Why Strip Clubs Are Good For Marriage
A happily married man explains how an occasional strip club visit helps keep his marriage hot.
During a recent business trip, I found myself shoe-horned into the back of a taxi with colleagues in various stages of inebriation, hurtling through chancy neighborhoods of Baltimore. I was on my Blackberry with my wife, going through the litany of "kids/mail/bills/when are you coming home/this single mother crap is getting old" when the cabbie abruptly stopped at our destination.
"Gotta go, hon," I said. "We just pulled up to the strip club." My colleagues turned their heads my way, mouths open.
"You told her you were going here tonight?" one colleague asked.
"My wife would throw my junk on the lawn faster than you could say divorce lawyer," slurred the client we'd been wining and dining earlier that evening.
The panicked look on my co-workers' faces said it all: most men are terrified to admit to what really transpires on the road—and what inspires them in the bedroom when they come home.
Let's be clear: if your man plies his trade taking client abuse or has ever attended a conference that finds him in a hotel banquet hall for 12 hours of Powerpoint torture, you can assume your honey has blown off steam, at least once, by contributing to some gal's plastic surgery fund, one crumpled bill at a time.
I am the garden-variety business-traveling strip club patron, for whom a lap dance with a client is like a harmless game of golf. You tuck a dollar bill or five or 20 inside a G-string, sit back for an innocent bump n' grind, have a few laughs with associates over the thundering drums of a Motley Crue song, wonder where your money went as you comb the sticky carpet looking for stray bills around your seat, and leave the joint lighter of both heart and wallet.
My wife knows she has absolutely nothing to worry about, and neither do most women. She knows I would not blow her trust by paying a scantily clad woman $500 to take my pasty, fat married a** into some back room for an hour. No good can come of that. Plus I'm too lazy to bulldoze my tracks and too cheap to burn a good Brooks Brothers shirt when perfume and glitter won't come out of the fabric.
Now, that's not a wholesale guarantee of good male behavior, and I don't pretend to represent mankind as a whole. My wife and I have been married for 16 years; the drama quotient is remarkably low, the passion remarkably hot and we've never needed any chemical or psychological intermediaries to keep it that way.
"You can take care of yourself to your heart's content in a hotel room, but you best not bring that filth into my bedroom," declared one of my wife's friends when I intentionally brought up the subject of shaker bars at our holiday party. Interestingly, she said this to no one in particular at maximum volume, avoiding the repentant gaze of her husband. From my vantage point, it looked like the mini-qiuiche he was swallowing suddenly turned to broken glass.
Discussion
My husband used to go to the strip club a couple nights a week after work. He never drank, and he knew that he could tip the girls if he himself made tips that night, and he never bought dances. He put it this way. "Got two sets of guys want me to go out with them after work. I go with Guy A, we go to a bar. Look at a lotta drunk old guys, watch the game, drink a soda, come home. Or I can go to the strip bar with guy B, watch the game, drink a soda, and watch girls dance mostly naked."
He doesn't go now because he has a girlfriend, so the nights after work he would have gone to the club are the nights that he goes over to her house. (We're polyamorous, I think she's great too.)But I wouldn't mind if he did. The only times we ever had a conflict over it were when he had planned to get up early and do something the next day and dragged his ass home at 3:30 am, and I wouldn't let him bitch and snap at me for making him get out of bed. Which is not over what he was looking at so much as what time he was doing it, and priorities.
In general I hate to have my sexuality suffocated or ridiculed by a narrow mind.
The lastime I went to a strip club I came down with strept throat soon after; so I honestly don't look forward to going back anytime soon.
I've been to a few clubs and find them quite depressing. I feel bad for both the working women there and for their male "clients" I work with mostly men and I know women who have been strippers in past lives. What most women don't know is that these same strippers will give your husband/boyfriend a happy ending for only $100. The strippers only want the man's money and have feelings of loathing for most of them.
While I would agree that it does add a certain "spice" to liven things up, I don't think that going to strip clubs is for everyone. For some women it really does open them up to different ways of thinking and sexual confidence, but for others it can severly damage their sense of self-worth and sexuality.
