Her boyfriend went to a strip club--is she within her rights to be upset?

In My Humble Opinion
41

Like others have said, the lying is the bad part. Maybe it’s just what I’m used to, but if the BF knew that she would have some problem with it (he must’ve if he knew to lie), then he could’ve told her his plans earlier and talked about it with her. He wouldn’t have necessarily talked her into letting him do it or anything, but he could’ve made his general point clear, “I wanted to be up front with my plans, and even though you disapprove I am still going to go. But at least you know about it ahead of time.”

I don’t know, that’s the way things usually work with my SO and I. We share a trust and make it a point to always be honest with each other.

42

I just realized that I said what should’ve been done and never really addressed whether she was right in being upset. I think she is justified in being upset that he was not up front with her, but she should talk to him about the strip club before she gets angry with him about it.

I’m sure they’ll live through it, though. A relationship that has been going on for a year likely won’t end on something this trivial. But at the time trivial things can seem quite important. She’ll calm down, and things will be fine.

43

this is why i am thankful for the fact my partner has no male friends.

maybe im over estimating the maturity of the average 18 year old, but surely all of this should have been talked through long before it actually happened. i mean the BF must have known it was a family tradition, so should have brought the topic up for discussion well before hand.

sure they arent a couple married for 30 years, but they are a couple and as such are responsible for each others feelings. knowingly lying because you know your partner doesnt aprove is never a good sign in a relationship.
like most people here thats my big sticking point, the lying. and frankly the ‘boys will be boys they clumsily tried to protect her’ really doesnt cut it.
on the wider issue of strip clubs, whatever floats your boat. i have no problems with my partner looking at porn, looking at women in the street, and generally being perverted. my only bitch is when he doesnt point the chick out, doesnt invite me to watch porn with him or send me the revient urls.

44

Does the boyfriend have the right to go to a strip club over your daughter’s objections? Yes. Does your daughter have the right to be peeved at your boyfriend for lying to her and doing something he knows she finds repugnant? Yes. Frankly, at the age of 18, the thought of my boyfriend going to a strip club would have utterly disgusted me. It definitely would have given me second thoughts about our relationship. A one-time vist wouldn’t bother me so much now, but I certainly wouldn’t date a regular habitue of titty bars.

45

I’m a 27 year old titty bar virgin, thanks to my then girlfriend and now loving wife :). She was only 17 when we started going out, and made her opinion very well known that she didn’t want her boyfriend going to strip clubs, and I complied. Why? Because I appreciated her opinion, as closed minded as it may be.

Would I like to go? Sure! Will I ever? Nope…

So, to sum up, I think your daughter has every right to be pissed off and I hope she dumps him. If BF wants to assert his freedom and masculinity by hitting a strip club all the power to him, but if he can’t respect her wishes (even for something so small as this) then he probably doesn’t deserve her.

Disclaimer - This is my very humble opinion, based off the values my wife and I share. No offense/disrespect meant for anyone who steps out to a club even though their wife/SO disapproves. If your wife approves, yer a lucky man :slight_smile:

46

Our culture teaches us that guys are supposed to like looking at nekkid women. Don’t believe me? Ask a guy what sort of reaction he would get if he told his friends that the only naked women he wants to look at is his SO.

Our culture teaches us that women are supposed to be offended when their SO looks at other naked women.

IMHO, this is screwed up.

What I see is that the transaction was designed to enforce both standards - the guys going off to see the strip show, and trying to decieve the girl about their intentions, since after all, she’s supposed to be offended by them going off.

Why shouldn’t guys look? As long as that’s all they do, and they are honest and open about it. We have this belief in our culture that the woman is supposed to be all things sexual to the man. I don’t think this is realistic. Women often find other men sexually attractive even when they love a man; we just tend to be more discriminating :smiley: and tend to be attracted to more unobtainable men. Sean Connery, Mel Gibson, Tom Cruise, Leonardo DiCaprio, the Backstreet Boys, etc. If one of these guys gets you heated up, that’s part of your sexual life.

If she doesn’t like the idea of him going to a strip bar, she needs to do some real thinking on what exactly bothers her about this. What exactly does she think is going to happen that is going to hurt her? What is the worst that could happen?

Does she have the right to forbid him to go? IMO, no, because his action doesn’t affect her in any way. Except for that fact that she doesn’t like it. No one can live their life by doing only what their SO likes; there will always be situations where a person has to do what is right for them despite objections.

Should he not have lied to her? Well DDG has already stated that he didn’t lie. I hope she has the grace to admit that after she calms down. Would it have been terrible if he did? My therapist always pointed out: if someone lied to you, you should ask yourself how you helped them to lie. By placing him in a bad position where he has to choose between her or his family, she encouraged him to lie: his choices were to miss a much-anticipated event that several people were counting on, cause a scene or lie. More succinct is the old adage: if you don’t want to hear the answer, don’t ask the question.

