Is it a sin to go to a strip club?

[JRRTFAN]

Umm… an even better reason not to ask – this can be considered sexual harassment in the workplace!

When a bunch of guys are trying to get you to go to a strip club you don’t run off to personnell like your name is Alice. You talk to them like a man. Good Lord what have we come to…

“And I want to fil out a complaint form against my friends. Those mean, mean, men were trying to make me go to a bad place and please call my mommy, I think I’m going to cry, Can I see the company psychiatrist?”

 

[GaryTaylor]

Lot of Greed, Lot of Temptation, proves but one thing…were a hell of a nation.

Tell them to drink the poison themselves…“not interested”.

Nothing like the locker room conversations with the guys

 

[Kay_Cee]

Besides refusing the invitation, I suggest praying for these co-workers.

 

[Gorgias]

When a bunch of guys are trying to get you to go to a strip club you don’t run off to personnell like your name is Alice. You talk to them like a man. Good Lord what have we come to…

Psst… if you’re a Tolkien fan, then presumably, you can read. So, read my post. I’m not saying that the OP should’ve run to HR; I’m responding to the advice telling him to have them ask a female co-worker whether she wants to go. You’re saying that a woman, asked in the office environment by a mixed group whether she wants to go to a strip club, isn’t sexually harrassing behavior?

 

[BlueEyedLady]

Psst… if you’re a Tolkien fan, then presumably, you can read. So, read my post. I’m not saying that the OP should’ve run to HR; I’m responding to the advice telling him to have them ask a female co-worker whether she wants to go. You’re saying that a woman, asked in the office environment by a mixed group whether she wants to go to a strip club, isn’t sexually harrassing behavior?

Asking anyone, male or female in any group, single gender or mixed company would be considered sexual harassment.

 

[Baelor]

When a bunch of guys are trying to get you to go to a strip club you don’t run off to personnell like your name is Alice. You talk to them like a man. Good Lord what have we come to…

“And I want to fil out a complaint form against my friends. Those mean, mean, men were trying to make me go to a bad place and please call my mommy, I think I’m going to cry, Can I see the company psychiatrist?”

I reject your false dichotomy. The OP should “talk to them like a man,” and then go to HR. It is an issue of respect and appropriateness within the office, and that kind of behavior is totally unacceptable and should be reported for the benefit of all.

 

[Spirithound]

I didn’t say anything else, but left it at this, firstly because I was extremely uncomfortable talking about this in front of all those other people, and secondly because I felt that leaving the conversation hanging like this would bother A2 enough to make her want to look up the Sixth Commandment for herself.

Now that all this is behind us, what else should I do? If I bring up the topic again, any ideas what I should say?

You did great! Sometimes the only way to get through to people is to let them think you’re judging them (even though you love the sinner and hate only the sin). I wouldn’t bring it up again. If they do, you know how to handle it now.

 

[edwest2]

I posted the question in that manner as an attention grabber, and because my real question would have been too long for the title. Here is my real question.

Last week a few of my co-workers told me that they are going to a strip club this weekend, and invited me to come along too. The two people who invited me are “Catholics”, meaning that their family is Catholic and they have a rosary in their car and they wear a necklace with a cross and they give up things for Lent and their facebook page says that they are Catholic, and maybe they go to Church a few times per year. That is as far as their faith goes, but honestly, I don’t think they are even aware that there is anything more to being Catholic than doing these things. Also, I should mention that they had invited me to a strip club before, and I had said no, “because it’s a sin”, and we had left it at that. But they decided to ask me again this time, because they felt that it’s time for me to stop taking my religion so seriously and have fun while I am still young. Lastly, I should mention that I was in the break room with about 8-10 uninvolved people also present and half-listening, and that I was very tired, and these last two factors discouraged me from preaching to them.

