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.

divastrop - trust me as a man, i can say for sure, we rely on visual stimualtion more then women, we dont have the minds for all that stuff where you think about the postman or milkiman and all that... we need things to get us going and the end result that gets us off may not be visual but thats how we all get going

"i keep pondering the 'men need visual stimulation' argument which is often trotted out on threads like this,or porn threads etc.it is often said that there is more porn aimed at men,more female strippers/lap dancers etc as women just wouldnt be interested in such things apart from to have a laugh on hen nights.apparently this is why magazines such as Loaded etc exsist for men but there are no female versions;apparently women wouldnt want to see nearly-naked men on the front of a magazine(cant see why jade goody in a bikini makes a better magazine cover than a random male sleb in the buff myself).

i have asked for the evidence which supports this 'fact' but i have yet to see it,so i just carry on assuming its a myth perpetuated by the media and the mysoginistic society we live in."

I have read this through twice and I still don't understand a word of it.

Would you go to see a male stripper? Do you think you would be tempted to sleep with him? If not - why?

Are male strippers just as exploited and lacking in self-esteem as lap dancers.

Or are we asking for different rules to be applied to men and male activity/biology.

Maybe we are just determined to tell other women what is acceptable and stop them from making their own decisions?

i dont think its about controlling their sexual desires.i think its about thinking they dont need to control their sexual desires because most women are up for it,and if they claim not to be they are just teasing.

FatBob-as a man,how do you know what goes on in womens minds?

also all this rubbish about no clothes on.? all clubs they have to keep kinckers on? not saying some underground ones dont, but most would keep within the law so there.

Why would you see this as a possible problem? (Unless your husband is always eyeing up girls). I would love it if my DH went out of the door in the evening.

divastrop - i know about mens minds... being one. i never claimed to know about womens minds, however it's well known fact that women dont use as much porn as men... is it not ?

beanieb-no i wouldnt go to see a male stripper as i have ne desire to see any man naked other than my dh.
sorry you didnt understand my pondering post
all i was trying to say is why do people keep saying that men need visual stimulation but women dont?

what do you use for stimulation then divastrop ?

fatbob-you know about your mind,being you,but do you really know about all men?

women dont use as much porn as men-is that because they dont want to or because there isnt much porn aimed at women and its less socially acceptable for women to use it anyway?

i dont use a parenting site,thats for sure

i know enough men to know how things work trust me. also i know enough women who are open enough to talk about things like this.

there is plenty of amied at women, playgirl, and other mags, and books like the massive amount of greif porn that is sold these days, that is non visual.

you dont find many blokes buying that stuff.

(Divastop - i dont use a parenting site,thats for sure )

yeah im wanking off now... it's great

idiot.

i think what fatbob was trying to get across was that women have the ability to imagine and concoct fantasies far more easily than men do. we become aroused by reading something sexual or thinking about a sensual act.

he's saying men don't find it as easy to become aroused this way and therefore need the visual cues to become aroused.

he's made a good point actually by saying that it's not that women don't become aroused by visual stimuli but rather that men rely on them as they lack the capability to become easily aroused through other means.

jesus you lot are fucking stupid. you really do see things as just being 'what they are'. you have no sense that individuals are subject to social pressures - that we often act in a certain way because we understand that the rest of the world wants us to do so.

well the rest of the world was hardly impressed with my lap dancing career

in fact when you start lapdancing you do so aware that alot of people will villify and judge you for doing so and that the vast majority of women think you're nothing more than a slag for doing it.

how exactly is that bowing to social pressure?

and it makes even less sense in relation to the men.... are you saying that men will grope and fondle the dancers because society expects them too?

or are you saying those of you who are against lap dancing are conforming to social pressure and that's a good thing?

your post really doesn't make any sense at all onebat.

"i think its about thinking they dont need to control their sexual desires because most women are up for it,and if they claim not to be they are just teasing."

As I said in my previous post, I really object to this idea that men are depraved sexual predators.

Yes there are a MINORITY that think women are all up for it and if they claim not be they are just teasing. Very very few men are actually like this.

OBM - things are what they are. In fact it's a trusim. Yes people are also subject to social pressure. However you would probably need to elaborate further if you want people to understand what you mean. Otherwise calling people fucking idiots is a mature and reasoned way to argue your case.

Fatbob as a man I am unsurprised that you are on a parenting website to fuel your rampant and uncontrolled sexual desires. God only knows what lascivious thoughts are going through your mind when you read about pureed carrots.

And with that I take my leave, because I like a good debate as much as the next girl, but this has just gotten bloody silly.

Nicey I think it is a preposterous idea to even contimplate rape is about sex, it is usually a very far removed sexual association based on power and hatred, broadly speaking. This is of course stranger rape. However the 'date' rape is surely more connected to the view that all women are up for it, need to please men and are sexual objects. I am sure that frequently lap dancing clubs on a regular basis would change anyone's view of women.
Noone has accused all men of being depraved or sexual predators, it is true though that what you present to be the truth does become one for everyone. You only have to take a gander at different cultures to see how women view themselves is largely shaped by people who control them and the societies in which they belong.
Pink Tulips, you are no pioneer and so of course you were bowing to the pressures of a more sexually explicit society, one in which your body can be bought. I doubt if your stripping would have arisen had you grown up in Iraq.
Fatbob, you are not a woman and therefore have no place commenting how one would feel. (your view, not mine) If you need to go to a lap dancing bar to become aroused then good gracious I would be surprised if you ever had a long term relationship!!
I don't think men need visual stimulation but I think they are more likely to be aroused by something visual. I guess this is the main reason I would hate my DH to go to a lap dancing club, or rather the most personal reason, why would I want him to be aroused by someone else?? You can argue this will happen anyway but a lap dancing bar is actively seeking arousal. According to 'rules' of arousal it would be like me phoning a porn line.
Besides a thread appeared a while back about a woman whose DH had had a breat shoved in his mouth whilst receiving a lap dance, yuk.

