I'm not trying to get into a theological debate with you because I'm not necessarily one of those women who is anti-stripper. But there are several relevant verses in the Bible that express God's distaste for anything that creates lust or sexual desire outside of the marriage relationship.

You have heard that it was said by them of old time, "you will not commit adultery." But I say unto you, that whoever looks on a woman to lust after her has committed adultery with her already in his heart.
-Matthew 5:27, 28

Proverbs 15:18-19 (NIV) says "Let your fountain be blessed: rejoice with the wife of your youth. Let her be as the loving fawn and the pleasant roe: let her breasts satisfy you at all times, and be ravished always with her love." Proverbs 15:20 (NIV) goes on to say "And why will you, my son, be ravished with a strange woman, and embrace the bosom of a stranger?"

James 1:14 (NIV) says "each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death."

And for the strippers...

I also want women to dress modestly, with decency and propriety... with good deeds, appropriate for women who profess to worship God.
-1 Timothy 2:9, 10

Anyway, "hate the sin, love the sinner" and all that good stuff. But going to a strip club is basically placing yourself in a den of lust. I can see why a strong Christian woman would not want her husband to have a stripper at his bachelor party. It's not censorship of women, because the verses should be applicable to both sexes. It's about respecting the marriage (or impending marriage).

CarolinaCutie you have a good memory :)

I can see what you are saying about strong christian women not being comfortable with strippers in that context.

I can also see why there are less religious women that would naturally feel threatened by strippers and their aura of sexuality.

Personally I have little invested in the debate. Although many probably think that I am being a devil's advocate or argumentative, i do indeed know of a large percentage of men that have cheated during their bachelor party.

I don't think its necessarily a big issue (to me) its just a choice they make a consequence they have to accept if she finds out.

I do find that a lot of women I know are . . . naive . .. about it.

I was actually thinking that maybe a lot of women knew about it, but refused to think about it because they didn't want to ruin their relationship.

Would you really want to know? If it was a one time thing?

I would hope that James's friends are the exception to the rule. It doesn't bother me what other guys do... just what my guy does. Well that is not completely true, I have some good friends who are currently engaged... and they would be crushed if their future husbands cheated on them at any point... and some of them can be pretty vindictive.
:D

Um, good for you?

About the "insecure" comment re: women who "forbid" their husbands from having strippers at their bachelor party.

I have to disagree. My husband and I had a joint bachelor/bachelorette weekend with our wedding attendants and friends. It was great. I said from the outset that I disagreed with the "requirement" of strippers at a bachelor party because I think the sentiment is ridiculous. "One last hurrah" or "one last night of freedom" is pretty offensive to the sentiment of marriage ( we're practicing Catholics, so that's our definition of marriage as it relates to us). It's pretty ridiculous to think that marriage = the end of a man's "freedom" or fun. Hell, if you're to the point of engagement surely you've been dating for x amount of years before hand, surely you could have had your precious "freedom" before then? Or backed out if you weren't sure?

Also: stuffing $$ into another woman's underpants just before starting a life together? To me that feels disrespectful, especially if you share finances...spending the money that you've earned together to pay for another woman to rub her boobs in your face? Heck honey, save your money and come home from work early ;).

I just disagree that not wanting your husband to go and spend hours and money at a strip club means that you're insecure. It means that you've clearly articulated your boundaries. Strippers crosses a boundary for me, as it does for my husband (he clearly said that he'd prefer that I not have a hen night with strippers...instead I had a bowling night and pizza with my friends in Scotland before I came home).

The operative element that you didn't address is the "forbid" portion - remember, the bachelor party is as much for the guy's friends as it is for the bachelor himself, and if you're not in a position to trust him around "women of the night", no matter how exploitative or offensive you find it, you're potentially in a poor position for marriage.

If you two sit down and decide it's not for you, great - that kind of discussion is the bedrock of a successful relationship (no matter whether you wind up agreeing or disagreeing!). If you feel the need to "forbid" it, there are issues - for many women, these may include insecurity, although not in every situation obviously.

