Why I Hated His Strip-Club Bachelor Party
A bride-to-be feels betrayed when her fiance hits up a strip club a week before their wedding.
Being the modern, liberated, well-educated woman that I am, I never thought I would mind the man in my life going to a strip club. Years ago, I would even occassionally join my guy friends for an evening at a gentlemen's club. It meant free cocktails all night, and have you ever seen the ladies' room at a strip club? The restrooms are girly bonanzas that range between the cosmetics aisle at a drug store to a miniature Sephora. Plus, strippers on their bathroom breaks have the best gossip. Desperate Housewives? Days of Our Lives? Child's play in comparison.
Fast-forward to 2008—the year I got married. As bachelor party talk began, it never occurred to me that a strip club might come into play. In the three years I'd been dating my fiancé, he'd never been to one, so I just didn't consider it. I've known plenty of women who have "forbidden" their husband's from seeing exotic dancers, but I didn't think my fiancé needed another mother. The strip club conversation simply never had a place in my relationship lexicon.
A week before our wedding, the least-planned-bachelor-party-known-to-man had finally arrived. The event was on the books for six months, yet the groomsmen waited until they got in the car to decide where they were going. That's when I got the Strip Club Call: my husband-to-be would be spending the evening surrounded by scantily-clad women with enormous breasts; he might get a lap dance; he would be looking at other women all night, as he was about to marry me. Read: Why Strip Clubs Are Good For Marriage
And, suddenly, I was furious. My head was reeling, but I tried to express my distaste as serenely as possible, which resulted in the overly calm voice that in horror movies indicates possession by an evil force. The conversation went something like this:
"Wait, you're upset? You never told me I couldn't go!" (Maybe he does need another mother).
"But the guys have it all planned out!" (A plan they made five minutes ago).
"I can't tell them to change the plan!" (Sure you can: Guys, I think it's pretty disrespectful to Emily to go to a strip club a week before our wedding).
The whole time: creepy calm.
Husband-to-be went to the strip club; I went to the girls. It took calls to several of my bridesmaids that night for me to work through how I felt. I've always been confident in my looks, but suddenly that assurance was shaken. Is there something he wants to see that I don't have? I was also mad at my stereotypical reaction. I felt like a cliché that you see on those horrible wedding reality shows. The fiancé makes a fool of himself by "acting like a man" at his bachelor party, and when his bride finds out, she makes a fool of herself by screaming and lunging at him. You always wonder, "Why are these two even getting married? They have no respect for each other." Were we no better than that? 6 Wedding-Themed TV Shows To Watch
Discussion
Ahhhh... QVERB, you rock. I have mixed feelings on this one. On one side, going to a strip club before your wedding would probably piss me off too, but then again, what were the girls planing for you that night? There is no reason for you to think that a trip to a strip club is in anyway going to change the fact that you are going to get married. Men are visual creatures, they look.... AT EVERYTHING. It doesn't mean that he is going to run off with the hottie from the club. And let me tell you, I have been a bartender in two strip clubs in Vegas. The majority of the girls are somewhat less than attractive when the "ugly" lights come on, and the more "attractive" ones come off with such an attitude that thier s**t doesn't stink and end up being a total b***h anyway, making it impossible for your man to even get more from her than a genuine smile. They have no intentions of trying to hook up with your man, they just want all of the money in his wallet.
my husband went to a strip club bar we being married for 26 y I HATED strip club becouse he call a gril from that bar . he said becouse she pay att to him. my hus is a good man but why this happened no att from me or sex. now we have sex but i don't trust him at all he never lied to me at all. i do not like my hus becouse of this. this woman is a dog. max
I respect that going to a strip club BECAUSE you're getting married can make a soon-to-be wife uncomfortable, self-conscious, et cetera. On the other hand, to find the "last hurrah" aspect distasteful is a little bit out of the spirit of the nature of most, western weddings. Dropping 30 grand (or more) on a single party seems a lot like a last hurrah. So does a honeymoon. So does a wedding shower.
Most bachelor parties (even involving strippers) are more for the groom's buddies than for the groom himself. Any of the bachelor parties I've attended, even weekend long affairs, have generally involved no more than a couple hours at a strip club. Most of it's just pro forma guyishness and other guys would think we're suspect if we didn't do it (I'm just sorry that the interweb doesn't convey tongue-in-cheek well).
We should get a dude to write and essay regarding his feelings about his fiancee's bachelorette party. Those things get out of hand. I've been propositioned for my boxers AND asked to sign the front of a bachelorette's shirt. Shocking!
