Dope about bachelor parties

Tster,

You sound like you have a good man. You’re doing all you have to do to communicate your feelings to him. Telling him what bothers you is never wrong.

I think that the issues being raised here by the dopers who question your outlook (myself included) revolve around your opinions of the practice of stripping. That and how emotionally attached you seem to be about some future hypothetical situation.

If I’m reading you correctly, I disagree with the following point of view:

“stripping” equals “sex for money” equals “whore.”

I think that you’re being a little too harsh with the women who, for whatever reason, do this for a living.

He sounds like he just wants to please his friends. That’s not such a big deal, though he should also respect your feelings. I think going to a club would put your mind at ease. Your boyfriend is probably one of those guys who has fun just being with his buddies. The woman are just a distraction for him.

I write the following with compassion:

Just relax about it a little. Go to the club. You’ll see it’s not a big deal. You’ll also see that the women are just working, that they’re not the least bit interested in your boyfriend, that there’s not any naked wrestling to be had. Besides, the reality is much more mundane than what you imagine.

Take care.

Again, I agree. I have analyzed my feelings over and over and this is all I can come up with…

When it comes down to two people having sex, I’m game for a lot of things. I am a very sensual person and enjoy sex frequently (and think about it a lot when I’m not doing it). In other words, I’m not a prude. BUT, I consider sex a pretty private thing and when I am in love with someone, I think sex should be kept between him and I. I don’t just mean intercourse, I mean the whole thing.

I am sure this is fairly common so I don’t feel like I’m unreasonable in this. This is sort of my goal with this thread. Why is this kind of thing so accepted in our society when most women (and even the men) think that it frequently goes too far and that there are many other ways of partying before the wedding with friends. Instead, the women are expected to shut up in order to pass the “test” or she is considered a controlling bitch. If he feels embarrased at the idea of being the center of attention at a strip club (I’m sure this is pretty common, too) then he is a pussy.

I was happy to get at least some positive feedback, and also some advice, which I always will consider (and sometimes will take). Again, this is how I ended up at the nude beach.

How is this… I have drinks occasionally with an ex (so does my bf). Twice, we end up going dancing, which initially didn’t bother my bf and he later admitted that he wasn’t thrilled with it. I can easily never do it again. However, I told him that I would save my dancing with the ex (who is a very fun dancer and my bf trusts me 100% that nothing will happen) for the nights that he goes to the “club” (I am talking 2 or 3 times a year). He reluctantly agreed but he saw how trust and “not feeling right about something” didn’t always mean the same thing.

You are entitled to your opinion. I’m sure there are some very nice strippers but it doesn’t change the way I feel about them. I’m sure there are some very nice drug dealers (I found out my ex-husband was one) and thieves too but they are still drug dealers and thieves.

It’s not black and white but it’s my general thoughts on the matter.

This is certainly an interesting thread - here’s my two cents (guess that would be my folded dollar bills) on the subject:

Bachelor/bachelorette parties are not planned for the benefit of the future groom/bride, this has been mentioned by others. It’s the friends (single or not) of the bride/groom who look forward to the parties. Let’s face it, if you’re eagerly anticipating your OWN bachelor/bachelorette party, can’t wait to see those naked bodies - well, perhaps you might want to reconsider your marriage thoughts.

Strip joints (at least the reputable ones) are an entirely different thing than private parties at hotels/homes. Although, I have to say, in Texas at least, there is no “don’t touch” rule when it comes to male strippers, and you guys might be a little peeved as to what is acceptable practice. Of course, this is just what I hear. :wink:

Yeah, there must be “nice” strippers out there, I agree with you, Tster. But it’s last thing I’d want to do for a living, and it doesn’t sit well with my personal thoughts about a woman’s diginity. I do think you need to quit worrying about something that hasn’t happened yet - when the times comes, y’all can set some ground rules that everyone can live with, right? I think (forgive me if I’m wrong) that you mentioned he visits topless establishments on occasion. I personally wouldn’t go for that, and as others have suggested, you may need to face that issue before you start getting stressed out about a bachelor party.

