sorry, can't take it any more, likely to explode.

I read this comment in a blog entry that was completely unrelated; this comment was completely off-topic, and yet, there it was and it ignites a FURY in me:

Donna-
The Oprah I saw was just a few months ago, maybe it was a rerun. The point was that this chick freaked out over a stripper at a bachelor party. If she wanted to have a stripper at her bachelorette party that's her perogative, but just because she doesn't want one give her the right to dictate what her fiance's buddies do for him at his. And the fact that she would fall apart over it and then drag him to the Oprah makes her an insecure cunt who is only going to become less secure and controlling over time.

As for Oprah, one can only hope that her self-absorbtion reaches some critical level and she implodes.

Comments about Oprah aside. I'm even, for now, setting aside, the invocation of "C-U-Next-Tuesday" towards the woman. The part that infuriates me, that makes my blood BOIL, is the assumption that men deserve and have a GOD-GIVEN RIGHT to interact with naked women prior to their wedding without any input whatsoever from the woman they are about to marry. "Sorry, girlie. You can go have a man strip for you, if you like, but you have NO RIGHT TO ANY FEELINGS WHATSOEVER with regard to me having a naked woman gyrate over my body within a week of our wedding!"

In our culture, in general, men go to strip clubs and get lapdances because they want to be titillated, and they want to be stimulated, often literally and physically, by the women they are ogling. They desire to reach sexual fulfillment and indulge these urges. In our culture, in general, this is NOT why women go to strip clubs where men are stripping. Women go to share a laugh and a good time with other women. I know, you can give me a hundred examples of women you know personally who are "exceptions to the rule," who are having loud orgasms at the vision of a man in a thong gyrating in front of her. That doesn't tend to be the NORM, however, of women at bachelorette parties. The goal is not to bring the bride-to-be to orgasm, or to symbolically give her one last fling. The object might be to make her uncomfortable or to have a laugh or just emulate the experience that men are sharing in an attempt to "be equal." But it's not an equal experience. While men are primary stimulated visually, women tend primarily not to be. While women are, every day, everywhere, objectified sexually, and while men also are, men are not objectified and used sexually to the extent that women are. It's NOT an equal experience.

Even setting aside the fact that it's not an equal experience, it's ridiculous to contend that one person in a relationship gets a free pass at something the other person finds uncomfortable or even unacceptable simply because of peer pressure. That's what it amounts to: a bunch of guys would like to go to a strip club, and jump at the opportunity of a marriage as an excuse to go, because it's "tradition" for men to go to a strip club for bachelor parties, therefore they threaten the groom-to-be with terms such as "pussy-whipped" if he does not go along with the plan. A man who is interested in going to a strip club does not even need the potential threat; he is ready for the excuse to run off and doesn't care that his bride-to-be might feel uncomfortable or unhappy about it. Here is where the difference is again clear: "I don't care if you go to a strip club, my sweet bride-to-be; that doesn't threaten me at all. So you're just going to have to get over the fact that I am going to go." That's called emotional blackmail.

If I am uncomfortable with a behavior that my significant other is engaging in, I have a right to speak to him about it. Depending on the type of relationship he and I have, and depending on what behaviors are "deal-breakers" to me, I also have the right to threaten to end the relationship if a behavior is abhorrent enough to me. My right to an opinion on his behavior can range from my opinions on an annoying habit of his to my opinions on his financial behavior to my opinions on his activities when I am not around. Just because he does not feel threatened by my engaging in a particular behavior does not give him blanket right to perform that behavior himself: what is required is a negotiation, a compromise, a mutual understanding. I need to decide if it's worth me taking a stand, or if there are things that I do that bother him that can "make up for" something that he does that offends me, or whatever.

If he is going to do something that I find offensive to my values and threatening to our relationship, he does not get let off the hook by telling me I now have the right to perform that behavior. What do I gain by engaging in retaliatory behavior? Also, what interest do I have in engaging in a behavior I find threatening to our relationship and/or offensive to my values?

Relationships are about compromise. Love is about mutual understanding. Marriage is about working things out to both peoples' satisfaction. Nowhere in what I've just said is there room for, "well, I'm ok with you doing it, so you should just accept that I'm going to. Shut up about it already."