Should Married Men Go To Strip Clubs?

RAKE READERS RESPOND TO STUART GREENE

Oh Stuart,

I’m afraid you’ve done more harm to your gender than simply violating a sacred trust. You’ve managed to succeed in adding yet another robust belch to the dirty-laundry list that includes, “loves the Three Stooges; won’t ask for directions; doesn’t wash hands post-urination; and is generally ruled by the front and center-most extremity.”

That said, OF COURSE you’re in need of visual stimulation! You’re an American man! There hasn’t been a day in your life without it – magazines, billboards, movies, TV, advertising -Goodness knows, I’d never force you to go cold turkey. But BEFORE you enter into a trusting, ring-bearing relationship, be fair and lay all your strip-poker cards on the table.

Chances are you’re marrying an American woman – one who has lived in the constant curvaceous shadow of those ever-present air-brushed beauties (who have seemingly nothing better to do than deliberately bend over, sheepishly glancing back at you while laying a finger on the pink tongue peeking out between pouty lips) and your harmless night out could turn out to be the unwitting catalyst that opens old rejection wounds or recalls low self-esteem moments. Bummer. This woman you love would like to think those competitive, comparative days are over, and that she’s finally entered into a relationship that resides on a higher-heeled plane. Act too stupid in public without her understanding your intent, and you’re tiptoeing down a path that leads to mistrust, which is, by the way, located a hop, skip and a jump from disaster.

Your wife in the buff should be enough, but really “more is better?” Come on. More is better? WE know THAT. There isn’t an honest woman alive who couldn’t write an 800 word essay entitled, “Yes. Size DOES matter.” But, just as a flat-chested babe can sport a fabulous derriere, so can a man lick (sic) his shortcomings… Alas, that won’t stop men from looking at huge breasts; nor will it stop women from longing for a big hunk of “more is better.”

What do I think? Women will always crave attention from someone other than their husbands, and men will crave visual stimulation from women other than their wives. Discuss it. Accept it. Then love each other, make sure one another feels safe, help each other find a purpose, eat, drink, and be married.

—What1WomanThinks

Stuart Greene replies:

I like your point that we all pretty much must live in the shadow of our own insecurities– and must somehow, at the same time, learn to trust and support and love each other.

And I think we do– but of course everyday is a battle against both ourselves and our better halves.

A mundane example: It drives me nuts that the wife leaves her melty snowboots at the top of the basement stairs, and if I ask her kindly and respectfully not to, then she typically tries not to. When I do something that drives her absolutely bananas (I have a lot more of these faults than she does, I’m afraid– dirty dishes in sink, beer cans in the office, unmown lawn, unsorted mail), I do my best to evolve and get it done. Lots of times I don’t much like it, and I’m thinking dark thoughts, but I do it, cuz that’s what adults do.

In any working relationship, there is an understanding that we make sacrifices–particularly in action, because action counts more than words and sweet thoughts–on behalf of the relationship.

Now– my little exercise in morality was only meant to shed a little light on what we both seem to agree on: certain intractable cognitive realities. Should we try to change the way men think, the way they conduct their own internal realities? Should we expect that of them (us)? Should we all have to base our morality on the lowest common insecurity we have about our own bodies? I don’t have a particularly large, uh, endowment– and it has never made me particularly worried about it, nor does it bother me when my wife notices or comments on some Chippendale dude’s “package.”

Speaking of which, I also loved your insights on the issue of “more is better,” and your honesty about it. but I have to add that I personally am repelled by large breasts, and have a personal fetish along the lines of “small is better,” about which an upcoming column will be concerned.

Let me say that Woody Allen is a child molester. You should do more research before spouting off your very narrow opinion about any subject.

You opinion is very immature and your passive attitude about the realities of the issue only expose your inability to have a truly deep relationship.

By permitting yourself to believe that what you wrote is true you have denied yourself and you wife the respect your relationship deserves. You no more than said that Campbell’s soup is the best when you haven’t matured to Progresso or whatever the richer thicker stuff is called.

If it is true that men should follow the instinct of any animal that fits their sexual desires, because after all he is just an animal, then you can also say that murder and any other survival technique is also acceptable. Maybe next time I see you I should lift my leg and urinate on you, because after all I am just an animal.

Have you figured out the difference between man and animal yet? When your wife divorces you later for being so immature she will probably take the kids away from you because you are such an idiot.

—MC

What you say may certainly be true, but I’m afraid you’re polarizing this into a man versus woman issue. This is part of the problem I’m trying to address, I guess, with honesty, regarding the way most average men think (and act). By your moral lights, every man I know– including some very good and decent family men– are incapable of having a “truly deep” relationship. From my admittedly limited perspective, I just think you’re wrong, because I’ve seen otherwise. Any self-respecting person must feel very uncomfortable indeed with your proposition that he or she does not “think the right thoughts” and therefore is incapable of an evolved relationship– though it’s gratifying to know that there is ~always~ room for my relationship to grow and change in interesting new ways, no matter how great it seems to me right now.