Yes, this may be years away. I don’t think I’m stressed out, just curious about other’s opinions on the matter. While going through this process of posting on this board and having others give me his or her honest opinions (I value both), I learn a lot about myself, which is important to do at all times throughout a relationship.

About the strip clubs (not just topless here in S FL), we have discussed and come to an understanding about the strip clubs that we both can handle. No lap dances, no contact, not frequently. I can agree to that and still not like him going. It’s called compromise. He respects my willingness to not make a big deal out of it (it’s only happened once since our major discussion over 6 months ago).

I’m glad you enjoyed it, because in my experience it is dead-on accurate.

Case-in-point #1 – Lou: This is the guy who had his bachelor party at the paintball field (as it was known that bar-hopping would be morally out of bounds for his wife, let alone strip clubs). She called up one of us every single day for four days leading up to the bachelor party, asking questions like will there be strippers, beer etc.? She even called his cell phone while the bachelor party was in progress. :frowning: Turns out she is indeed a controlling bitch. A favorite example is when she threw him a party to celebrate his 30th birthday, and invited a few of his friends, as well as a bunch of her family. Right around the time her family was leaving, the old friends sat down for a little bit of cards, which this old circle of friends hadn’t done together for years. Unfortunately, it wasn’t to be, as she came up to the table – “Lou’s tired and wants to go to bed now. Thanks for coming to his birthday party.” Yeah, happy friggin’ birthday.

Thing is, she didn’t act like this while they were dating (obviously). But on the inside, she was insecure and controlling. Her mistrust of him surrounding the bachelor party was a pretty good indicator of what was coming.

Case-in-point #2 – John: John’s wife treated his bachelor party quite differently. When I randomly bumped into her prior to the party, she off-handedly asked what we had in store, and of course I told her booze, cocaine, and wild dominatrix hookers. Her response? “Make sure she whips him a good one for me!” You see, she trusted her husband, and that trust lasted through into their marriage. Of course, he lives the married life – I can’t expect to call him up on a Friday evening and say “hey, we’re going out, c’mon!” and expect him to up and go. But if I call and say “Next weekend, Friend X is coming to town and we’re all going out,” she lets him out with no hassle.

The bachelor party is the first real test of her trust after he’s signed up for the big commitment. Make jokes if you want – it’s obvious you didn’t start this thread to be open-minded and consider any opinions other than the one you came in with (bachelor parties are barbaric - men are pigs - they should all rot in hell) – but in my experience it’s very true.

Guess what – you’ll never have time to cover every morally ambiguous situation in detail so that he knows for certain what you consider “right” and “wrong”, and furthermore, you have no right to dictate his behavior in such a manner. Trust doesn’t mean you’ve taught him how to behave in every situation. Real trust means you’ve spent enough time together to know that morally, you’re about in the same ballpark, so that when any morally ambiguous situation comes up, you know that he’ll behave in a manner you can respect. That is exactly what I meant in my first post when I said “…you haven’t known him long enough to develop real trust…” By the time a bachelor party is an issue (ie, engagement), this shouldn’t be a problem.

No, but the fact that you don’t want him to go out if there’s a remote possibility that nude wrestling might come up and you haven’t yet covered that chapter in the Handbook for Tster’s Puppies does make you controlling. The fact that you are afraid that if nude wrestling did come up he might not make a decision you could respect does mean you don’t fully trust him. Not that the trust issue is necessarily a bad thing – you haven’t mentioned how long you’ve known this guy and it may not have been long enough for you to know whether you and him see eye-to-eye morally. However, if that’s the case when you get down to bachelor party time, you got engaged too soon.

