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

[ActingNormal]

...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.

no of course i don't believe that the Vicotirans invented looking at pictures for sexual gratification! For crying out loud, please stop deliberately misunderstanding me.

Each time I have responded in order to refute a specific piece of misinformation which you have put forward. you haven't responded to many of them, and have retreated to a more generalized straw man every time, only to return to the details (about which you are misinformed) when that fails.

I'm going to leave this part of the debate now because it's futile.

...immediately following this important announcement:

PT: "do you honestly think that early man when he discovered he could make chalk scratchings and smears of pulped berries look like people and animals didn't perhaps think.... 'i like sex. i like drawing. i draw sex' ?"

That is exactly what I do think. But I have been arguing with your proposal that he did these with the "specific intention of arousing others" which is the definition of pornography which YOU YOURSELF put forward. By any logic, that makes in NOT PORNOGRAPHY.

onebat... this whole debate about when pornography came into being was spawned by comments such as 'what did men do before pornography and strip clubs, surely they didn't walk around drooping all the time' and 'porn has only been in existance since the 1960's, if men are so visually stimulated what one earth did they do before that to become aroused?'

those aren't direct quotes, i'm working with ridiculously slow internet and trawling through hundreds of posts for the exact wording is beyond me right now.

beanieb tried to point out that porn and sexually explicit images have been around for millenia and certain people refused to aknowedge she was right on that issue.

now that it's been proven that sexually explicit images have been common for thousands of years ye're trying to say that they're not sexually arousing and therefore don't count

your earlier point about the differing attitudes to sex of the romans and victorians is in a way the crux of this debate.

those of us who view sexuality as normal, healthy and nothing to be ashamed of vs those who think it should be contained to a monogomous relationship and not discussed or displayed in public.

just because the romans had erotic imagery displayed openly in their homes doesn't automatically mean that they therefore weren't aroused by it, it simply means they were unashamed of their arousal and saw sexual arousal and appreciatian of the human form as as natural as eating food or drinking wine.

but if he then enjoyed looking at his sex pictures and became aroused so called his cave man friends to see his sex pictures and they got aroused, it still wouldn't be porn no?

oh god. i give up, really. you are right about the romans, but once again you are ignoring the specific definition htat you yourself put forward about the sole intention of pornography.

How many men, pre 20th century but post BC, had frequent access to pornography to anything like the extent of today? that was the original point, and all the rest has just been a fairly pointless and irritating red herring.

they didn't to a large extent. but the responding point was that that fact does not automatically mean they are not visually aroused and pornography is not smply a modern invention designed to dupe men into thinking they need to see naked women to be turned on as some posters suggested.

all of this was started by either you divastrop or dittany (i can't remember) when you were trying to suggest that men are merely victims of marketing propoganda telling them they need images to be aroused and therefore the whole sex industry is a sham. ye suggested porn and sexually explicit images are a modern invention and tried to use that fact as basis to suggest the sex industry as whole exists merely to exploit women, incite rape and sexual agression and tempt men away from their wives. ( not the words but lets face it the general attitude and inferance)

my arguement is that men (and women to a lesser extent) have always had an interest in sex and sexually explicit materials, yes it has become more commercelised in the last 50 years but honestly is there a single element of society that hasn't? like many other sectors of industry it has become open to exploiation however this does not invalidate the entire industry.

i see more sexual equality in the sex industry than i do on MN on a daily basis... women given allowances by their husbands, women beaten and raped in the marriage bed, women cheated on and repeatedly taking the man back, women not being allowed any time for themselves as they don't earn a wage while the 'breadwinner' spends hours in the pub with his friends, women not allowed to have male friends, women asking their husbands to 'babysit' for them, the list fges on and on.

and these women are the ones who think the sex industry squashed equal rites and a womans independance

look at divastrop, she can't have an arguemnet on the internet without her dh wading in and flinging insults as his poor little wifey obviously hasn't got the brains or balls to defend herself in his mind. and she thinks that's a fair and equal loving relationship.

that was to onebat btw... slow typing so didn't see your post dittany.

you're right, 'A society whose members have healthy sexuality is a society without rape and sexual assault'. we are closer to that ideal now than we have been at any point in history.

fine, we're still not even close, but at least now rape is a crime. at least now there is some comeuppance for some rapists. at least now women and men who are raped have people to turn to and societies to help them rather than beng told it's their own fault and that they should expect to be raped based on their social position.

we're still a long way away but the sex industry is not the damaging force here. it is and always has been the mindset of the human race

years ago it was 'she's just a chambermaid, that's what she's there for', now it's 'she was drunk and dressed like a tart, she should have expected it'

until humans evolve to the point where rape is considered wrong by every single person we will not reach that ideal society.

99% of men could not be incited to rape or violance in any circumstances, lap dancing clubs and porn won't make them become someone they're not. we need to work on ensuring that that 1% is punished each and every single time and punsihed severely so they don't think they can get away with it and maybe the leval of first time offenders would drop and repeat offenders could be wiped out altogether.

if you want to blame a secotr for the prevalance of rape blame the justice services who allow rapists to go free daily, who don't even charge most and who cast doubt on women brave enough to stand up in court. blame society for thinking it's ok to say 'well she was up for it, it's not his fault she changed her mind' or 'well what did she expect dressed like that?'

now i'm so tired i'm spending more time correcting spelling than typing. and dp is worried about the baby with me not sleeping enough the last few nights so i'm off to bed.

no matter what industry you work in you'll have to deal with fuckheads dittany.

my point is lap dancing doesn't cause them any more than any other industry does

Diva - you say really early on in the thread that you haven't got a problem with prostitution so long as it's the woman's choice to do it, and also that you think strippers, lapdancers etc are all prostitutes.