The conversation went something like this. The two inviters are A1 and A2.
A1: You can’t go, because it’s a “sin”, right?
Me: Yeah.
A1: I think you should go. It will be good for you.
Me: Mhmm.
A1: If you go, I guarantee you’ll have the time of your life. You should go.
Me: Mhmm.
A1: They’re not completely naked. It’s not a sin.
A2: So are you going?
Me: No.
A2: Why not?
Me: Because I’m a Catholic.
A2: What do you think we are? [referencing the fact that they are Catholics too, but they are still going.]
[Silence]
A1: I’m just saying, I think you should go. But I don’t want to force you.
A2: So why do you think it’s a sin?
Me: Some time I’ll show you where it says in Church Law that immodesty and impurity are sins.
A2: Tell me now.
Me: It’s a sin to look at immodesty or –
A1: No, don’t say it! It doesn’t have to be a sin. This isn’t Church.
Me: --or impurity, even if the girl isn’t completely naked.
[A1 gives a frustrated, disappointed look.]
A2: So do you think that most guys are sinners?
Me: I won’t say anything about other people.
A2: You know that we’re Catholics too, right? We go to these things all the time.
Me: Well, Catholics are supposed to follow the Sixth Commandment.
A2: What’s the Sixth Commandment?
Me: You’re a Catholic. You’re supposed to know the Ten Commandments.
A2: I don’t have them memorized.

I didn’t say anything else, but left it at this, firstly because I was extremely uncomfortable talking about this in front of all those other people, and secondly because I felt that leaving the conversation hanging like this would bother A2 enough to make her want to look up the Sixth Commandment for herself. (“Her”? What is a girl doing going to a strip club, you might ask? She is a Lesbian.) A while later, A2 asked me again about the Sixth Commandment, showing that it indeed was bothering her, which is not surprising since she is quite proud of being a Catholic. I then sent her a wikipedia article on “Catholic Doctrine on the Ten Commandments”, directing her to the Sixth Commandment, where it lists lust, fornication, etc. as all sins. (I chose wikipedia to demonstrate to her that it is standard public knowledge, not some insider set of rules that only some hardcore Catholics follow but others don’t have to.)

Now that all this is behind us, what else should I do? If I bring up the topic again, any ideas what I should say?

When I saw strip clubs (which called themselves “gentlemen’s clubs” in an attempt to gain some kind of respectability) appear in the 1970s, along with topless bars, I asked myself: “Who allowed all of this?”

And yes, I went to a few with friends. Talk about exploiting feminine beauty for the purpose of inciting lust and other sins. In one case, I protested loudly when I found out one of the strippers was a prostitute (incorrectly referred to as a ‘porn star’). Thank God He gave me the grace and the will to give this up quickly.

It’s a sin. It degrades the dignity of the women as daughters of God, and the men who look at them as sons of God. Human dignity means treating the opposite sex with respect which is clothed with modesty and decency.

In an episode of Desperate Housewives, one of the moms finds her son at a strip club (of course we don’t see anything too revealing), and she tells him in a motherly voice: “That’s someone’s daughter up there.” She encourages him to leave. One of the older men overhears the conversation and says: “Hey lady. You’re ruining it for the rest of us.” What was she ruining?

Just tell your friends it’s a sin, and politely refuse to go.

One more thing. There were atheists signs on buses in England that had the following words: “There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life”.

Peace,
Ed

 

[Holly3278]

I believe that it would be a sin, possibly a mortal sin, especially if you are going there to watch strippers. And why else would someone go to a strip club?

 

[JRRTFAN]

I reject your false dichotomy. The OP should “talk to them like a man,” and then go to HR. It is an issue of respect and appropriateness within the office, and that kind of behavior is totally unacceptable and should be reported for the benefit of all.

Uh huh.

 

[rhiannonh]

Can I be completely controversal here?

I would go with them the once. Yes or no to whether its a sin or not is kind of irrelevant knowing that being sorry your sins are forgiven. That doesn’t give you the right to deliberately sin. But you know once you have been, you will understand why its a sin rather than just hearsay its a sin.