Ahh, but if he said “You can’t go to the bridal shower, because there’s a chance you might get raging drunk and your friends will talk you into spending our entire life savings on shoes!” then he would definitely be a control freak. :slight_smile:

You pretty much summed up the attitude you already had when you made the original post, and that you haven’t budged from, despite people telling you the opposite. Read the responses to your posts – completely innocent bachelor parties with zero infidelity are way more common than your dreaded hooker-fests by a huge margin. If you boyfriend’s friends have actually witnessed actual groom-hooker sex during a bachelor party, they are among a very small minority of men (and the fact that your boyfriend hangs out with such people should weigh into whether you consider him trustworthy).

Forget the stupid stories you may have read on the internet – they are not representative of the vast majority of real bachelor parties. I mean, you don’t watch one episode of Jerry Springer and assume every man in the world used to be a female that only got a sex change to sleep with his ex-boyfriend’s mother’s sheep, do you? That’s a pretty good equivalent to the wild hooker-sex bachelor party stories. The stories are out there because they are entertaining – a freakshow. The very fact that they are such popular tales makes it obvious that most real people don’t experience such things in their actual lives.

The only comment that I will make about your examples is that you are citing a very extreme example. Come on, how can you possibly compare calling the bachelor while at his own bachelor party to not liking the idea of him doing certain things?

I do not dictate his behaviors at all. I suspect you may have some serious communication issues with your sigificant other (if there is one) if you think that our discussions are in any way a form of dictatorship. It’s called compromise.

I find it interesting that you think I am completely closed minded simply because I don’t agree with you. It’s also funny how well you seem to know me… “bachelor parties are barbaric - men are pigs - they should all rot in hell”. If you truly read this from my posts, perhaps you should read them again with an open mind and try to understand my actual points.

  1. I think many bachelor parties are barbaric, yes, but this board has told me that many are not.
  2. Some men are certainly pigs. I have been lucky in my life and I have been with mostly wonderful men. My ex-husband had his issues but I would never call him a pig. If you take offense at my looking down on the whole concept of tittie bars, I’m sorry. It doesn’t mean I think men are pigs.
  3. Rot in hell?? Seriously?? This comment proved to me that your posts to me are not based on anything I have said and I now see your posts as lacking real substance.

Can I just applaud CrazyMonkey for making two of the most intelligent, objective and observant posts within this thread.

I think he hit the nail on its head, so to speak, when he pointed out that if, when the engagement is on, and there’s a bachelor party in the making, you still don’t trust your husband-to-be (or his friends, or the booze) enough to go to said bachelor party without imagining horrible obscene things to happen, THEN maybe it’s too early for marriage, or worst case, you shouldn’t marry at all.

Oh, and this point rings so true as well:
“jackasses hang out with jackasses”

(Still, I want to point out, I’m a bit hesitant about this strip joint being a norm at bachelor parties - in my circle of friends, I have never ever heard of it happening… Can it be an Anglo-American thing?)

Perhaps we need to define trust.

For all of you guys that think I have an issue… do any of you feel a little strangly when your woman is out with an ex-lover? I don’t mean crazy jealous but do you just kind of wish they wouldn’t see them, talk to them, etc quite so much? It would be perfectly normal. Is this because you don’t trust your woman? Of course not. It’s natural to just feel a certain way about things… sometimes the reason is even hard to explain.

I dont’ think you will find more than a few out of a hundred women who WOULD NOT imagine horrible things about a bachelor party when other naked women are involved. I’ve talked with women married 30 years who still arent’ happy with it, even though she has accepted it.

**This is from the same post, ladies and gentlemen.

And young lady, you are using a mighty broad brush to make all these assumptions. If by “horrible things” you mean stripping, then I’d agree that very few women out of a hundred would NOT fear stripping when there are strippers. If you define “horrible” and the stripper performing overt sexual acts (open folding, handjob, blowjob, intercourse, and the like), I would feel very comfortable with saying that MOST women do NOT think that will happen, they think stripping and focused attention and embarrassment to the groom will happen, which mostly does.

By the way, CrazyMonkey, I really like your style.

He’s a little over the top for my style, but I see a glimmer of intelligence… heh.

Carry on, then.

