Married men going to a strip club never appears to be a good idea. However, an anthropologists claims that it can actually be a great idea and can save a crumbling marriage.
While writing her new book, Katherine Frank, worked as a stripper for 6 years to get a better understanding of the industry, its customer and how it all affects marriages. Frank interviewed 30 of her regular customers at the several strip clubs for her book, G-Strings and Sympathy: Strip Club Regulars and Male Desire, in which she worked and came up with the startling conclusion.
Frank also found that men who go to strip clubs do not a warped perception on what the perfect female figure should look like; instead, by being exposed to different shapes and forms, they have a healthy perception of the female physique.
Despite making such bold statements, Frank admits that she still wouldn't want her husband visiting strip clubs regularly - because it's too expensive a hobby.
In an interview with Salon, Frank explains how one of the chapters in her book - The Crowded Bedroom: Marriage, Monogamy, and Fantasy - she contradicts the popular belief that a man's ability to be intimate with his wife is eroded by such clubs, attesting that clubs in which she worked actually held together the marriages of many of the regulars she interviewed.
"For the men who said that they were in love with their wives and wanted to stay married, what happened in the clubs was transgressive and real enough to be exciting, but was still a fantasy. In the chapter "The Crowded Bedroom," I really wanted to question the whole idea of true intimacy. What does that even mean," she said.
Frank confessed to even beginning to feel sympathetic toward her regulars at the clubs.
"Talking to the guys in the strip clubs, I realized that they were damaged by the sexist culture, too. These guys were struggling with how to deal with what they saw as women's conflicting demands for both traditional masculine traits and more emotional presence," she said.
"They felt repellent, that their wives and girlfriends could never accept their desires and that they could never ask advice about sex because they were supposed to somehow know everything. These guys were struggling with how to deal with what they saw as women's conflicting demands for both traditional masculine traits and more emotional presence," Frank added.