But go with them the once. You don’t have to touch… Though they may well taunt you to go another time since you went the once. But Yeh, go with them the once. Meet them half way. The only danger of retorting back to them that would they ask a Nun or Priest to go - they may well go the once, not to look but to learn and understand that way of life perhaps. You could say to your friends that you will go just the once fullstop. After all how many other sins that you do regular without realising they are sins. So yes whilst this is deliberate you will understand then what you are being sorry for and understand more why its a sin. We all enjoy sinning. We don’t all enjoy strip clubs but we do all enjoy sinning, each of us have our different sins that we enjoy. Eating too much food etc. Each one of us will have a sin that we enjoy and don’t want to regard it as a sin. Your work mates are no different.

So the choice is yours. Go with them the once on the provisio they never ask you again and it will help you to understand why it is a sin - without telling your work mates this. Or just say politely and firmly no. From what you have heard it don’t interest you. Nothing to do with faith etc. Just that it don’t interest you and you find it boring.

And remember that just because they do all this and you don’t, doesn’t make them or you any better Catholic than each other for we are all sinners in the end.

 

[Baelor]

And remember that just because they do all this and you don’t, doesn’t make them or you any better Catholic than each other for we are all sinners in the end.

That is a horrible premise for any argument. I agree that we should not think in terms of “better” or “worse,” but this comes dangerously close to equating His Holiness and any one of a number of historical degenerates/dictators/genocide-committers/practitioners of simony/what have you.

 

[NewEnglandPriest]

1. Ask them if they had a daughter if they would be happy she worked in that type of establishment?
2. Tell them that you prefer not to pay women to pretend to be interested in you but you understand that paying a girl might be the only way a girl will talk to them.

 

[TheRealJuliane]

Can I be completely controversal here?

I would go with them the once. Yes or no to whether its a sin or not is kind of irrelevant knowing that being sorry your sins are forgiven. That doesn’t give you the right to deliberately sin. But you know once you have been, you will understand why its a sin rather than just hearsay its a sin.

But go with them the once. You don’t have to touch… Though they may well taunt you to go another time since you went the once. But Yeh, go with them the once. Meet them half way. The only danger of retorting back to them that would they ask a Nun or Priest to go - they may well go the once, not to look but to learn and understand that way of life perhaps. You could say to your friends that you will go just the once fullstop. After all how many other sins that you do regular without realising they are sins. So yes whilst this is deliberate you will understand then what you are being sorry for and understand more why its a sin. We all enjoy sinning. We don’t all enjoy strip clubs but we do all enjoy sinning, each of us have our different sins that we enjoy. Eating too much food etc. Each one of us will have a sin that we enjoy and don’t want to regard it as a sin. Your work mates are no different.

So the choice is yours. Go with them the once on the provisio they never ask you again and it will help you to understand why it is a sin - without telling your work mates this. Or just say politely and firmly no. From what you have heard it don’t interest you. Nothing to do with faith etc. Just that it don’t interest you and you find it boring.

And remember that just because they do all this and you don’t, doesn’t make them or you any better Catholic than each other for we are all sinners in the end.

Bad response. To go along is to implicitly approve of their sin and to commit your own right along with them. Do I need to commit murder to understand the sin? Do I need to have an abortion to understand why killing your baby is a sin? No, I do not.

You can confess your sin, and be absolved, but if you deliberately sin with the intention of clearing it up later by confessing, you risk going to judgment suddenly with a mortal sin on your soul.

The OP gains NOTHING by going to this club. NOTHING. And loses a part of his/her innocence that cannot be regained. Under NO CIRCUMSTANCES should the OP go along.

 

[Deo_Gratias42]

Wow, what tasteless coworkers you have. You need to go to HR and report that they are trying to browbeat you in to going to a strip club after you have firmly said no, and they are doing so publicly. I am constantly amazed by what people are willing to bring up at work.

And to the guy who told him to tell them to ask a female coworker, that’s a bad idea. She may say yes. Straight women go to those things all the time.

I wouldn’t be surprised if this fell under the Sexual Harassment policy.

 

[Richard_Rider]

Please don’t let this form your views on all Catholics. Clearly, some people don’t put forth any effort to grow their faith. They show up at Mass once a week, call themselves Catholics, and expect to get into Heaven. It’s like going to the gym once a week, not moving, and expecting to have a sculpted body.

Well said!