This is manipulative in the extreme. Allow me to translate:

  1. I have a demand I want my husband to obey.

  2. He has always enjoyed doing [whatever] and feels it is harmless to the relationship. So he feels this is an unreasonable demand.

  3. I will consider his feelings from point #2, and therefore will approach with tact in order to not make him feel it is unreasonable.

That should be in the dictionary under “manipulation.”

If you’re using nights out dancing with your ex to draw a comparison that your boyfriend might relate to, then you are using the wrong tactic. In fact, you are resorting to emotional blackmail.

“You can go to strip clubs if I can go out with my ex.”

The two situations are not the same.

Are the strip clubs your boyfriend frequents populated with his “ex-lovers?”

I’d take a chance and say, no.

You’re equating a situation wherein your boyfriend goes out with his friends and watches naked/topless ladies perform on stage to music with you going out with a guy who has been intimate with you (emotionally or sexually).

The two situations are not the same. You’ve formed an emotional/sexual attachment/relationship with your ex. At the very least, he’s seen you in your knickers. You may (in the past) have told him you love him.

That’s waaay different than your man going to a club with his friends where he might see women taking off their clothing. You’re talking about maintaining a relationship with a person (your ex) that includes emotional/sexual ties and equating it with your boyfriend looking at women whom he does not know, love or desire. In fact, they are women that probably will never speak to him.

Again, I say with compassion, please see this as my opinion It sounds like emotional blackmail to me. Doing it does you a disservice and will ultimately backfire.

I wish you well.

Tster, you have repeatedly contradicted your own statements, and then clothed your arguments in “most women feel this way” despite the fact that some women have disagreed with you in this very thread.

If you can’t trust a man to use good judgement, then you don’t trust him. If you do trust him, but still feel uncomfortable, then that is your personal hangup that you need to work on. If you find a man willing to cave in to every insecurity you have, more power to you. Just don’t blame him later on for being an enabler.

You use analogies that don’t make sense. Dancing with your ex-boyfriend is equivalent to a guy getting a lap dance?! What color is the sky in your world? Unless the stripper is an ex-girlfriend, the two are worlds apart. Most strippers are disgusted by men, and wouldn’t dream of stealing your honey away. Your ex, OTOH, may very well be looking for a roll in the hay

At one point you even said “I think sex should be kept between him and I. I don’t just mean intercourse, I mean the whole thing.” Does this mean your husband is not allowed to masturbate for the rest of his life? That is extremely controlling and unhealthy. In your very next sentence, you say “I am sure this is fairly common so I don’t feel like I’m unreasonable in this.” Since maturbation is sexual activity that doesn’t involve you, I cite this example to demonstrate that you are indeed in the minority.

You have said that all strippers are whores, any woman who masturbates on the internet is a whore, and if those women don’t like being called a whore, they should find a new line of work. I don’t think you actually know what a whore is. Your definition seems to imply that arousing a man for money is what a whore is. I was aroused by the movie Bound. Does that make Gina Gershon and Jennifer Tilly whores?

I thought this was a pretty interesting idea for a bachelor party…

Sorry for the hit and run, is that out of line in here?

You guys are harsh, but that’s ok.

Tell me why an ex is different??? If you trust someone completely, you can trust them to be friends with an ex. Period. Of course it’s a different example but it is the same basic principal. Think about it. I am in a situation that he is not entirely comfortable with (being friends with someone I dated). He trusts that nothing will happen (no contact, no feelings that are not proper) because he knows I love him and he trusts me. The two situations are different, yes, but the common element of trust is there. If you are uncomfortable with your significant other and an ex, dig deep down inside and examine why. It’s that same feeling. It’s not untrust.

Ellis, interesting argument “Unless the stripper is an ex-girlfriend, the two are worlds apart. Most strippers are disgusted by men, and wouldn’t dream of stealing your honey away. Your ex, OTOH, may very well be looking for a roll in the hay”.