I certainly would never argue that men are ~merely~ animals, just that there seem to be plenty of animal instincts that remain, judging by my extended circle of friends who are in great and healthy marriages.

Unfortunately, Woody Allen still walks free. as I recall, he’s never been charged or convicted, other than in the peanut gallery.


Perhaps if society weren’t so puritanical about sex and nudity, there wouldn’t be this tension between men and their Gen X women? Women I know love sex every bit as much as men, but can reasonably live without it when life circumstances require and do just fine; they don’t need to go to strip clubs. I’ve never been to a strip club, but I would imagine they aren’t the most tasteful joints in town. I think I might be offended, not by the nudity, but by the general atmosphere of all those men lusting after strangers who are obviously exploiting their sex drives for a living.

You say men like to look at pictures of nude women and you include porn in that category. I see a distinction; porn is pretty much about only body parts, big body parts and self gratification, sometimes taking that to new extremes. And it ain’t pretty. The purveyors of porn aren’t sending out this stuff for your ‘pleasure’, they are trying to get you hooked and sell dildos — exploiting sex drives, loneliness, curiosities, whatever, for financial gain.

Ever look at the photo spreads in Playboy of say, maybe 30-40 years ago? Sexism notwithstanding, those photos were beautifully shot and really did showcase the gorgeous female body; all of it (I know, to sell magazines). They were quite modest by today’s standards and didn’t even expose pubic hair; but guess what, they
were very sexy pictures.

Doesn’t everyone find themselves attracted to the human body? Isn’t it beautiful, or when not beautiful, at least fascinating? I find it really sad when some degrade it. Painters and sculptors have always and ever will be truly admiring the human form. And they’re not making the quick buck. There are different venues for viewing and appreciating the human body — and people (esp. men) will always want to look. But because society is rather prudish about nudity and sex, strip clubs and porn are the forbidden fruit that cause some men, the ones who still have some growing up to do, to have fun at being bad boy and getting away with it.

Should married men go to strip clubs? Who has the right to tell them they shouldn’t? I look at it this way: I like that my partner admires the female body and he can look all he wants. I just hope that mine is the only one he touches.

—SN

I love your point about prudishness and the human body– although i have to admit I’ve never really understood the argument that “porn” is degrading because it focuses on particular parts of the body (and not necessarily “big”, but that’s another subject altogether.) At the same time, I confess that this is an argument that I’ve used myself and hear quite often from my wife and my more righteous buddies– that depictions of sex or sexuality without “the context” of a relationship and a fully-formed human being (with feelings and fears and a Life and relationships and everything else) is an empty, nasty thing. But that’s starting to feel like an awfully pat, PC answer that may not comport with reality.

It’s just not that simple, I’m beginning to fear. Or maybe it’s even simpler than that. I mean, there is plenty of fine-art photography that focuses on details of “the nude”– including pubic hair, and yes, genitalia. I guess the distinction is supposed to be that one cultivates prurient interest (i.e. turns viewers on in a sexual way) while the other does not. (Does this distinction make any sense to you? Less and less, to me.)

I think I’d also argue that conventions and mores have changed significantly since the golden age of Playboy, which you mention. Back mid-century, photographic nudity of any kind was seen as unmitigated filth by all the usual prigs, it seems to me, and I’d certainly be willing to bet that what is considered tame and acceptable and even beautiful today was considered the hard stuff back in the day (though I admit to being a bit too young to Say anything authoritative at all on this point).

I think your rule is a good one– for moral and practical reasons, the “diner” model (you can look at the menu, but you can’t order) may not be the highest road to take in a marriage, but it’s probably the most honest one.

I agree, too, that the overwhelming emotion in a strip club is one of desperation and frustration ( after all, it’s not legal to get any kind of satisfaction, in the traditional male sense of the word). I don’t know if the business proposition is as complicated as you suspect, though. The purveyors of these services and products don’t need to get anyone hooked, per se– there will always be an endless reservoir of paying clients for the simplest of reasons: Sex feels good. (And sexuality is right up there with eating and sleeping, in terms of involuntary appetites.)

Why didn’t you just come out and name your column what you really wanted to: Honey, Can I Go to the Strip Club With Don and Pete?

Your first column with the Rake was at its roots a plea to the public in general and perhaps your wife in particular to approve of your desire to see all women with a pretty face or slammin’ figure naked. “It’s a biological reality blahblahMenArePigsblah…” Sorry, but there’s a deeper issue here than that tired old “boys will be boys” crap.

Just because a woman doesn’t happily stock her hubby’s wallet with a crisp stack of ones before he heads for the strip club doesn’t make her a prig, as you say. I don’t want my husband to ogle naked girls, not because I’m a prude, but because it’s hurtful. Maybe it’s real CarrieBradshawNewMillenium to say that I’m okay with my significant other frequenting strip clubs, but I’m really not. And perhaps it’s sooo last season to value the exclusivity of marriage, but I do. You and your buddies, though, think that wives everywhere should just be cool with their guys enjoying the strip club scene. Be a nice, understanding gal, wontcha?

