"Pat downs"

[user1486241726]

DD (19) is back from uni for Easter and we have been catching up on her nights out and social life etc. She mentioned that one of the clubs they go to often has male bouncers that give you a pat down body search on entry. I asked DD if there were female bouncers there and she said no - just male. Asked her what happens if you ask for a woman and she said she didn't know - her lot always just get on with the search to get into the club.

I said I personally don't think I'd feel comfortable being patted down by a man and DD couldn't understand why, said she'd never really been bothered by it or even thought about it - apparently her female friends have never mentioned it either.

Am i completely out of touch?? I don't think I'd want to be patted down by a man but DD didn't seem fazed at all.

userschmooser you are shockingly full of shit. I hope you're never on a jury

IMO it's unusually to be patted down by a male bouncer. Most clubs employ female door staff for this reason.

And I've worked in clubs, the bouncers were some of the dodgiest, seediest, most untrustworthy people I've ever met in my life.

Agreed Caryl. I think some of them might be male trolls. I hope they are, in a way.

Misssswatch how can you be so ignorant?

The rape myth is believing that because doormen are popular with women that they wouldn't sexually assault someone?

A bit like celebrities that have raped women and children. Why would they need to when they have girl throwing themselves at them? Hmm funny that.

User of all the ignorance you just spouted, I can only be bothered to challenge one comment

"If they raped two different women (very unlikely)"

Rapists rape. They are not bothered about consent. They rape again and again. Multiple stranger violent rapes, hopefully the rapist gets caught and prevented. The more frequent partner rape is harder to prove and harder to report.

Sorry for feeding, OP. I rarely bite but...

And I'd agree with a PP, a professional pat down feels so completely different from a grope that unless you are already sensitised it doesn't set off your red flags!

I'd like to address a few points: hopefully without being called a man simply because I've disagreed with some things on the thread.

@thesmallprint

No, I don't need to be careful with sources

Yes you do. It's a shame you don't know that.

@renaissance

I'm not sure why it was deemed that men weren't allowed to object to females rubbing them down

Because if anyone speaks up for men, they're pounced on and called an MRA.

@kalizahara

However you started throwing rape myths out there.

No I didn't.

Sadly due to people like userschmooser if you were unfortunate enough to meet a guy who overstepped the mark, it would be unlikely you'd be believed.

Really? How so? Am I an MRA rape apologist now? DFOD

Most searches, even when I was in the industry were done under CCTV trained on a certain spot. It protected door staff from malicious accusations, protected customers from gropey doormen (or women), and to serve as evidence should drugs and weapons be found. You don't need to be believed when you can prove something. I think a pat-down by a doorman is safe and not the sexual assault waiting to happen that many on this thread think.

As for whether there should be a female available. I've no idea, personally I'd choose not to go in.

See, you have a choice.

@notcarylchurchill

Genuinely, what do you get out of hating other women so much that you defend rape and attack women who protest against sexual assault?

Where have I defended rape? Where have I attacked women who protest against sexual assault? I have simply said that a pat down is not sexual assault. Can you show me anything to the contrary?

If a man "patted down" my breasts and genitals without explicitly stating that is what he was about to do and ensuring I was consenting... I would dial 999. Because that is assault.

1. there was a set, legally approved sentence every doorman delivered explaining what was about to happen. We also had undercover police come to the club with packets of talc to test the doormen, underage people trying to come in and various other tests of our 'legalness'. A gropey doorman would get caught out.

@picklemepopcorn

And I'd agree with a PP, a professional pat down feels so completely different from a grope that unless you are already sensitised it doesn't set off your red flags!

That was me. Glad we agree on that, despite you being my feeder!

Should a safety pat-down come with a trigger warning?

//-----------------------

Should sexuality be checked to ensure no gay men are patting down men and no lesbians touching the women?

The last time I'm going to engage because quite frankly you are tedious. Don't twist my meaning (in the same way that you like to twist stats) I don't need to check my sources because my source was sound. It's a shame that you don't know that. Now DFOD.

User a professional pat down should come with a warning which allows people to step away, yes. Presumably, everyone in the line will see what is happening in front of them which would be sufficient warning. If I was unable to leave a line and exit at that point without being patted down, that would be problematic.