I don’t disagree with anything you are saying (except I know the last sentence isn’t true, but for the sake of argument, it could be). The thing is, if you trust your SO, really really trust them, then you would allow them to be friends and quit being selfish (like you are telling me I am). MANY MANY people are friends with exs and see them often. It is because their SO realizes that they can trust them, even though they might have been in love and had sex at some point. The fact that the stripper isn’t interested in my man is obvious and has nothing to do with anything. I certainly don’t think he’s going to sleep with her. Didn’t I say that enough times in these posts?
Ellis, I have issues with the following statement you made and therefore, many of your arguments against me (geez, manipulative to the extreme???)… “If you can’t trust a man to use good judgement, then you don’t trust him.”

Good judgement, huh? I have a feeling his definition of good judgement and mine regarding strip clubs would be very different. Hopefully, when I go with him, they will coincide a little more.

OK, tell me all of you people… what should my tactic be? How should I express to my bf how I feel without being manipulative; according to you guys, it’s impossible. I have to basically deal with whatever will happen and shut up about it and if anything bothers me about anything he does, I might as well break up with him because it’s obvious I don’t trust him. Talking about it to him is a waste of time. Is this basically what you’re saying???

Uncle Bill " I know he wouldn’t do anything that I would have a real problem with" and “I can trust him and still be uncomfortable with things that he might do.” can be both true. A REAL PROBLEM and UNCOMFORTABLE are not exactly the same thing. I can have a real problem with him getting a blow job (and I have said I know he wouldn’t do such a thing) but I can be uncomfortable with him having naked woman grinding on his crotch. In the second situation if I didn’t make my feelings knows (OH NO, DON’T DO THAT YOU MANIPULATIVE WOMAN!!!), he might have had no second thought about doing just that. I would be uncomfortable with it but I still trust him. Once we talk and he tells me that if it bothers me, he wouldn’t do it, then I trust him not to do it. Would he potentially do something that I would be uncomfortable with that we didn’t discuss? Of course he might. Does it mean I don’t trust him? I dont’ see how.

Oh, by the way, chill out about masterbation. I have no problems with that. I do it. When I said two people, I meant not any additional people. I didn’t mean you shouldn’t love your own body.

Ellis, I know what I think a whore is. Who the hell are you to make the ultimate definition? If you don’t like my opinion, disagree with me. Don’t tell me I’m wrong. I also said it’s not black and white.

I didn’t say if they didn’t like the word get a new line of work. I said either get a new line of work or ignore those that you disagree with. Hell I’ve been called lots of things that I didn’t like (Right here on this thread, in fact. You complete strangers seem to know me so well that you can call me names… very interesting) but it doesn’t stop me from doing what I think is right.

For the record, I didn’t tell my bf that if he went to the strip club, I would go out dancing with my ex. I discussed it with him, he thought about it, and then he agreed. If he felt THAT strongly about it, I wouldn’t have done it (hmmm…, that would be considering my bf’s feelings, wouldn’t it?) but he trusts me and said ok. If he felt really upset about the idea (which may indicate a lack of trust and a more than a bit of jealousy) does it mean he’s controlling me if he tells me he’s not comfortable with it? Do I tell him he’s selfish and manipulative? Uh, no.

What he did tell me was that he trusts me 100% and that it was completely fair (good thing he’s my bf & not you guys). If in our actual situation, he considered any part of that emotional blackmail, he sure kept it to himself very well (which he never does, he’s always honest with me).

For the REAL record, you said:

(bolding mine)

It would be fascinating to know what your boyfriend’s friends think of you.

I’m sorry, what is your point? I didn’t deny any of that.

I can’t speak for anyone else but from what I’ve been told, they think I’m smart, witty, & fun to be with and they know how much I love him. Not that it matters, but some of them were told by their significant other that they are not to go to strip clubs so, if they knew anything about our personal conversations, they wouldn’t think they are terrible. That sums up his very close friends that I know. He has tons of friends (women and men) that he spends time with that I don’t know. What I do know is that he is very proud of me and loves me very much (it’s mutual).

Fascinating, huh?