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Location: As of 2022….back to SoCal. OC this time!
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Sonic_Spork
And frankly, like it or not, part of this mindset is that we place a lot more weight on what any man wants, than what any woman wants. If a woman goes to see male strippers with her girlfriends, a husband would probably worry and expect the right to tell her not to (what if one of those male strippers is down for sex acts!??) If she has a male friend, husband might say, "It's not that I don't trust you, it's that I don't trust him." What HE wants is carefully considered.
We? If you feel that way...that’s you. IMO this sounds super old fashioned. In a healthy marriage, there isn’t more weight on what the man wants....it’s a partnership. It’s communication AND caring how the other person feels. Its respecting each other & the relationship....or why be committed or married?
"we" in that post refers to "Western culture" not to Sonic or to some other identified people.
The vast majority of women do not like their husbands/soon-to-be-husbands looking at porn or going to strip bars. Seems like aa guy who's going to get married - the next day, for crying out loud - would consider his fiancee's feelings on the matter. Frankly I think the whole idea of a big strip bar bachelor party kind of stinks and doesn't show a lot of respect. If it's a big production style wedding and the bridegroom is having some friends come in from out of town he hasn't seen in a long time, sure, grill some steaks and have a few beers and shoot the bull, or go out to a restaurant; but unless you're 17 the whole stripper thing is kind of pointless.
I find it very interesting how many times we see things where like, everyone agrees that a woman can't have a male friend if she's in a relationship, but the man going to a sexually charged environment to sit there lusting at strippers, looking up their hoo-has and what not, hey, DON'T YOU TRUST HIM???
And frankly, like it or not, part of this mindset is that we place a lot more weight on what any man wants, than what any woman wants. If a woman goes to see male strippers with her girlfriends, a husband would probably worry and expect the right to tell her not to (what if one of those male strippers is down for sex acts!??) If she has a male friend, husband might say, "It's not that I don't trust you, it's that I don't trust him." What HE wants is carefully considered. Her not wanting to stray, meh, women are confusing and mysterious creatures, who can understand anything in their silly heads anyhow, who wonders what they even want? It is reasonable, much more reasonable, to disregard a woman's feelings and thoughts, than a man's. Any man's. Even a hypothetical man's.
So if a husband and wife trust each other, then she can't ask him to not go into situations, but he has a right to ask her not to, not because he doesn't trust her, but because other men out there might want things and he doesn't trust them, and they have power and agency, more than she does. There are double standards I've seen come into play in many situations.
Now what follows is hypothetical. Not particularly related to my specific actual husband himself, just overall feelings on the subject.
Of course I would not think or assume that my husband would have sex with a stripper. That is not the point. Voyeurism and exhibitionism are sexual acts. I think what hurts, is that I know that we'll be so familiar to each other in time if we are not already, that even if I am an attractive woman, I'll just be ho hum, same old wife. But go look at strange bodies and zing, zap, wowie! That's the GOOD STUFF. OK, so I'm chopped liver. Cool. Why am I here?
Oh, because he can't actually get stripper-hot so he *sigh* settled for the battle axe? The old ball and chain? Again, who in the hell put a gun to his head? I don't want to be invisible or taken for granted and have to watch my partner light up with enthusiasm over other women. I don't light up with enthusiasm for other men. Having a bit of a head turn and a look at another woman is one thing, OK you observed an attractive human in the wild, sure, and his attention comes right back to the here and now. But going to strip clubs... It's like the man's buddies are like, "haha dude don't you wish you could be with women this hot but you're marrying your boring one woman and get to watch her get old haha look at what you wish you could have."
Again. I want my partner to be with me in an enthusiastically consenting way. Not a "sigh I guess I'm just stuck with this for life now, sure wish I could just go around banging a new hot chick every day but that's not life, so..." I don't want to be the crummy old Ford sedan he drives while dreaming of Corvettes. And it's not that I am bemoaning my looks, it's that I am one person, with one life to live, and I'm not gonna get constant plastic surgery to keep trying to look like I'm 20. So I will age. It's physically impossible for me to compare to a neverending parade of variety in 18-20 year olds.