So is it just the acts which are depicted in the porn you see that you hate so much, rather than the profession and the people involved?

PT
"ye suggested porn and sexually explicit images are a modern invention ..."

no, i didn't. I said that ancient sexually-explicit images were not pornography. I said that the Victorians invented the word pornography. I've made no claims whatsoever about when it was that images did begin to be made with the sole intention of sexually arousing, (though I would be able to make a rough but informed estimate, in a less frustrating debate)

"..and tried to use that fact as basis to suggest the sex industry as whole exists merely to exploit women, incite rape and sexual agression and tempt men away from their wives. ( not the words but lets face it the general attitude and inferance)"

Why don't you just stick to my words, PT. You have not been very successful at gauging either my attitude or my inference so far.

People asked, in response to the proposition that men need visual stimulation to become aroused, what men did before pornography was widely available - nothing more, nothing less.

And of the three views that you ascribe to me about the function and effects of the sex industry, I have said (and believe) only one - that it exploits women. I have not said, nor do I believe, that it exists merely to do so. Nor do I believe that that it exists merely to incite rape and sexual aggression - I would never be so simplistic. And I could not give less of a fuck whether it tempts men away from their wives.

I have been very careful not to make claims for the function of pornography (and other aspects of the sex industry) which I can't follow through. This is my position, stated clearly in my post of Sat 09-Aug-08 14:01:01, and I have never gone beyond it.

"What I do believe is that our society's celebration of the men who support this industry (an industry which, as Twelvelegs points out, is on a continuum of increasing and devastating exploitation) is fundamentally linked to the fact that our culture perceives women's bodies to be, in some vital way, up for grabs.

So while lapdancing doesn't cause rape, it is an expression of a culture which, for the same reason it celebrates lap-dancing, turns a blind eye to rape."

You have a particular interest and position to promote, and we have been here before, PT. But I have never found your method of arguing this position quite so infuriating or reductive. Your approach here has been to make a minor, mistaken point, then when challenged on it, behave as though this challenge was the basis of your opponent's entire argument. It is very frustrating, to say the least, so I hope you will excuse me if I am selective in my future interaction with you in this debate.

Onebatmother, can you provide a link to the source which you got the figures below from?

"ActingNormal. Yes, in approximately 1/1000000 of the commercial sexual transactions in the world, women are the purchasers."

Apologies if you have already done so - am re-reading the whole thread in an attempt to understand what issues are being discussed.

I have to say that in this age pornograhy and women should mean something different, the when and why is irrelevant. The context of women and their role in society should have changed. We are in 2008, not Roman times eating grapes off a naked woman. Surely society is now inbalanced. Women strive to equal working rights, paternity rights, ownership rights.... general, literal and complete equality and then some sell themselves for a 50 quid strip????

Some women do.

Personally, much like Divastrop said, I would say that it is ultimately their choice and so long as they are not being exploited by anyone it's up to them.

beanieb-it is the images that are portrayed that i have a problem with,yes,plus the fact that porn has become mainstream and i see girls my dd's age wearing playboy clothing etc.

its not something i thought about before joining MN to be honest.i knew i disliked the images i was seeing in lads' mags etc but i didnt really know why-they just made me uncomfortable,so i looked more into it.

PT-can you not see the link between the sex industry and those marriages you speak of where rape and abuse are normal?

i have been in 2 abusive relationships,and both of those 'men' were into porn etc,both thought that sex was their right in a relationship.xp particularly thought that all women were up for it and wanted to be humiliated etc.

my dh may not be the most articulate man in the world,but he respects me in the ways that are important to me.

Dittany - L'Origine du Monde painted by Courbet in 1866/

interesting stuff here

"pornography" itself has become a handy epithet, a term hurled indiscriminately at any explicit image or text deemed sexually offensive. Pornography?s main purpose has always been to shock. In societies where the role of women was severely restricted, pornography transgressed social boundaries by often depicting female characters as self-empowered, sexual beings. While these early characterizations were almost always the expressions of male writers, they nonetheless underscore pornography?s role of inverting social norms and toying with established social order. A quick review of the last few hundred years would indicate that pornography has had an extremely important, if thankless role, in questioning authority and reflecting social angst about established sex roles"

"If anyone can be called the originator of European pornography, it is Pietro Aretino, the man responsible for what has been called the premier stroke book of the Western world. I modi. or "The Ways." Aretino?s work combined 16 sexually explicit sonnets with 16 engravings of couples having sex in varying positions.

Aretino, born in 1492"

"am re-reading the whole thread"

Take sandwiches and a thermos flask.

"One striking aspect of 17th- and 18th-century "Euro-porn" is the preponderance of female characters. Two early French works, L?Ecole des Filles, published in about 1655, and L?Academie des Dames (1680), were written as female dialogues ? a literary device that was to be repeated many times over the next century in works such as John Cleland?s Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure and the Marquis de Sade?s Juliette.

Creating female narrators who were essentially the intellectual equals of men and as capable of, if not eager for, sexual pleasure, was certainly a transgression of expected female roles, and underscored pornography?s subversive function"