Are getting lap dances cheating? (how to, wife, girlfriend, married)
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I realize for me, as a person who has a small personal space bubble and is somewhat touchy-feely, I do not necessarily rate the touch as a huge issue. But it depends on the person.
There is meaningful and meaningless touch for me, and touch without a pre-existing connection wouldn't bother me. But if my partner was always seeking out the same stripper all the time - then that feels more like connection. A one off at a party or event or whatever by a professional who knows those actual boundaries of teasing and soliciting wouldn't be too much for me.
This has been the stance of most people I know who can sort of go partway with "this is ok but that isn't" in such matters. Like either a person is "no, none of it is fine" or the visual or sexual part is fine but when you start doing the "emotional affair" end, it's a problem.
I don't think I've met anyone who is the opposite of that, like I am. I feel like if my man wants real connections with real people, cool, I can DO that! And he might connect fully with another person and hey, they are unique, with unique qualities, it's not really a threat to me, especially if she and I got along. Maybe I'd be like, "of course you love her, I do too!" It's when you get into "Oh, actually he'd much rather just superficially see and use women as objects without a personality, the hotter and younger the better" then I'm like, oh. So that's what turns him on? Then what does he see in me? I start questioning why we're even together if that's what he really wants. I'm not very good at being the hottie-hot-T&A, breathing blowup doll, kind of chick, and don't want to be, so when it's thrown in my face that "that's what all men really want" it kind of puts me off emotionally.
But yeah I've never met anyone else who feels this way about such things. No matter how hard I try to logic my way around it, it still FEELS unpleasant. Hitting one's feelings with the hammer of logic doesn't always make them shut up, though.
Whether or not the individual committing the action considers it cheating really doesn’t matter in a scenario where they other objects to it as such.
If one party believes it is and the other acts in it knowing the feelings being held and the boundaries being placed. It’s a willingful disrespect to that relationship.
Everything about it makes me uncomfortable, but I have to recognize that's not the case for a lot of people, and that it's something that a couple should talk about, as we've said 100 times here. I don't think it's always arbitrarily and objectively "wrong" but because of how it would make me feel, it might be pretty wrong for US.
I would have to tell my partner that him having strippers and lap dances and the whole traditional bachelor party experience would hurt my feelings. And honestly in a situation like that...it's almost sort of telling, setting the tone for the whole marriage, how a man chooses to do, if his bride-to-be has said, "this is going to cause me a lot of heartache and pain if you do this." Really on the eve of your wedding, dude, are you establishing that your buddies, and their feelings and claims on you, matter more to you than your wife's feelings? That her feelings are nothing but a nuisance to be excused your way out of or waved aside? Really, remind me why then she is marrying you...because that does not sound loving. Is it supposed to be a test to see what the guy can get away with, how much he can hurt his wife and she'll just shut up and smile and be pretty for him? Is that how it's supposed to work? "Do you vow to suffer, preferably in silence and with a smile, for me?"
Because that's how all that would feel, to me.
I would not be able to avoid self-comparison and misery, thinking he was having one last night admiring the perfect women who can actually make a living with their perfect bodies, enjoying what he wishes he had while he's stuck with me, ugh, that nerdy girl who can't even dance, ugh, the one he's settling for, the old "ball and chain" ha ha... If I spent a night feeling that way, I am really not sure I'd still want to get married the next morning.
Especially if my partner knew damn well how I felt and went ahead, and told me, "Oh, don't be like that, you shouldn't feel that way, it was only this and just that and meant nothing." Invalidating my feelings on top of everything? Wow, let's put some nope frosting on the nevermind cake, shall we?
But I know, again, this is ME and MY stuff. To say that it IS wrong, it IS cheating, for like...everybody? I know tons of people don't feel this way at all! I'd have to have some nerve judging others for how they choose to do in their relationships.
I mean this with no disrespect but for someone with your lifestyle I find it mind boggling that you'd have any kind of issues with strippers or porn, at least in terms of if potentially making your feel insecure. If I read you're posting history right.
I just can't get my mind around it. I have zero interest in "alternative" lifestyles and I probably register as fairly vanilla in most respects but I have no problem with prostitution, porn, striping, swinging, group sex all of that stuff, it's not my cup of tea but I don't have any issues with it.
Location: In a city within a state where politicians come to get their PHDs in Corruption
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Quote:
Originally Posted by rego00123
Whether or not the individual committing the action considers it cheating really doesn’t matter in a scenario where they other objects to it as such.
If one party believes it is and the other acts in it knowing the feelings being held and the boundaries being placed. It’s a willingful disrespect to that relationship.
Boundaries are artificial. They are there to compensate for one's insecurity, not for the health of overall relationship.
This has been the stance of most people I know who can sort of go partway with "this is ok but that isn't" in such matters. Like either a person is "no, none of it is fine" or the visual or sexual part is fine but when you start doing the "emotional affair" end, it's a problem.
I don't think I've met anyone who is the opposite of that, like I am. I feel like if my man wants real connections with real people, cool, I can DO that! And he might connect fully with another person and hey, they are unique, with unique qualities, it's not really a threat to me, especially if she and I got along. Maybe I'd be like, "of course you love her, I do too!" It's when you get into "Oh, actually he'd much rather just superficially see and use women as objects without a personality, the hotter and younger the better" then I'm like, oh. So that's what turns him on? Then what does he see in me? I start questioning why we're even together if that's what he really wants. I'm not very good at being the hottie-hot-T&A, breathing blowup doll, kind of chick, and don't want to be, so when it's thrown in my face that "that's what all men really want" it kind of puts me off emotionally.