So if I'm feeling like that, and I'm expected to just shut up and deal with it because my partner thinks my feelings are silly and dumb... Again, I don't know why I would bother with that kind of relationship honestly. I do not NEED a husband or life partner. I could be perfectly happy on my own.
So it's not at all about trusting he won't touch or bang a stripper. It's about, I want him to actually care how I feel. I care how he feels. I would not want him to feel that I settled for him but lust after others. It should go both ways.
But again, that's....that's just me. And maybe some few other people, I guess. Probably not most.
No, a lot of people feel as you do. I know this for a fact because I talk to them every day. You speak of basic human needs in a loving relationship.
For what it is worth, this post could have also been placed in the thread about whether 40-something men find 40-something women attractive, where so many people either implied or said explicitly that men would prefer someone younger but since they cannot always actually get someone younger they settle for women their age, as though women their age are some kind of consolation prize and not truly wanted for all the things they offer that are uniquely theirs as individual women.
I do not care if somebody is male or female, gay or straight, whatever their lifestyle and adult proclivities, whatever their cultures or religions. All humans who are in romantic partnerships and marriages with someone they love want to feel loved and cherished by their beloved. All humans who are in romantic partnerships and marriages want to feel heard, respected, and validated by their beloved. All humans want to feel chosen by their beloved and secure in their relationship, not "settled for" or like at any moment if someone better-looking, richer, stronger, thinner, younger, older, comes along that their beloved would "trade them in" for a "new model." And there is no shame in wanting that. It is HUMAN.
I will confess that I find a great many posts on this website to be disturbing for their belittling, mocking, and rejection of human emotions. Sex, money, who pays for what, who lives where, what is masculinity, what is femininity, who looks at porn, who goes out with what friends, how many sexual partners one has had--all of these are secondary to love, partnership, communication, and respect. I have to be very wary of "confirmation bias" here, because as I have said often, I find the romantic culture here to be toxic, and it does seem that many of the posts on this site just confirm that opinion. So many of the problems I see presented here amount to "how can I get my way in my relationship?" Sometimes I just want to say, "You know what? You can't. Learn to share. Learn to compromise. Learn to talk. Learn to put yourself in your partner's shoes. If you can't or won't do that, don't bother with relationships. P.S. Just because you want a relationship, that does not mean you are entitled to one, and if you don't like to hear other people's thoughts and advice that you asked for, then be quiet and don't ask."
Location: As of 2022….back to SoCal. OC this time!
9,297 posts, read 4,573,025 times
Reputation: 7613
Quote:
Originally Posted by turf3
"we" in that post refers to "Western culture" not to Sonic or to some other identified people.
But “western culture” is not a part of a marriage...just the thoughts & feelings of the 2 ppl that are in the marriage.
edit: all relationships & marriages are different. Some are healthy & happy...some not.
Quote:
Originally Posted by turf3
" The vast majority of women do not like their husbands/soon-to-be-husbands looking at porn or going to strip bars. Seems like aa guy who's going to get married - the next day, for crying out loud - would consider his fiancee's feelings on the matter. Frankly I think the whole idea of a big strip bar bachelor party kind of stinks and doesn't show a lot of respect. If it's a big production style wedding and the bridegroom is having some friends come in from out of town he hasn't seen in a long time, sure, grill some steaks and have a few beers and shoot the bull, or go out to a restaurant; but unless you're 17 the whole stripper thing is kind of pointless.
ITA..& men who have happy sex lives in their marriage don’t need to look at porn or go to strip clubs. A bachelor party is a bachelor party tho...& IMO, if a man is going to cheat it won’t be at a bachelor party where all his friends or coworkers or family would see it. BUT I also agree that both ppl have to respect each other & compromise AND communicate....tho some bachelor parties are about poker or fishing.
Desperately clinging to a marriage out of fear or mistrust or insecurity tho...is not a healthy way to be in any relationship. If somebody wants to control their spouse that much...or doesn’t trust them, get divorced. Because if you think your man is going to cheat or he already has, he doesn’t need a bachelor party or a stripper to do it. Matter of fact most men wouldn’t want sex with a stripper for health reasons IMO.