This is without getting into the fact that marriage certainly DOES change the way a man interacts with his friends, as it damn well better - especially as a practicing Catholic, I would hope that you would understand the way the bond of covenant fundamentally alters, for the better, what is expected of a guy. To act like it's offensive to recognize that a new step means new boundaries is pretty disingenuous, especially when you have to fly your argument out to the 30,000 foot level to make it work.

I used " " around forbid because I think that the word is being perhaps misused in the original poster's message. I didn't specifically say to my fiance (now husband) "I FORBID you to go to a strip joint, and if you do, I'll leave you." Because that sort of sounds patronizing. I said, "I'm not comfortable with you having strippers or going to a strip club because of x, y and z reason. It crosses a boundary for me in our relationship, and if you or your best man (who incidentally used to spend a LOT of time and money in strip clubs) feel it absolutely necessary to go to a strip club for your bachelor party, we're going to have to have a serious discussion about it."

No forbidding, but laying out there that I was not comfortable with it. I don't see how that makes it less trusting of him? I do trust that he would not cheat on me, let alone cheat with a woman who makes money off of such enterprises, otherwise we wouldn't have been in a relationship nor would we have gotten engaged. The stripper thing is a special situation that needs clarification, much like many things in married life.

I'm not sure I'm reading your last paragraph correctly? Yeah we have different interactions with our friends now that we're married, mainly because now we live together and we can't blow off the laundry to go spend the evening doing whatever else, plus we have to now budget for our household. But I don't get this

I agree with your first sentence. It fundamentally altered what was expected of both of us. We're now legally and religiously bound to love, honor, respect and support each other. Before our marriage, we did those things because we loved each other and wanted to remain together. We now have to say "no" to some friend things (individually and as a couple) because we have to budget or because we have chores to do or because it's just not our bag. It's part of the deal.

The second part is confusing. It sounds like you're saying because a couple haven't yet made their vows, that it's OK for a partner to celebrate with a stripper party because that's marking the transition into marriage? To me and my relationship, the stripper boundary existed waaaaaaaay before engagement and marriage came into the picture. Surely, a transition can be marked by any one of a number of other activities?

Remember, I was speaking as a hypothetical - I know absolutely nothing about your relationship other than what you've said, although it didn't seem at all like "forbid" entered into the equation, which was exactly my point. Forbidding someone is a poor method, for the reasons I've outlined, and might be indicative of the ancillary elements I laid out.

Also, you basically effectively forbid it without actually saying that - just an FYI, you might have felt better about the way it went down, but you did box him in pretty effectively if it went down like this. ;) I know it's more nuanced than that, and I'm mostly teasing, but thought I'd note that.

So he's now required (note I didn't say "forced" - that was the implication you brought, though) to give up some things due to his new commitments and expectations. Conversely, he no longer does some of the things he used to do - hence, bachelor party, QED-ish.

Remember: he did those things before out of love, but now he's contractually bound. The whole enterprise is intended to joke with the dude that he can't do any of the things he NEVER DID BEFORE ANYWAY! Hence the dog collars or shots out of a turkey baster or whatever.

All I'm saying is that you're railing against a strawman by taking offense to the "last hurrah" portion of the presentation, then turning around and acknowledging that married life will require him to interact with his wife, his friends and really his day-to-day life differently. A bachelor party as celebration of the "end of an era" is not an insult to the wife any more than a wedding is an insult to his friends. After all, wouldn't that be the converse?

If some want to do it with strippers and bacchanalia, that's understandable in a way, because you're sort of rubbing the "loss" of that in the guy's face in a teasing or jocular manner - and once again, 95% of guys don't even do the things they're no longer 'allowed' to do by covenant or contract.

For what it's worth, I've been to literally dozens of bachelor parties and can't think of a single time in which the groom did something that I would consider morally reprehensible or wrong - certainly nothing even remotely close to what I would consider important for the wife-to-be to know. I think James was being incendiary.