How to discuss stripping with my "retired" girlfriend
Hello everyone,
I've read pretty much the entire forum :) but I thought I would ask the ladies for some personal advice.
I'm just a regular fellow who fell in love a while ago with a woman whom I intend to marry. She danced for fifteen years or so before retiring a few years ago.
I've been in a SC maybe a total of six times in my life, always with customers or friends, never spent more than $20 in a club, never really had a huge amount of interest in it.
The problem I'm facing is this. I wanted to know everything about her, because I love her. I didn't understand how the business really worked --- was she turning tricks? did she fall in love with customers? was it all business? --- so I asked questions about her experiences so I could understand her better. She became angry with me, saying I disapproved of her. Of course, when I say something in response like "I have no issue with you stripping"... well, that's the kind of thing that just sounds insincere.
I want to let her know that I approve of and support her previous choices. I wish she would share her feelings and experiences from those years with me. I joined SW to try to get some honest answers about the business. I really think I understand it reasonably well now --- as well as someone can who has never danced, anyway.
Ladies, what could a man say to you that would convince you that he loves you, supports your choice to have danced, and has no moral or jealousy issue with it?
Re: How to discuss stripping with my "retired" girlfriend
If you really want to prove it's not an issue for you than say nothing.
Unfortunately it sounds like it's already too late. Never too late to stop asking of course....
Re: How to discuss stripping with my "retired" girlfriend
Quote:
Originally Posted by
yoda57us
If you really want to prove it's not an issue for you than say nothing.
Unfortunately it sounds like it's already too late. Never too late to stop asking of course....
Ty! I was gonna say this but then I decided against it.
If you don't care stop bringing it up! She did it in the past, it doesn't have any effect on you leave it alone. I mean why do you even care?
Re: How to discuss stripping with my "retired" girlfriend
Hi there!Well,if you read pretty much the whole forum,you should have noticed that being a dancer is just a job,just like any other job.Anything that goes beyond depends on the person in particular.
If she has been in the industry that long,my guess would be that she was a "clean" dancer,a true professional.Also I'm guessing that, since you said she retired a few years ago.If she danced in the 90's,clubs were not as full of extras and demanding custies as today.I'm making my guesses based on all long term veterans of the biz that I know,myself included.
If you can,just leave the subject alone,like others said.Why would you take such an interest in her previous occupation anyway,especialy since it's been a few years?It doesn't really make any difference,just trust her.
And please keep reading the forums and maybe invite her to join.You'll see how many wonderful,razor sharp smart,wise,educated,talented,caring (and so on) dancers you can meet here.
Re: How to discuss stripping with my "retired" girlfriend
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Vorenus
I wanted to know everything about her, because I love her. I didn't understand how the business really worked --- was she turning tricks? did she fall in love with customers? was it all business?
some of those questions would make me mad too. Just leave well enough alone and be happy with her in the present. If she wants you to know something she'll tell you. Being asked a million questions about stripping is annoying!
Re: How to discuss stripping with my "retired" girlfriend
Do you ask about all her previous realtionships too? If she had another job would you question whether she ever dated a co-worker or someone else she met through work? ... My guess is probably not.
If you really love her than you'll trust and respect her enough not to keep pestering about it. Regardless of what ever her answers might be, it is in the past.
Re: How to discuss stripping with my "retired" girlfriend
Quote:
Originally Posted by
verfolgung
Do you ask about all her previous realtionships too? If she had another job would you question whether she ever dated a co-worker or someone else she met through work? ... My guess is probably not.
Yes and yes.
We've been seeing each other for over a year, we'd both like this to be our last marriage, and we are no longer children. So we'd like to know what there is to know about each other, good, bad, indifferent. And when you marry someone in your forties, you'd be a fool to imagine you will reset the odometer and never think about what you've done or where you've been.
I'm perfectly willing to never talk about it with her again, but I'm afraid she will read that as silent disapproval.
Quote:
Originally Posted by JayATee
I mean why do you even care?
For the same reason I care about her childhood stories, her high school prom, and her first after-school job. When you love someone, you want to know about them, and you want to know them as well as you can. Call me sentimental, I guess.
Re: How to discuss stripping with my "retired" girlfriend
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Vorenus
I want to let her know that I approve of and support her previous choices. I wish she would share her feelings and experiences from those years with me. I joined SW to try to get some honest answers about the business. I really think I understand it reasonably well now --- as well as someone can who has never danced, anyway.
Ladies, what could a man say to you that would convince you that he loves you, supports your choice to have danced, and has no moral or jealousy issue with it?
Say this to her, instead of us, then leave it at that.