I have been to a multitude of strip clubs with my husband. It was exotic and different, but it didn't really DO much for me. I know it worked for him just fine, and he felt less guilty considering I was sitting there and gave my blessing etc. I just don't think it worked enough for him to go back. I haven't openly refused to go, but much like I find certain TV shows boring I have no desire to pay hefty door fees and outrageous drink prices to sit in a room and stare at naked women. I could do that at home on the computer for free. I don't forbid him to go to strip clubs, but it doesn't please me because I just am bored with it very quickly.
As with pornography and whatnot, I much prefer human interaction (talking, touching etc.) to visual stimulation. I am much more stimulated by touch, smell, taste and sound than I am by visual stimuli. There are women who function differently for which the strip club may really be a lucky charm. More power to you ladies...well sort of... I think its more about women being trained to comply with what they think men want them to think.
I agree with Little Lamb in a posting above that said something to the effect that it doesn't take much for any man to be "good to go" (visual is enough) but if I claimed that other activities that were "more involved" (touching, caressing, etc.) were required then I sincerely doubt that my husband would label said activities performed upon me by a stripper as "harmless romp". They would insist that it was not the stripper's job etc. That it was their job. So, I mean its not unreasonable that women prefer to have their husbands to themselves. Afterall, on a very basic level arousing our spouses and SO's is "our job". We feel like someone else is horning in (no pun intended lol) on our territory if our husband gets aroused by another woman. Visual arousal via photo, video or other media is not "right in our faces" as a stripper is, and therefore is less threatening (as least to me).
Also, most women are told that "it will happen so just deal with it" type things. I don't think that is entirely fair. Nor do I believe that women should be given license to "equal part" in this type of behavior. Role play, fantasy is perfectly alright. However, being within touching range of another female or having her touch/rub/stimulate your husband/SO in a way that a wife/GF is supposed to naturally makes us brissle. We like our territory, and Miss Stripper over here is dangerously close (I mean, all that is impeding penetration is a pair of jeans and MAYBE some undies) to performing functions that I want to do to my husband and really don't want HER to do. The beginning stages of arousal are part of this packaged deal.
However, I think that it is one of those industries that really exploits women and empties men's pockets. This is the main reason that I object to it on principal. Would I care if my husband went without me? No, not really. I just would object to using joint funds to participate in an industry that I don't agree with. If he wants to spend his money (and his money alone) on said activity then by all means...He works hard for the money and its his perogative to spend it on whatever he chooses. These strippers want your money, not you. You are just the same as a chair to them. The only difference is that you have deep pockets. Instead of spending the money to support your family, provide food for the hungry or medicine for the sick-- you are using it to line a stripper's pockets. Some get out of the work, but others stick around because the money is easy and their is a sucker born every minute so to speak.
I had many friends in college work in the sex industry and while it is billed as "harmless fun" it is actually anything but in the long run. It may not affect the viewer's/customer's marriage, but what about the self-esteem and life of the girl prancing about in nothing but a smile? I can promise that what they do (even if they claim its their choice and their proud etc.) really does lower their self-esteem over time. Having a healthy sexuality is not justification for participating in an industry like this.
Women or men, doesn't matter the bottom line is that there is a part of the population that is being used for your pleasure. Yes, they get paid, but that doesn't make it alright. Say for example you get paid to steal something. You are getting paid but what you are doing is still costing someone else something.
You can have your wife role play with you or whatnot to achieve a similar fantasy in the bedroom. Either that or stick to various forms of media to satisfy you. This is if your wife is diametrically, and definitively against the idea of you (as a husband/partner) going to a strip club. It has nothing to do with her "not understanding your basic sexual nature and needs" but more to do with the fact that what you are doing is costing her comfort/security/faith in the relationship as a whole. She may want things from you that you can't provide (say being more emotional and listening more often) but that doesn't mean that she can badger you into behaving the way she wants. In the same vein, if it truly disturbs your partner then I think that it is only fair that you listen to them and work out a compromise.