Last edited by TashaPosh; 06-24-2021 at 12:37 PM..
My husband has never forbidden me from going ANYWHERE. That said, there's been enough times where I was asked to go somewhere or do something, that I knew was something I should not do, or something that would cause my husband to worry, or the timing didn't work out, etc.
And when I go out with friends on the rare occasion, I ALWAYS make it clear he is always welcome to come along. And when he goes out with his friends on the rare occasions, he always makes it clear I'm welcome to come along. I often turn him down. It's not my idea of fun to sit in a sports bar and drink beer.
The ones I've been to have been beer tourism, fishing, rock climbing, and maybe some mild white water kayaking.
There are some who do the weekends away, Niagara Falls is popular if you're in Southern Ontario, Whistler is popular if you're in the Vancouver area, and I've seen plenty of groups on the Las Vegas Strip or Bourbon Street.
Around where I live, most of the strip bars closed years ago. Can't recall going to see strippers as a thing in the past 15-20 years. Most of the bachelor parties sound like what you describe, golf days, visits to breweries, distilleries, going to a professional sporting event. My husband went to one where go-karting was a part of the day and they had a blast.
I find it very interesting how many times we see things where like, everyone agrees that a woman can't have a male friend if she's in a relationship, but the man going to a sexually charged environment to sit there lusting at strippers, looking up their hoo-has and what not, hey, DON'T YOU TRUST HIM???
And frankly, like it or not, part of this mindset is that we place a lot more weight on what any man wants, than what any woman wants. If a woman goes to see male strippers with her girlfriends, a husband would probably worry and expect the right to tell her not to (what if one of those male strippers is down for sex acts!??) If she has a male friend, husband might say, "It's not that I don't trust you, it's that I don't trust him." What HE wants is carefully considered. Her not wanting to stray, meh, women are confusing and mysterious creatures, who can understand anything in their silly heads anyhow, who wonders what they even want? It is reasonable, much more reasonable, to disregard a woman's feelings and thoughts, than a man's. Any man's. Even a hypothetical man's.
So if a husband and wife trust each other, then she can't ask him to not go into situations, but he has a right to ask her not to, not because he doesn't trust her, but because other men out there might want things and he doesn't trust them, and they have power and agency, more than she does. There are double standards I've seen come into play in many situations.
Now what follows is hypothetical. Not particularly related to my specific actual husband himself, just overall feelings on the subject.
Of course I would not think or assume that my husband would have sex with a stripper. That is not the point. Voyeurism and exhibitionism are sexual acts. I think what hurts, is that I know that we'll be so familiar to each other in time if we are not already, that even if I am an attractive woman, I'll just be ho hum, same old wife. But go look at strange bodies and zing, zap, wowie! That's the GOOD STUFF. OK, so I'm chopped liver. Cool. Why am I here?
Oh, because he can't actually get stripper-hot so he *sigh* settled for the battle axe? The old ball and chain? Again, who in the hell put a gun to his head? I don't want to be invisible or taken for granted and have to watch my partner light up with enthusiasm over other women. I don't light up with enthusiasm for other men. Having a bit of a head turn and a look at another woman is one thing, OK you observed an attractive human in the wild, sure, and his attention comes right back to the here and now. But going to strip clubs... It's like the man's buddies are like, "haha dude don't you wish you could be with women this hot but you're marrying your boring one woman and get to watch her get old haha look at what you wish you could have."
Again. I want my partner to be with me in an enthusiastically consenting way. Not a "sigh I guess I'm just stuck with this for life now, sure wish I could just go around banging a new hot chick every day but that's not life, so..." I don't want to be the crummy old Ford sedan he drives while dreaming of Corvettes. And it's not that I am bemoaning my looks, it's that I am one person, with one life to live, and I'm not gonna get constant plastic surgery to keep trying to look like I'm 20. So I will age. It's physically impossible for me to compare to a neverending parade of variety in 18-20 year olds.
So if I'm feeling like that, and I'm expected to just shut up and deal with it because my partner thinks my feelings are silly and dumb... Again, I don't know why I would bother with that kind of relationship honestly. I do not NEED a husband or life partner. I could be perfectly happy on my own.