Deal with my behavior with your intellect, not your intuition, which tells you that my going to strip bars doesn’t feel right. Meanwhile, I’ll go ahead and think with my weiner. See you after last call!

But underneath all your chest pounding and caveman proclamations about male sexuality, there is a quiet rumble of guilt about your own “robust desires” that you can’t seem to shake. From what I gleaned from your writing, your wife is one of those women who finds your interest in “more naked women, more of the time” a bit hurtful. You said you steer clear of the strip club scene because your wife disapproves (“I try to avoid it, because I’m a horrible liar and the wife has ESP for this kind of mischief”), thus becoming one of the men you ridicule (the Gen X priggish woman’s overcompensating man). And then you resent that you feel guilty, and you write whiny pieces for the Rake.

Take a second look at the whole “women don’t care” issue. I think you’ll find that a fair amount of women actually do have beef with their husbands checking out other naked people, despite trying to transmit an aura of calm indifference.

After that, if you still feel like going to strip clubs, that’s your business. But dude, just go and stop asking the Twin Cities (and the wife) to sign your permission slip.

—SW

I’ll have to confess up front that I don’t have much interest in going to strip clubs– not really. I suppose that makes my column a little disingenuous. I find strip clubs singularly desperate and bizarre, the moment I stop “thinking with my wiener.” But plenty of my buddies do go, and they’re perfectly good guys–some of the most noble men that I know in the world. Go figure.

One could make the argument that we are all unevolved, but I think that’s kind of a bootless observation. Most men think this way– at least the men I know. It’s more than a “boys will be boys” issue. It’s kind of a “boys will be boys in spite of themselves” issue– by which i mean that we Gen Xers are more than aware of how to walk the walk and talk the talk with our wives, while we certainly act and talk differently with each other. The fact is, we don’t find our essentially prurient interest in the random female form to be nearly as threatening to our primary relationship as our wives and girlfriends do, and I was wrestling to parse this a little bit, without resorting to cliches.

I think it’s totally cool that you, and I suppose my wife, find your husband’s natural appetite for “desirable” women with “slammin” bodies hurtful. But that doesn’t mean you should expect him to pretend, in the privacy of his own mind, that the appetite doesn’t exist. it feels as natural, in many respects, as the hurt you feel. One might say that you are susceptible to jealousy– one of the ugliest and selfish of human emotions (certainly as negative as fantasizing about sex with a stranger) since it would reject or deny a simple, very manageable male reality. (Sex feels good. Sexuality is fun. Women are attractive. You can look, but you can’t touch. ) You want to be the only woman in the world for your husband, and you are– or as close as you’ll get, assuming you have the wonderful kind of relationship you have with your spouse that I have with mine.

I’m sincerely curious whether you ever fantasize about good-looking men, in a totally sexual way– and whether this might be a fundamental difference between men and women. (If you do, do you dismiss it as a mo
rally reprehensible reflex, rather like farting in public?) I tend to think men and women are more alike than not, and I find it slightly depressing that they could be so different on this score. That view would argue that women don’t actually enjoy sex– they aren;t sexual beings– unless it’s with Prince Charming, the Man of Their Dreams. Or the kind of insidious stereotype that women cannot enjoy sex except in the context of a long-term monogamous relationship (which automatically makes women who do NOT meet this stereotype some kind of whore or, naturally, a victim of abuse.) I’m sorry, I just think sexuality is so much more complicated, subtle, beautiful, and individual than any of these political paradigms allow for. But I stray from the context of sex and the married man.

Action is worth more than words, of course. I don’t do things my wife doesn’t want me to do because I’m an adult, and that’s what adults do in working relationships. My point was simply that men carry on this duplicitous mental life. Ask your husband or boyfriend about it, and if he’s perfectly honest with you, he’ll tell you all about it, and maybe your relationship goes to the next level. Or maybe not.


I enjoyed reading your article on men and strip clubs. I couldn’t agree more with you, and I’m tired of my fellow Gen-X males pooh-poohing strip clubs as if they were interactive tours of livestock slaughterhouses.

Sure, we all went to the Alan Alda School of Sensitive Men back in the 80s, only to find that women still need us to kill spiders in the house. What a shock! Women want us to be sensitive, but macho enough to make them weak in the knees, and, of course, every women in the world wants a different combination of these attributes. Welcome to the Love Lottery!

Oh, yes, here come the admonitions from women about, gosh, how hard it must be to be a man – boo hoo! But I find among my friends, and, frankly, in myself, men’s ability to accept the faults and shortcomings of a mate more than women. After the “honeymoon” phrase comes the ever-present mental check-list of every little personality quirk that sends you off the deep end. Unfortunately, one of those quirks we have is enjoying the sight of a beautiful woman. Every beautiful woman. But it doesn’t keep us from massaging your feet, making you dinner, and yes, killing those damn spiders with our big manly shoes.

I like your stuff, Stuart, and I’m looking forward to you stirring the pot a little bit.

—EH


Posted

in

by

Tags:

Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.