Here it is with the necessary changes having been made:
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Vorenus
I want you to know that I approve of and support your previous choices. I hope that you can share your feelings and experiences from those years with me, but understand if you don't wish to. I joined SW to try to get some honest answers about the business. I really think I understand it reasonably well now --- as well as someone can who has never danced, anyway.
I love you, I support your choice to have danced, and I have no moral or jealousy issue with it
ETA: You can safely assume she's done or said things in her life that she isn't proud of, or wishes she'd done differently. We all have. Before you go turning over every stone to see what's underneath prior to asking her to marry you, take an honest look inside yourself. See if you've acted perfectly (whatever that is) your whole life. Ask yourself if you want all your secrets out there for close inspection. If you are a bible guy, remember what Jesus said when they were about to stone the prostitute: "let he who is without sin cast the first stone".
Re: How to discuss stripping with my "retired" girlfriend
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Vorenus
Yes and yes.
We've been seeing each other for over a year, we'd both like this to be our last marriage, and we are no longer children. So we'd like to know what there is to know about each other, good, bad, indifferent. And when you marry someone in your forties, you'd be a fool to imagine you will reset the odometer and never think about what you've done or where you've been.
I'm perfectly willing to never talk about it with her again, but I'm afraid she will read that as silent disapproval.
A little mystery goes a long way in romantic relationships. I think some secrets are vital to a healthy marriage, and having been married for 9 years now, it seems to be working out great for us.
My husband and I have separate facebook accounts, and aren't on each other's friends list. He never joins me at the salon, and all "beauty" treatments are done without his knowledge. We have separate bank accounts and even take separate vacations on occasion. I don't discuss physical ailement's with my husband; that's what girlfriends and doctors are for! I also don't complain about my looks or physical insecurities around my husband, because he has no idea I'm concerned about wrinkles or cellulite or whatever, and he just doesn't see it anyway.;)
I know that sounds really old fashioned, but it totally works for us. We take the time to discuss things that really matter, like how to parent, how to best save for the future, what we want to save up for in the future, etc. We've eliminated the petty stuff like "was she better in bed?" and things of that nature.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Vorenus
For the same reason I care about her childhood stories, her high school prom, and her first after-school job. When you love someone, you want to know about them, and you want to know them as well as you can. Call me sentimental, I guess.
So let the topics come up naturally in conversation. You two are going to be together for the rest of your lives, it's not like you won't have time to reminisce.
Re: How to discuss stripping with my "retired" girlfriend
Well, many people seem to find strippers fascinating, so it gets annoying being asked a million questions. If you just relax and tell her you didn't mean to make her feel uncomfortable and you have no issues with her having been a dancer that should resolve things. Many people are very judgemental so it really isn't odd that she took your curiosity as disapproval. Also, most clean dancers would be very insulted if someone they loved asked them if they were hooking. I know I would probably be very hurt, even if that person wasn't being accusatory.
Re: How to discuss stripping with my "retired" girlfriend
I don't see anything at all wrong with you wanting to know about what it was like for her to be a stripper. Stripping may be just a job to us, but I would never expect an industry outsider to understand that. It's not like being a waitress or cashier where everyone in the world knows what your job description is.
For most people, the reality and inner workings of strip clubs are a complete mystery. I mean, if I started dating a guy who was in prison or had worked for the peace corps, I would want to hear the whole story with all the details. Not only to satisfy my own curiosity, but because sharing your past experiences is part of getting to know each other.
I do think that you should tell her what you've told us. Write her a letter if you have to. If she still won't talk to you about it, I'd see that as a red flag. It's one thing for her to not offer up information, but if you're asking questions, then I think it's weird and sketchy to refuse to talk about it. That would make me think that she does have something to hide.
Re: How to discuss stripping with my "retired" girlfriend
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Vorenus
Yes and yes.
We've been seeing each other for over a year, we'd both like this to be our last marriage, and we are no longer children. So we'd like to know what there is to know about each other, good, bad, indifferent. And when you marry someone in your forties, you'd be a fool to imagine you will reset the odometer and never think about what you've done or where you've been.
I'm perfectly willing to never talk about it with her again, but I'm afraid she will read that as silent disapproval.
For the same reason I care about her childhood stories, her high school prom, and her first after-school job. When you love someone, you want to know about them, and you want to know them as well as you can. Call me sentimental, I guess.
It's not being sentimental. It may be prying. How have you questioned her? By interrogation or by actual genuine interest? Im sorry I have to say, just by the way you worded your question:
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Vorenus
was she turning tricks? did she fall in love with customers? was it all business?
would piss me off and make me defensive and not want to talk about it either. The truth is, it may be too late for her to think you have anything but disapproval.
Not to mention that none of this matters and none of her answers have any effect on you or your relationship. It should not matter to you at all. Past is past. Let it stay where it belongs.