47

Our culture teaches us that guys are supposed to like looking at nekkid women. Don’t believe me? Ask a guy what sort of reaction he would get if he told his friends that the only naked women he wants to look at is his SO.

Our culture teaches us that women are supposed to be offended when their SO looks at other naked women.

IMHO, this is screwed up.

What I see is that the transaction was designed to enforce both standards - the guys going off to see the strip show, and trying to decieve the girl about their intentions, since after all, she’s supposed to be offended by them going off.

Why shouldn’t guys look? As long as that’s all they do, and they are honest and open about it. We have this belief in our culture that the woman is supposed to be all things sexual to the man. I don’t think this is realistic. Women often find other men sexually attractive even when they love a man; we just tend to be more discriminating :smiley: and tend to be attracted to more unobtainable men. Sean Connery, Mel Gibson, Tom Cruise, Leonardo DiCaprio, the Backstreet Boys, etc. If one of these guys gets you heated up, that’s part of your sexual life.

If she doesn’t like the idea of him going to a strip bar, she needs to do some real thinking on what exactly bothers her about this. What exactly does she think is going to happen that is going to hurt her? What is the worst that could happen?

Does she have the right to forbid him to go? IMO, no, because his action doesn’t affect her in any way. Except for that fact that she doesn’t like it. No one can live their life by doing only what their SO likes; there will always be situations where a person has to do what is right for them despite objections.

Should he not have lied to her? Well DDG has already stated that he didn’t lie. I hope she has the grace to admit that after she calms down. Would it have been terrible if he did? My therapist always pointed out: if someone lied to you, you should ask yourself how you helped them to lie. By placing him in a bad position where he has to choose between her or his family, she encouraged him to lie: his choices were to miss a much-anticipated event that several people were counting on, cause a scene or lie. More succinct is the old adage: if you don’t want to hear the answer, don’t ask the question.

If nothing else, she should consider the Golden Rule: how would she feel if he forbade her to do something.

48

Well, damn, I tried not to double post.

49

I’m curious if this changes things for those who are focusing on the “lying.” Some of you posted about lying even after DDG posted the follow-up.

From this explanation it doesn’t appear he lied. His friends gave an obviously ridiculous answer to her question. In my experience this type of explanation is given precisely to clue somebody in that they will be doing something else. When I tell somebody I’m going to see a man about a horse, I’m obviously not going to see a man about a horse. Likewise, they clearly weren’t going to look at a Pepsi display.

Once questioned, the boyfriend immediately told her that he was going to a strip club. There doesn’t appear to be an issue of lying here. It seems to be an issue of control.

It’s perfectly fine for her to not like strip clubs, but then she has a choice to make. She can date a guy who goes to a strip club or not. If she doesn’t like that kind of person, fine. But he didn’t lie to her.

50

Ultimately, what’s more important:

  1. Setting hard boundaries, which almost always leads to issues associated with lying and power plays; or

  2. Agreeing that the relationship is most important, which includes honesty and communication, and often must include allowing the other person to check out stuff you wish they wouldn’t (“if you love something, set it free…”)

I struggle with this with my kids - how am I going to react when they start to drink and party? Will a contract promising to call me when they are loaded be enough for me - at what point in their experimentation will I snap and draw hard boundaries? Are hard boundaries what they will benefit most from? What is best for your daughter - setting hard boundaries or letting her BF experiment and arriving at what’s best for the relationship together? I know what sounds ideal, but people can get lost along the way to the ideal, and it is not always clear when a harder line should be taken.

This stuff is difficult for anyone, let alone two 18-year-olds. A strip club is like booze, cigarettes, spanking your children, or even deciding how to deal with toilet seat lid - of varying moral/legal appropriateness to a wide spectrum of people, but ultimately a testing ground for a relationship…

best of luck dealing with it…

[hijack]

By the way, DDG - my wife is from Decatur! I have been there more times than I can count. She went to St. Theresa…

[/hijack]

51

A “rite of passage”? What a load of bullshit. I’m as red-blooded and straight a male as you’ll find and I never found it necessary to go to a strip club as a “rite of passage.”

If DDG’s daughter has a problem with it, well, her boyfriend should have taken that into consideration. It is not, in my opinion, unreasonable for her to object to him going to a strip club, but it’s between them. He has the RIGHT to go anyway. She has the RIGHT to tell him to go to hell as long as he’s on his way.

There’s no right or wrong with respect to “should he go to strip clubs?” That’s for them to decide. If DDG Jr. has a real problem with it, maybe DDG Jr’s boyfriend needs to decide if it’s worth it. Personally, I don’t see how it could be. Strip clubs are sleazy and stupid and generally about as fun as a thumbtack bath.

But personally, I think it WAS wrong to lie. He should have told her what was going on and asked her what she felt of it. Some women wouldn’t mind, some would. And if she said she minded he should deal with it.

52

Which really isn’t doing bad for 18. He may have tried to avoid the issue, but wasn’t going to lie to her when asked, point blank - not even to back up his buddies’ cover story. You’d expect more from him at 25 (like not keeping quiet while the buddies feed her the line of BS), but chances are he’ll grow into it.

