Carolyn Hax: Strip club talk from his/her side

While I’m away, readers give the advice.

On the “I insist you stop going to strip clubs” trope: I never liked it when my husband went to strip clubs either. I consider those places, and also pornography, to objectify and demean the people who are being exhibited in this way, and people in desperate situations are all too often exploited.

I know that not everyone shares this point of view, but this is my moral stance. I made it known to my husband. I also let him know that, if he chose to go, I would not make a fuss, but that I would find it a huge turnoff that he was ogling those women and supporting that industry, and that he would want to keep his distance for a few days while I worked through my disappointment in him.

He went a few times, to bachelor parties and such, and I said nothing, but he knew how I felt. In the end, he decided it was more important to be a man his wife can respect than to look at nude girls. When we had a daughter, he started to see my point: He would not want her treated the way the young women in those places are treated. – C.C.

When an argument against going to strip clubs is gender-reversed – “I don’t like where my girl is going” – then I promise you there wouldn’t be debate; it would be 100 percent for this woman to run away. But since it’s about a woman who has a reasonable dislike of strip clubs, there will be debate. There shouldn’t.

That’s how it started for me: “Don’t go to strip clubs anymore.” I maybe only went three or four times a year, and that was stupid times with friends – I was young – and so I figured, I’m with this woman and I love her, so I stopped going. Then suddenly she had a problem with any restaurant with scantily clad women. I mean, it made sense. I had to spend time with my girl, not ogling other women.

Of course, it was my bad-influence friends who were making me go, so, one by one, I should start giving them up.

By this point, I was told I had to stop talking to my female friends, too. And the friends who were warning me about my newfound hermit tendencies … they were just trying to tear us apart.

Then it came to Christmas – I had to spend them with her parents. Why on Earth do I want to go to my own home?

It came to a head one Easter, when I asked to spend it with my family. She ensured we were late for my parents’ dinner, that we did anything but go to my house, and yelled at me because I hadn’t made Memorial Day plans with her yet. Yes. Memorial Day.

I was lucky. I was saved by my brother, who did a Ghost of Christmas Present on me and forced me to visit friends I hadn’t talked to in years. It made me realize what was going on. Ten years later I’m still trying to rebuild relationships with my very close friends.

I’m with a great woman now. She has no problem where I hang out with my friends, and while she’s not a huge fan of strip clubs, she goes out with her own friends on the rare occasion that my friends and I try to relive our stupid days and go to one.

I’m tired of this narrative that men can’t be abused. I’m tired of the narrative that strip clubs and bars with scantily clad women should be given up immediately because they are somehow tainted or gross, and that it’s accepted. – M.