But yeah I've never met anyone else who feels this way about such things. No matter how hard I try to logic my way around it, it still FEELS unpleasant. Hitting one's feelings with the hammer of logic doesn't always make them shut up, though.
This week I've been chatting with a guy on OLD - and we've been firing off random questions. I asked him about strip clubs and he was like - they don't do anything for me. I went once in my 20s, I don't even know how I'd feel now. While he admits to being "visual" it seemed like he needed a bit more than eye candy to get turned on. Not everyone feel that way, but plenty do.
I know for me eye candy does basically nothing for me. Sure in some cases there is enough sexual chemistry to have fun, but it is a completely forgettable experience. Like having popcorn.
Boundaries are artificial. They are there to compensate for one's insecurity, not for the health of overall relationship.
LOL
They're artificial until you cross one.
Besides, it's not the "paid entertainer" that some find to be cheating. It's the fact that their partner CHOSE to be "entertained" by someone else imitating an act that their spouse/partner only would share.
Location: In a city within a state where politicians come to get their PHDs in Corruption
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Quote:
Originally Posted by BirdieBelle
LOL
They're artificial until you cross one.
Besides, it's not the "paid entertainer" that some find to be cheating. It's the fact that their partner CHOSE to be "entertained" by someone else imitating an act that their spouse/partner only would share.
LOL? How old are you?
Maybe if one's "concerned" that one's partner chose to perform acts reserved for his/her dearest, he/she should ask him/herself why that is? Half of all marriages fail in this country, and magically somehow, it's always the other one's fault.
Furthermore, just because one doesn't act on his/her desire, that doesn't mean he/she respects or cares about the relationship more than the one that does, it just means, they're a coward. I know plenty of married miserable couples who talk a big game, but behind closed doors they're dying inside.
I mean this with no disrespect but for someone with your lifestyle I find it mind boggling that you'd have any kind of issues with strippers or porn, at least in terms of if potentially making your feel insecure. If I read you're posting history right.
I just can't get my mind around it. I have zero interest in "alternative" lifestyles and I probably register as fairly vanilla in most respects but I have no problem with prostitution, porn, striping, swinging, group sex all of that stuff, it's not my cup of tea but I don't have any issues with it.
I think you have, I mean, I've been in poly relationships...that doesn't bug me...we go to parties almost every weekend where there's stuff going on, and none of that bugs me, and we're into S&M and all that, so it is reasonable from a "vanilla" perspective that I should be very much more permissive and sex positive all the way across the board.
That's part of the thing though, it's not that I have a moral issue with it, I don't. I think that prostitution should be legal, and I completely 100% am on board with the rights of consenting adults to do what they want and all. My LOGICAL (ethical/moral/beliefs systems) part of me says, "No problem here!"
The emotional part has to do with psychology, childhood, such like that. Growing up with the feeling that I wasn't the sort of child my parents wanted me to be, and they didn't value anything about my authentic self much at all. I always felt they didn't like me and were disappointed in me. It's the idea that what literally anyone/everyone in my life WANTS is something I am not and can never be, I will forever disappoint. It really holds me back from holding very close (beyond superficial) relationships with others sometimes, too. Yeah, I do have issues, and I don't deny that for a moment. But I own them. They are my stuff. I don't point a finger at a partner, or at porn or strippers and blame them. But what I do expect from a partner, is consideration. And I give it back plenty, too. I ask to be heard and cared about, which I think is reasonable in any relationship. I'm fortunate to have a great partner, and he even helps me work through some of these head/heart conflicts I have at times. So yeah, not as much a sex hangup, as it is a hangup about valuation and relating and attachment.
But even being very aware about it...again, feelings aren't always rational. My point in the whole "bachelor party" scenario, is that I'd hope that the man who says he loves me enough to marry me, would not want me to sit in misery feeling horrible and wracked with doubts, on the eve of our wedding. That would hurt. Beyond the feelings provoked by what he was off doing, if he simply didn't care. I would feel similarly to how I imagine he'd feel, if I were spending the eve of our wedding night with a former fling or FB, getting it on, even if I said, "Oh, it's nothing, I'll never see him again after this." Those situations might not be the same THING, but I do think our emotional responses, the FEELINGS triggered would be similar. I wouldn't want him to feel that. I hope he wouldn't want me to feel that.
I don't pay to watch men strip and rub up all over them, I can get that for free from my SO. I wonder why more men don't think the same way I do? Is it just more fun, or somehow satisfying to have a variety?
Location: In a city within a state where politicians come to get their PHDs in Corruption
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Quote:
Originally Posted by RbccL
I don't pay to watch men strip and rub up all over them, I can get that for free from my SO. I wonder why more men don't think the same way I do? Is it just more fun, or somehow satisfying to have a variety?
No, I think for vast majority of men, it's a form of release. What I mean by majority of men, is guys who go there with other guys, not the creepy old men that come by themselves. Plus, women are much less visual than men are.
I've yet to meet a guy who had sex at a strip club and/or dated a stripper.
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