So it's not at all about trusting he won't touch or bang a stripper. It's about, I want him to actually care how I feel. I care how he feels. I would not want him to feel that I settled for him but lust after others. It should go both ways.
But again, that's....that's just me. And maybe some few other people, I guess. Probably not most.
If your husband watches porn does that bother you? If not why not? Because I think it kind of brings up a lot of the same issues?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Seija
No, a lot of people feel as you do. I know this for a fact because I talk to them every day. You speak of basic human needs in a loving relationship.
For what it is worth, this post could have also been placed in the thread about whether 40-something men find 40-something women attractive, where so many people either implied or said explicitly that men would prefer someone younger but since they cannot always actually get someone younger they settle for women their age, as though women their age are some kind of consolation prize and not truly wanted for all the things they offer that are uniquely theirs as individual women.
I do not care if somebody is male or female, gay or straight, whatever their lifestyle and adult proclivities, whatever their cultures or religions. All humans who are in romantic partnerships and marriages with someone they love want to feel loved and cherished by their beloved. All humans who are in romantic partnerships and marriages want to feel heard, respected, and validated by their beloved. All humans want to feel chosen by their beloved and secure in their relationship, not "settled for" or like at any moment if someone better-looking, richer, stronger, thinner, younger, older, comes along that their beloved would "trade them in" for a "new model." And there is no shame in wanting that. It is HUMAN.
I will confess that I find a great many posts on this website to be disturbing for their belittling, mocking, and rejection of human emotions. Sex, money, who pays for what, who lives where, what is masculinity, what is femininity, who looks at porn, who goes out with what friends, how many sexual partners one has had--all of these are secondary to love, partnership, communication, and respect. I have to be very wary of "confirmation bias" here, because as I have said often, I find the romantic culture here to be toxic, and it does seem that many of the posts on this site just confirm that opinion. So many of the problems I see presented here amount to "how can I get my way in my relationship?" Sometimes I just want to say, "You know what? You can't. Learn to share. Learn to compromise. Learn to talk. Learn to put yourself in your partner's shoes. If you can't or won't do that, don't bother with relationships. P.S. Just because you want a relationship, that does not mean you are entitled to one, and if you don't like to hear other people's thoughts and advice that you asked for, then be quiet and don't ask."
In another thread when someone was complaining about their husband or boyfriend watching porn, you sited this article from Dan Savage arguing women needed to get over their insecurities about porn.
I guess what I am wondering is what is the difference between porn and strippers? If I am watching a strange woman take off her clothes on some camming site how is that materially different if I am watching her do it in person? Does a camera really change anything here? If anything with the porn, the material I am watching is going to be more explicit and actual sex acts will be performed.
What I am trying to figure out is why doesn't men watching porn bring up the same issues? Its not like the stripper is any more interested in this guy than the pornstar. I always thought the appeal of a strip club was to porn what seeing a band perform live vs listening to their mp3. I mean the headliners at most strip clubs are usually porn stars.
The religious/highly sexually restricted women who think all porn is wrong and that strip clubs are wrong, I understand where they are coming from. I also understand the women like Tasha, who argue for trusting their partner and that strippers aren't a threat to their relationship for the same reason that she doesn't think porn is a threat to her relationship.
But I don't really understand the women like yourselves who seem to think strip clubs are wrong but porn is okay. I just don't understand the distinction you two might be drawing here. This distinction seems illusory to me.
But if you could unpack that I would really appreciate that.
No, a lot of people feel as you do. I know this for a fact because I talk to them every day. You speak of basic human needs in a loving relationship.
For what it is worth, this post could have also been placed in the thread about whether 40-something men find 40-something women attractive, where so many people either implied or said explicitly that men would prefer someone younger but since they cannot always actually get someone younger they settle for women their age, as though women their age are some kind of consolation prize and not truly wanted for all the things they offer that are uniquely theirs as individual women.