Re: How to discuss stripping with my "retired" girlfriend
Being a busy body does not equate to an exhibition of love. If you love her, you'll respect her right to privacy and stop prying into her past. You mention it's your intention to marry her. If you can't get over the need to know EVERYTHING about her personal business now, I'm sorry to say you'll have trouble in married life as your behavior does point to jealousy and distrust on your part no matter how much you say that's not the case.
I'm not just talking about her dancing past. We all have a need to keep some things private and maintain a certain degree of personal space. If she's comfortable sharing information with you, she'll volunteer it on her own. However, pressuring her for personal information she's reluctant to divulge will just cause walls to be built, which leads to more distrust, which leads to greater walls being built... it becomes a vicious cycle spiraling out of control until the relationship fails.
On the issue of her believing there may be "silent disapproval" on your part, perhaps the ladies on this board could chime in on the likelihood of that and if there's a need to do anything to put her mind at rest. If you feel the need for damage control, at this point I don't think there's much you can do except apologize for your behavior. Maybe just say that your intention was only to learn how her past experiences helped her become the woman you fell in love with today, that you recognize that you were insensitive and foolish to pry, and that you swear to never repeat that mistake again. What's in the past is irrelevant... you know you love her unconditionally and that's all that you need to know. Then leave it alone and never bring it up again.
I dunno, that's my suggestion though I won't be surprised if some of the ladies here tell me I'm way off base. I'm just a guy after all... I know I'll never fully understand the inner workings of the female mind!
Re: How to discuss stripping with my "retired" girlfriend
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Vorenus
... For the same reason I care about her childhood stories, her high school prom, and her first after-school job. When you love someone, you want to know about them, and you want to know them as well as you can. Call me sentimental, I guess.
So have you signed up for classmates.com to find out stories from her school days? Heh.
Yes love is about wanting to know someone else completely, but part of knowing someone completely is also understanding what makes them uncomfortable and not trying to force those things on them.
She will not take it as "silent disapproval" if you simply apologize for bringing up questions about her dancer past and tell her you love her and respect her enough to promise not to bring it up again.
Re: How to discuss stripping with my "retired" girlfriend
asking if she was a hooker is not "sentimental." It's offensive. If she told you she worked at office depot, would you ask "so, were you a thief? did you steal from the till? Did you ever fuck your boss for a raise?"
I agree with the others. Apologize, and don't bring it up again.
Re: How to discuss stripping with my "retired" girlfriend
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Elvia
asking if she was a hooker is not "sentimental." It's offensive. If she told you she worked at office depot, would you ask "so, were you a thief? did you steal from the till? Did you ever fuck your boss for a raise?"
It was out of line, yes. And I didn't ask it with the directness summarized in what was meant to be a short post that recapped a week's worth of conversation.
In my defense, I will say that *everything* I knew about SCs came from guys I know who claim to have slept with dancers time and time again for money. There's a post on this board somewhere where people talk about the difference between "customer boards" and this board. What I heard about SCs, and what I knew about SCs, was the equivalent of reading the worst of the customer forums.
Put it this way. I used to sell cars. I never cheated anybody, and often went out of my way to avoid cheating someone. But if somebody asked, "did you rip people off?" I would assume that this came from what they'd heard about the business.
In any event, I appreciate all the responses. My original post reads a little more bluntly than I'd like. I wanted to avoid weighing you guys down with a 10-paragraph diatribe, and in retrospect it looks a little curt and rude.
Reading SW has been a tremendous help for me, actually, and I appreciate everything that the dancers have written. What I was hoping to find out about stripping was that you all made a zillion dollars, enjoyed the heck out of the business, and never had a bad day or felt depressed. Obviously that's not the case, but it still seems like most of you have had some success from it. Just another job, as someone said.
In reality, it doesn't matter what the lady in my case did, or didn't do. She's the girl for me, now and forever. I just wanted to be able to share more of her life. Maybe she will eventually decide to tell me more, or maybe she won't. Either way, I love her.
Re: How to discuss stripping with my "retired" girlfriend
^^^ Great! Now go and tell her about a great site you discovered. With her wealth of experience she probably has some great advice she could share. ;)
Re: How to discuss stripping with my "retired" girlfriend
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Vorenus
It was out of line, yes. And I didn't ask it with the directness summarized in what was meant to be a short post that recapped a week's worth of conversation.
In my defense, I will say that *everything* I knew about SCs came from guys I know who claim to have slept with dancers time and time again for money. There's a post on this board somewhere where people talk about the difference between "customer boards" and this board. What I heard about SCs, and what I knew about SCs, was the equivalent of reading the worst of the customer forums.
Put it this way. I used to sell cars. I never cheated anybody, and often went out of my way to avoid cheating someone. But if somebody asked, "did you rip people off?" I would assume that this came from what they'd heard about the business.