Mr. Lizinthesticks posting here, NB!!

Wow - the Ben Hur of mumsnet threads. I have watched my children and my children's children grow up whilst reading through.

To the OP - yes, actually. I kind of think so.

I think what pisses me off about all this is that the traffic is so one way. As has been discussed above, there are no female equivalents of the strip club. Ok, yes - one or two exceptions. But come on.

The objectification is heavily weighted, gender wise. Now, regardless of the question of whether objectification itself is good or bad, surely this weighting is bad?

And I for one do NOT buy the idea that men are more dependent on visual crap to get going. Or wait, if I do, I certainly do NOT believe this has any biological roots.

here's one study

So, to the extent that men are more dependent on the visual, I firmly believe that this is entirely due to culturally specific (gendered) practices - the context in which men are raised ie.

Cutting to the chase, my argument is this. If, as I say, frequency and extent of objectification is heavily gendered then that seems wrong. One side is getting all the advantages while the other get far less.

Doubtless, there are dancers and perhaps even prostitutes that have the whip hand (literally and metaphorically). But for every strong, smart woman who is managing to partially turn the tables, it seems there are 10 who desperately want to get out, and who - whether they see it or admit it - ARE getting exploited. Whether because they need drugs or are just broke and at the bottom of ladder seemingly with no other options.

I know I seem to have craftily conflated dancing and prostitution there - but that's because I do believe they're part and parcel of the same gendered social and cultural practices. Which is to say, the weighted form of objectification that goes on. Yeah, the latter is further along the spectrum (though how far, precisely, is harder to say - sometimes not as far as may appear, is my own view).

sorry pinkTulips my very grumpy post was not aimed at you in particular.

I had in fact just spent a while composing a 'mature and reasoned' response (as I hope on the whole my others have been) to some things that were said further up, but lost it (in every sense - both the mature and reasoned post, and the will to be mature and reasoned )

So I wrote what my lost post had (more or less) said but in a quarter of the words and without the euphemisms. It was rather silly and rude of me (but quite liberating - I might have to get an alias and prowl the boards..)

FWIW my lost post was also about the difficulty of persuading people that the commodification of desire is something qualitatively different from the commodification of labour (which we all experience). Perhaps this is because over the last decade we have raced towards a state where there is now so little that is not habitually commodified (proximity to celebrity, freakishness, damaged-childhoods) that a distinction seems to many (esp younger women) rather pointless.

I find it very depressing - equally so, the associated fact that people are increasingly likely to see the world as a collection of individuals acting autonomously, motivated by a combination of genes and 'healthy' self-interest.

Just as, in the fifties, we were persuaded that commerce and consumption were in fact acts of self-actualization, the nineties persuaded us that an aspect of society which reproduces to the nth degree of magnification the unequal power relations between men and women - the sex industry - is in fact a function of the free expression of sexuality - a liberation from bonds, rather than an outcome of bondage.

Fewer and fewer of us are interested in a critical analysis of 'society' - following Thatcher, perhaps fewer and fewer of us believe society even exists. It becomes harder and harder to persuade people that the key issue in, say, a debate about lap-dancing is not, say, whether their partner is or isn't being sexually unfaithful if he has a lap-dance - 'it's me he comes home to at the end of the night, so why worry?'.

These were my rambling but mature-ish thoughts. I bet you wish I'd just stuck to the rude one now, don't you

if men dont need the visual to get them going how come they have porn mags and the ivf clinic? a box full infact

We do need more men to give an opinion I think, I would love to know what men think about women who think they (men)as a whole are unable to control themselves or their sexual desires or act appropriately. Yes some men are perdatory and some men do rape but i don't think it's fair to suggest that the majority of men who are turned on by visual stimulous are going to turn into rapists or predators depending on the amount of visual stimulous they are exposed to or that the very fact they are turned on by these things is wrong.

well said Mr L.

Your point about the fact that many of us are kidding ourselves if we draw a heavy line between lap-dancing and prostitution is one I keep meaning to make.

Those who imagine that there is no physical contact between client and worker are very optimistic.

While the bigger 'name' clubs enforce this rule, in many clubs penetration or self-penetration (either vaginal or anal, with objects or fingers) is the norm. Equally, many clubs have back-rooms available for clients who will pay extra for oral sex or sex.

Wow, Mr L. I am both impressed and refreshed by your post.
Fatbob, der if men are culturally driven to accpet and be turned on by porn then why wouldn't they have them at IVF clinics??
I for one am off to bangkok on Tuesday, the city that takes lapdancing to it's extreme. This is coupled with a very objectifying view of women, I saw for myself the plane load of fifty something single men (age not number) on Christmas day going to the land where many women really do have a price. It was both sad and pathetic. The acceptance that everyone had of women laughing at the most tedious joke, pouring a mans drink and without flinch having the arses groped and slapped every two minutes mad me so angry. It made me think about a world in which men made the rules and women are really just objects. I can't see how a British lap dancing bar is really so different.

"if men dont need the visual to get them going how come they have porn mags and the ivf clinic? a box full infact"

The question is, though, what makes them "need the visual"?

This is the crux of it. If it's a social thing, it can be changed.

If you subscribe to the idea that it's biological, then it seems it can't be changed.

But, as I linked, the view that it's the latter is far from settled. Not that it bothers me - I simply don't believe it's biological anyway, regardless of how much evidence stacks up in either direction.