I do not care if somebody is male or female, gay or straight, whatever their lifestyle and adult proclivities, whatever their cultures or religions. All humans who are in romantic partnerships and marriages with someone they love want to feel loved and cherished by their beloved. All humans who are in romantic partnerships and marriages want to feel heard, respected, and validated by their beloved. All humans want to feel chosen by their beloved and secure in their relationship, not "settled for" or like at any moment if someone better-looking, richer, stronger, thinner, younger, older, comes along that their beloved would "trade them in" for a "new model." And there is no shame in wanting that. It is HUMAN.
I will confess that I find a great many posts on this website to be disturbing for their belittling, mocking, and rejection of human emotions. Sex, money, who pays for what, who lives where, what is masculinity, what is femininity, who looks at porn, who goes out with what friends, how many sexual partners one has had--all of these are secondary to love, partnership, communication, and respect. I have to be very wary of "confirmation bias" here, because as I have said often, I find the romantic culture here to be toxic, and it does seem that many of the posts on this site just confirm that opinion. So many of the problems I see presented here amount to "how can I get my way in my relationship?" Sometimes I just want to say, "You know what? You can't. Learn to share. Learn to compromise. Learn to talk. Learn to put yourself in your partner's shoes. If you can't or won't do that, don't bother with relationships. P.S. Just because you want a relationship, that does not mean you are entitled to one, and if you don't like to hear other people's thoughts and advice that you asked for, then be quiet and don't ask."
*nods*
And the thing is...
All I am asserting is how I feel about a thing.
Not that I'd make demands based on those feelings. But at the least I would want him to hear me and comfort me, possibly to decide that my feelings matter enough to merit some consideration, maybe some compromise.
See, if I were the wife in the OP's scenario, I would not be trying to go to keep an eye on him or because I insisted. It would only be because I told him I was not comfortable and he offered me the chance to go and see that there is nothing to feel scared or hurt over. (Not sure that would actually help, likely not, but I'm saying it would be something he offered, not something I demanded.)
I know that I am willing to reevaluate my choices and back away from an idea if my husband tells me it hurts his feelings. He does not have to tell me to. I just can't stand the thought of him feeling unloved or sad because of me.
The other problem here is that people get this notion that X activity is wrong and Y activity is not. When in fact, what various INDIVIDUALS are comfortable with does vary, and people need to talk to each other about what feels OK and what causes bad feelings. People who are well matched can even do a little amateur therapy and just be there to help a partner work through stuff.
Maybe part of why it feels like a double standard for me is that there is no parallel that is widely considered (yes, by Western society) to be OK that does anything at all for me. So I'd be with a man, he could get gratification with porn or strippers or whatever, but the things that bring me gratification (actual intimacy, sexual contact, emotional affection) I am ONLY "allowed" by this X is wrong and Y is ok mindset, to get from him and no one else. And if he does not give me enough, then I just get to suffer and be unsatisfied, I guess. But if he's not satisfied, he's got a RIGHT to get satisfaction with the help of other women. I'd better be OK with not being enough for him but if he isn't enough for me, then tough crap.
And him not being enough for me would never be because of things he can't help, like normal aging or looks, it would only be because he became apathetic about putting the effort into fulfilling my needs. Not being "enough" for me is a CHOICE. Thankfully my husband is not (at least, thus far almost 6 years in) neglectful or lukewarm in his love or affection to me, nor is he a selfish lover.
Actually I'm not much talking about him at all. No one needs 3 guesses to figure out who I actually had such problems with.
You didn't know? When you are married the wife has the right to know everything the husband does. She can follow him, read his texts and emails, show up unexpectedly, etc.
She has the right to attend anything he goes to. ANYTHING. NO EXCEPTIONS!
So, when they got to the party- it's up to the host to decide if she can enter. Not the husband.
My 20something sons have gone to several bachelor parties, and although decades in the past they involved strippers, now they tend to involve renting a lake house and buying lot of beer and barbecuing. And kayaking, or something similar.
This is definitely more common.
I would uninvite the guy. You don't show up to the wedding with uninvited guests and same goes for the other parties.
She is embarrassing herself.
I've gone to male strip clubs (more show than club), and even went out and partied with the strippers after. I called to tell my (late) husband what was happening, and he was fine. There was a pack of girls, so it's not like it was one on one.
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