No objection to anything you say which is sensible. A lot of what you said was goady and unrealistic, and effectively derailed the initial enquiry, so no apology here.

@TheSmallPrint - and with that, we have a flounce!

@picklemepopcorn

I said, "there was a set, legally approved sentence every doorman delivered explaining what was about to happen"

I can't think of any line to a bar or club I've seen or worked where you couldn't get to the front of the queue and then not be able to tell them you want to leave rather than be patted down.

User, no I won't fuck off thanks, cctv wouldn't necessarily protect a woman from being groped, touched inappropriately or even raped in any circumstances.

Doormen being professionals wouldn't stop them from abusing their position, even doctors have been found to have abused women during examinations and the women haven't been sure what happened.

Doormen being popular with women doesn't mean they wouldn't abuse their position.

That doesn't mean that on balance, the risk from drugs or weapons being taken into clubs isn't greater.

Nobody on this thread has said that there's an epidemic of bouncers assaulting women. People have challenged you because you started peddling rape myths.

Before you ask again which rape myths, namely the one where you said men that are popular with women wouldn't rape or grope women.

You've also tried to twist rape stats. There've been loads of threads on here where hundreds of women have admitted to being raped or sexually assaulted and they've never even told anyone.

@kalizhara

cctv wouldn't necessarily protect a woman from being groped, touched inappropriately or even raped in any circumstances.

Of course not. Nothing can sadly. It's a deterrent and, in my experience, a good one.

What is a rape myth? Something you disagree with which can be proven neither one way nor the other. I understand that rape is about control and not always about sexual fulfilment, but I wasn't talking about rape, I was talking about enjoying giving an unprofessional pat-down. Not rape. Not sexual assault (as someone suggested earlier).

There've been loads of threads on here where hundreds of women have admitted to being raped or sexually assaulted and they've never even told anyone.

Yes, anonymous internet forums. Well known as areas of honesty and well balanced demographics for analysis of information!

Patdowns are surely a waste of time, drugs can be hidden in the gusset of your pants, under your boob, so what is the point?

I would feel uncomfortable having a man do it.

Well everywhere else where pat down searches are used (airports, prison visits) women are only searched by women, never men and the searches aren't really that thorough - small things like drugs could easily be hidden in underwear.

I am therefore surprised that it appears that clubs are using male door staff to search female customers, especially as I can't see that it is going to be effective in keeping drugs out of clubs unless the search is a lot more intimate than prison and airport searches.

Do they go through all the pockets in their handbags? Drugs could easily be hidden under breasts or in a mooncup. They're not looking there, so it seems pointless searching really.

I can lose my car keys in my bra, despite firtling, so I wouldn't fancy anyone's chances of finding drugs in there. Of course there wouldn't be any as I'm square.

Anyway, moving on, as some people are not interested in hearing what other people's reality looks like...

@LadyKalila - my club wasn't quite drug free. That is nigh-on impossible but most people who want a couple of pills while dancing don't go to extreme measures like a mooncup or even underwear. It was a combination of random better searches (through bags, wallets etc), looking for signs of drug use like dilated pupils and paraphernalia like rolled notes or power on bank cards that kept drug use at a minimum.

@BarbaraofSeville - I've never been to or even visited prison but at airports, pat-downs are accompanied by other measures like dogs, electrical scanners and such.

The pat-downs are just one of the measures and as a large part of being door staff is muscle mass, there are far fewer women working in the role. If you only have 3 staff working, the chance of one of them being a woman is slight. If there were laws stating that you had to have a woman for pat-downs if requested then they would be paid unfairly highly due to S&D.

Drug use is a little more difficult than weapons. Drugs are illegal and you can lose you licence for having drugs on the premises, but many clubs attract that kind of 'scene' and if you were extremely hard (a sniffer dog isn't that expensive two nights a week) you would see customers going to other places and you wouldn't keep your job. It's a fine line. It's weapons that no one wants in their club and these are much less easily hidden and can be found during most pat-downs. Don't get side tracked thinking about a gram of powder hidden somewhere.

That's fine but employ female door staff. I worked in a really crappy club 20+ years ago and even they employed female bouncers.