's good we can have a debate about it but the name calling doesnt help your argument.

I met them at parties and nights out with collegues (a few of which were big spenders there).
Dittany, I realise I am being disrespectful about these women but it just goes against everything I think equality is about. I see this issue as human and not feminism. I wonder how we're slipping backward so quickly that in order to find equality woman are 'joining in' in objectifying women.

SGB, How about paying for the sexual behaviour of others? Or is that not what you meant?

Do you think some people (of either gender) don't have a complete lack of respect, frequently expressed by means of verbal or even physical abuse, for people (of either gender) working in such places as late-night fast food restaurants? These people are customers who want what is on offer (burgers, chicken, unhealthy food of poor quality) yet despise and abuse the purveyors of it. Many clients of sex workers treat the sex workers with goodwill and respect because they understand that they want the service that is on offer and they are paying a fair rate for it. It's the ones who have bought into the propaganda that nice women want love not sex who mistreat the sex workers.

Twelvelegs, at what point does being acceptably sexy/attractive end and being objectified begin?

This is just academic and there is no right answer, just interested to hear your take!