In any event, I appreciate all the responses. My original post reads a little more bluntly than I'd like. I wanted to avoid weighing you guys down with a 10-paragraph diatribe, and in retrospect it looks a little curt and rude.
Reading SW has been a tremendous help for me, actually, and I appreciate everything that the dancers have written. What I was hoping to find out about stripping was that you all made a zillion dollars, enjoyed the heck out of the business, and never had a bad day or felt depressed. Obviously that's not the case, but it still seems like most of you have had some success from it. Just another job, as someone said.
In reality, it doesn't matter what the lady in my case did, or didn't do. She's the girl for me, now and forever. I just wanted to be able to share more of her life. Maybe she will eventually decide to tell me more, or maybe she won't. Either way, I love her.
If you truely feel this way then I think there is a pretty good chance you'll get to hear some about it in time. Some girls find dancing really, really stressful and some also feel like talking about it to a SO would be disrespectful. It's just uncomfortable talking about getting hit on constantly and pretending to enjoy it with someone you love. Kinda akin to an actor discussing shooting a past love scene with their SO in detail...just not fun.
Re: How to discuss stripping with my "retired" girlfriend
Quote:
Originally Posted by
JayATee
Ty! I was gonna say this but then I decided against it.
If you don't care stop bringing it up! She did it in the past, it doesn't have any effect on you leave it alone. I mean why do you even care?
Whenever I would see a guy I would wonder if she did him.
She sounds like an honest person or she would have said I only did air dances and never ever touched a PL.
I would advise you not to marry the women as you will wonder but you don't really want to know.
Re: How to discuss stripping with my "retired" girlfriend
You might need to look inside yourself and really ask why you want to know. Is it just curiosity? I don't really blame you for being curious about how she lived 15 years of her life, actually. OTOH you really might be better off not thinking about it. If there really is some underlying jealousy you might need to face it now and learn to deal with it now before you marry her, because you're going to have to learn to deal with it eventually. Better now than after you are married, and especially if she has already shown resistance to talking about it. That's not going to get any better down the road, trust me.
I for one am not going to bullshit you. It's a fucked up business in a lot of ways, especially in certain areas and certain clubs. I worked in clubs where 75% of the dancers were blowing the guys. And they were doing it in those clubs 15 years ago (though I only saw it and/or knew about it as an employee 10 years ago myself).
And that's not anything near a normal job, no. Even in the clean clubs like down here, it's not a job the vast majority of women can handle 15 years running without developing a very thick skin to certain kinds of recurrent customer behavior and managerial situations, whether or not they are giving extras. You don't get guys splooging their pants and you can feel it on your leg or ass in any office, retail, or sales job, for instance--and that can happen easily even if she is a clean dancer.
A dancer I was dating had a guy come right on her bare kitty because he had prepositioned his dick pointing up as they will do, and it came out the top of his pants while she was grinding him. She went running into the bathroom and freaking out, trying to wash it off in the sink. It was sort of funny but mostly she was grossed the fuck out, I'll tell you.
But as they say, odds are if she did it 15 years she wasn't too heavily involved in extras. Those kind of dancers either don't last 15 years, or become so hardened you'd definitely have a good idea that she had been through some things like that. I've worked with many of them, many many hundreds actually out of a couple thousand altogether*, and you can usually easily tell. So I doubt it.
Some women do start off doing extras, knuckling under to the pressure in serious extras club as newbies, and back off after a few months. Some women have nights where they really need the money and go a little further than they would otherwise, but always regret it. I have had several friends who did this. And they aren't going to want to tell you about it, no. And you really might not want to hear it.
Some women have strict boundaries with all customers but then a few months or years down the road there comes one that clicks and they wind up sleeping with the guy or fooling around and crossing their lines at work even. Some get aroused easily and slip sometimes early on, but less and less so as years go by--except again with the rare special guy. I have seen many, many threads describing this, had friends who did it, and dated a few. If you have a jealous streak I would advise against looking for the threads here.
But many dancers never, ever cross the line, and do in fact treat it just as another job--albeit a very unusual type of job--especially in certain kinds of clubs and in certain areas. A very high proportion of the dancers here, for sure.
Again, I would look inside yourself and ask why you want to know, before you ever think of asking her anymore about it.
*ETA Probably not hundreds of 15 year veteran extras dancers, rather ones doing it for many years running. But it takes a lot less than 15 years in a heavy extras club to develop that toughness I am referring to. Hell I have worked with women in their 50s who'd been blowing guys for 20 years. It's almost always very sad when you think about it, but if you want to deal with them in a working environment, you have to get hardened too in a somewhat different way. And a sense of humor can help sometimes, as when facing most difficult issues.