What you are observing is the correct process.
The only time you need to use stripslashes() is when you've passed data via GET, POST or COOKIE with magic_quotes_gpc on and you want to remove the slashes.
People sometimes think that the NEED to stripslashes() after selecting from a DB because they've double escaped at some point (i.e. magic_quotes_gpc was on AND they used addslashes()) which will cause the slashes to appear in the DB.