I think here’s the thing. They’ve been raised in different families, with different values on some things. Your daughter will have to decide for herself what’s negotiable and what isn’t.

Exactly. She can tell him that his doing X will make her unhappy, and if it makes her unhappy enough, she can tell him that if he does X, he can find himself a new GF. And part of growing up is figuring out what’s negotiable, and where you can’t give ground without sacrificing your own integrity.

53

I’d have to respectfully disagree, RickJay. While in many ways, the U.S.A. has a common culture, in lots of other ways, we’re a thousand different subcultures. When I turned 18, nobody in my circle of friends would have remotely considered hauling me off to a strip joint as part of the occasion. But I’m sure there were other social groupings in my own high school where the occasion wouldn’t have been thought complete without it.

Each subculture will have its own norms on such things.

54

She has every right to be upset and no one has the authority to tell her to ‘deal with it.’ If she’s uncomfortable with it, then there is no reason why she should change her emotions and feelings for anyone. She’s probably upset because she loves him and to her, love means that neither one of them would want to or have to engage in that sort of activity. Probably the thought of a stripper giving him ‘special attention’ of any kind because it was his birthday is what upsets her the most, maybe she thinks it’s a sleazy place to be, maybe she thought more of her boyfriend. In any case, if she talked about it with him, and he just blew it off and lied to her, then he is just saving his own ass and doesn’t seem to care too much about her or her feelings. ‘Rite of Passage’ is a load of bullshit. He makes it sound like he has to do it because it’s what everyone in his family has done. I’m pretty sure that’s not the case. They may not be married but if they are in any sort of serious relationship, he should at least consider her feelings.

55

Nobody’s saying she can’t be upset. The issue is her reaction.

The later information the daughter gave makes it pretty clear that the boyfriend didn’t lie. His friends made a joke, and when she asked what he was really going to do he told her immediately.

I’m a little surprised that people keep talking about the boyfriend’s “lie”. How on earth is “Q: Where are you going? A: To a strip club” a lie? The bottom line is the boyfriend didn’t lie.

It’s perfectly fine for her to not want to date a guy who goes to strip clubs. If that’s the problem, then she should break up. But she shouldn’t use his “dishonesty” as a pretext for being upset. She asked a question and he answered it directly. That’s not dishonesty by any definition.

56

i think i’ll have to agree with zyada on this one…our culture (which grew out of certain biological tendencies) does tend to define males and females in certain ways: men always want to see naked women, women don’t feel comfortable that that because it feels like a threat. and i admit, i’m a product of my culture. the thought of my boyfriend going to a strip club might give me pause, but as long as it wasn’t a regular thing, and as long as he was only looking, then fine. but that’s just me.

now that the issue of the lying (which he didn’t do) has been resolved, the issue is more one of communication. had they previously discussed this? i dated someone for two and a half years and i have no idea whether he looked at porn and he would’ve resented me telling him not to. has she asked before now how he feels about this? or did the issue just surface right before the event?

yes, he should’ve told her and given her time to get used to the idea or present rational objections to it and discuss it between themselves. but yes, he’s 18. even at 23, i find it can be difficult to broach a subject that you know will be difficult, and i’d like to think that i’m a lot more mature than he is. maybe he just kept saying to himself that he’d tell her and kept fearing her response. at least he told her when she directly asked him.

aquariusrhimme, yes she has every right to be upset. nobody can tell her what she can and can’t feel. her feelings are justified because they’re based on her moral sense of what’s right and her fears for her relationship and a certain amount of cultural innoculation. given that, he has a right to his feelings too, his right to his rite of passage or to once or twice (as long as it’s not frequent) feast his eyes in a place like that. some guys are able to forgo for their SOs, some aren’t, especially when they’re 18 and maybe don’t have the social backbone that some others do.

if she feels that strongly, then she just needs to talk about it with him. sometimes you have to get used to certain things that are distasteful to you. if it’s just something you can’t, then you break up with the person. or if he promises it’s a one time deal, then maybe that could work too. i dunno. communication is the key.

57

I admit that I didn’t read that before I posted, but I still think he should’ve been more up front with her. On the other hand, I don’t really think she’s justified in being all that upset anymore.

58

There’s a great deal of focus on the fact that he’s “just looking”.

I assume we have somehow divined that his “family tradition” precludes the purchase of lap dances for the hapless youngster? Or are we collectively of the opinion that a lapdance falls into the category of “just looking”?

  • Rick
59

He probably could not have avoided going without losing face among his friends. I

think she could have been a bit more understanding about it, but he should have been truthful - she may or may not have acquiesced, but at least the issue would have been in the open.

Maybe she felt slighted b/c she was left out of his birthday celebration? Did they have the time/opportunity to celebrate it together?

60

Quite honestly, I’ve been posting on the assumption that it is “just looking”. If she feared he was going to do more I assumed she would have brought that up to DDG instead of focusing on alleged dishonesty.