If you are interested in similar themes etc. then I suggest you read the book:
Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture
It will give insight as to why articles such as these are contributing to the pornification, and highly sexualized (unrealistic, unattainable asthetic) culture that is telling women that it is ok to "be cool" with this even if their gut is saying otherwise. Listen to your intuition ladies! Don't sell yourselves short.
I must admit, when my man and I first got together I was one of the many disapproving women about men and strip clubs. One night, we went out together. We bar-hopped around Fells Point (Baltimore) for a while and hung out with some friends. He decided to take me to The Ritz., a strip club. I actually had fun. We talked about the girls, we laughed at some of the things they did, and we remembered some of their moves to try when we got home. ;) We have gone a couple of other times together and with a couple of our friends. When he goes by himself with the fellas, I dont care anymore. I've been there, I've seen what happens, so there is no more questioning what's going on and what happened.
So although this isn't something that works for everyone... we love it!!
ANYONE WHO SEES NO HARM IS NUTS. IT IS NOT NORMAL BEHAVIOR. NO OTHER WOMAN SHOULD BE NAKED IN FRONT, OR ON, YOUR HUSBAND, QUIT DELUDING YOURSELF, AND DEBASING YOURSELF.
My partner and I went to a strip club in Baltimore with another couple and had so much fun that we formed "The Strip Club" for people who like to go to strip clubs. We set up a yahoogroup where we announce our next monthly outing. We are blessed with a variety of such fine establishments in the Baltimore/DC area. The clubs love us, so do the dancers, because we are there to party. We appreciate them and let them know it. The DJs always give us a shout-out. It is SO much fun, and we all take that sexy vibe back home with us for some private one-on-one time. I highly recommend it!
I think that this all depends on the two people in the relationship. I, for one, am a woman who happens to enjoy going to strip clubs with my man. It turns us both on. And when he goes on his own with his guy friends, I'm totally fine with that, too. Honesty is what is most important to me. As long as that is in tact, for me, that is what matters. I'm definitely not jealous of strippers - but that could be because I understand why it turns men on and know that that's where it ends. With my guy at least.
If my S.O. and I received the same degree of pleasure (turned on to the same extent), I know for a fact, my man would not at all be comfortable with another man doing what it would take to get me there.
He can get hard by having a girl rub her breasts in his face and her bare butt against his jeans. Well, it would take some man rubbing his hands on the crotch of my panties to get me really turned on...I don't think that would sit well with him.
I kind of agree with this guy. I know that my husband occasionally goes to strip clubs with his friends. It's not something that I am threatened by at all. I know he loves me and he's coming home to my bed at night. I can't say that's true for all men, so I guess it depends on the guy. I also know that he wouldn't care if I went to a male strip club...although I don't think women are visually stimulated in the same way as men...but that's another story.
Watching someone strip is one thing, bump-and-grinding with them is another. And how would this guy feel about this idea: "if your woman spends her days changing diapers and dealing with temper tantrums or has ever been left without adult company and sex for days at a time, you can assume she has blown off steam by hooking up with a college student for some heavy petting."
I have a hard time believing any woman would go along with a husband who rubs genitals with other women unless she 1) didn't love the guy, just wanted him to bring home the bacon, 2) was having a little extramarital fun of her own, or 3) felt desperate and didn't think she could stop him.
many may not agree with me but, i just do not see how any good can come of this. it certainly would not work in my marriage on either side. we have had conversation's about this and we both agree that it certainly would not be beneficial to our marriage. we have both been invited to go to these place's and both of us declined. we both just have too much respect for the other one's feeling's.
I'd have no problem with my husband or boyfriend going to a strip club. I know he doesn't love those women and he isn't going to leave me. But clearly not everyone feels this way. Each couple will figure out what works best for them. That said, I love this article for its take on male sexuality--that a man's desire builds throughout the day through various sexy visuals/thoughts/memories and he brings this build-up home to his wife.