Maybe instead of sowing oats (or hall), we can think of the whole thing as a Job-ian exercise to prove that temptation isn't something to worry about. Never mind, that's just stupid.
I can see what you are saying as when I got married I, an infrequent viditor of strip club, knew that my Ohio-bred bride would n't condone t=my east coasy version on normal pre-nuptual activities. So I shot down all hints from male friends and threw a Jack and Jill and a buddy's restaurant. I am no saint, and have my moments, but still I was smart enough to see that a mile off. I now live happily ever after.
I am curious though, what some of the core feelings are among women who make this almost a deal-breaker. Is it really that a last indulgence is a proxy for his ambivalence about you? A week before the wedding,is he really metally checking off all the body parts you don't have or saying good bye to all of his preferred bedmates so he can settle. I may be a naive guy, but is a fiancee really likely yo be thinging that?
It would make more sense if women, felt that strip parties were demeaning to the women involved and fosters a hostile, objectified society for women. Something that can be debated but is more likely. What do you think - I'm trying to learn!
I don't really believe in bachelor parties. The whole idea that you need to run out one last time and do all the things you're not going to do during marriage doesn't make sense to me. Maybe because most of my friends were already living together and/or very committed before they got married. Marriage wasn't a huge dividing line - why suddenly stop and do things you'd already agreed not to?
And I think the author hit the nail on the head - you want marriage to be something you look forward to. It shouldn't be like Lent where you're going to deprive yourself so you run out and have Mardi Gras first.
I agree that the notion of bachelor parties as last hurrahs seems like an antiquated & somewhat frightening idea. I do like the idea of bachelor/bachelorette parties as events for celebrating the individual getting married and for spending quality time with old friends.
Just be sure to be even handed about it. I've also heard of many a bachlorette party that there was far more drunken debauchery than any bachelor party I've been to. A thought did flash through my head though while I was reading this...something that the author stated earlier in regards to feeling like her man wasn't happy enough with her, that he wanted to see something else.
Taking the generalized idea in mind that for men, a hot body is just a hot body, not someone that we are going to run off to (hell, we probably believe 99% of the time that there is no way we could hit it off with the "hottie" any way so it stays fantasy), a trip to the strip club means as much to a man emotionally as ordering a ham and swiss at the deli. Yes, it objectifies women, but that isn't the point being focused on here. The thought was this;
She feels that she should be everything for her man, that he should not find himself wanting for anything other than her for anything. This is the line of thinking that I see when most women object to their men going to strip clubs in general. Its nothing to do with how it warps a man's perception of women, but more like "What do you need to go look at over there? I'm not enough for you? I'm not sexy enough for you?"
On the men's side, for the most part, generally I'm pretty sure the majority of us fully know and understand we can not be everything you ladies need. Very few men actually really see themselves as "sexy" or "sexual" in the same way a woman does. Most men don't want their women going to male strip clubs because (surprise, surprise) we are also insecure that you want to go play in someone else's sand box. Quite often, that is the "ace up your sleeve" ladies, pulling the "if you can go, I can go" card which makes most men stop because we all aren't 6'4", and 210lbs. of lean muscle...funny, kinda sounds like the same arguments from you ladies...but you ladies also know that it really isn't any big thing going to a male strip club. Its for laughs.
So, is the strip club debate really just about insecurities? Is it really about ego and the need to feel like you are supposed to be "everything" for your partner, which is simply not possible? This was the thought that flashed through, maybe sparking a different focus on this aging debate.
Don't pull out the feminism arguments on this...that isn't how the author or most women actually answer this question. I agree that strip clubs help warp the views of men that weren't raised well, and while they afford women with some serious (and I mean in need of clinical help serious) baggage to earn a really great income with little to no education it can also enable them to never work past that baggage and more often than not leads to self medicating and further, more destructive behaviour. Most of the answers I've seen coming from the women are stemming from insecurity, so I'm curious if it is just insecurity or if it is some other, very odd to me, idea that women are supposed to be everything for their man while, most likely, not ever really expecting their men to be everything for them?
For me there are two big issues.
1) It would, in fact, bother me that my guy wanted to go to strip clubs at all. Not because I expect him to never look at anyone but me, but because I think strip clubs are horribly objectifying. I go back and forth on this one, but overall, I don't think going to one is a good thing to do.
2) The fact that the guy wanted to go the night before our wedding (or the week before) would bother me. It's not that I expect my husband to never look at another woman, it's that I wanted our wedding to be about us. Also I don't like the implied message that I'm about to be tied down and imprisoned, I better hurry up and do all the things I'm going to miss one last time.
