How do men get away with this?

[leavethingsalone]

My friend's daughter is absolutely stunning (and a lovely modest girl). She's 18. She often gets told by strangers how beautiful she is.

That's all great, but she's recently started going clubbing and has come home upset because of the attention.

Most recently she was dancing and a guy came up behind her and was grinding on her from behind. He wouldn't leave her alone. Luckily her friends saw what was going on and stopped it!

I'm sure this happens to lots of other young women too!

She's (hopefully) off to uni in September and has been looking forward to this, but is now starting to feel unsafe as her parents won't be nearby to look out for her!

When will men realise that this simply isn't appropriate behaviour and that women should feel safe when they are out?

True but a nightclub is a convenient place to do all three.

I gotta say, has anyone disagreeing with my take on nightclubs actually been to one?

Seems not.

It's also a convenient place to dance, which is what you were saying isn't a reason to go to one.

I'm beginning to wonder if you've ever met people who don't just get pissed and high?

That was why we went in the 80s. We had a few Martini and lemonade, but we didn’t get drunk and certainly didn’t take drugs. We probably did hope to pull, in the romantic sense. To meet potential boyfriends if we didn’t already have one. .

I've never met anyone who wasn't pissed or high (or both) in a nightclub.

I did martial arts when I was young, now I’m older I do tai chi. It did give me some confidence. I can distinctly remember picking up a bar stool and threatening a guy with it who groped me when very young. As much as it is shit that women have to be on guard we have to be. A young woman that also volunteers where I do had her school prom last week. She had excitedly talked about her dress etc, she is a lovely lass. Anyway she got groped at that prom, I asked her what she had done and she had frozen in fear and she said nothing so we talked about it and I told she never ever had to put up with it.

I am retired and left a voluntary job because a man kept touching me. He is a pillar of the society type and kept putting his hand on my waist when he walked past from behind. It’s clever because it isn’t arse grabbing and is an ooh I did not mean anything by that. They did talk to him but he made me uncomfortable. He was early seventies and I noticed the only women he touched were me and another woman also in her fifties. So as much as we were most certainly not young women we were still young enough to be his daughters.

I have been harassed a lot in my life, I am mixed race and always get the ooh aren’t you exotic and crap like that. It’s a fetish for some of them and there were very few mixed race kids when I was growing up.

Which means only your experience can therefore be the truth?

I have never been pissed or high in a nightclub. A large majority of my friends and family haven't (some have, but most don't drink or do drugs).

I have met stone cold sober strangers in nightclubs.

I have met pissed and high people in (and out of) nightclubs.

You just seem to very strongly believe that only your own experience is real.

I didn’t say it was the same no. But then again I’ve not heard a woman say to me that they are fearful of going into nightclubs before you did just now, and i have always had a close group of women friends, especially when i was clubbing. I spent about 5 years clubbing with my sisters too.

Yeah some men get aggressive and polenta when they’re drunk. Women can be pretty horrific and nasty when they’re drunk too. I’ve been groped by a man in a gay club, and been groped by multiple women in straight clubs too. My brother had non consensual sex with a woman when he was drunk.. he was the one who didn’t consent so i’d call that rape. My little sister was drugged and raped by a dentist she went on a date with. Both things were horrible

You are right women shouldn’t have to cope when men behave like that. In an ideal world we wouldn’t. But the fact is women have to cope with this type of shit all the time, especially young women.

I see the point of the post you responded too. This type of situation is likely to happen when she is at Uni (or anywhere) so she needs to learn some strategies to deal with it pdq. And women are limited in the ways they can do that just rallying friends or getting help from staff which isn’t always forthcoming ir the safest way- leave and have the night ruined by a predatory tosser

You need to raise your bar then. Because I've spent a lot of time in clubs, including working in them, and I promise you that people are perfectly capable of drinking, taking drugs, finding sexual partners and all sorts of other things without the need to grope 18 year olds from behind with no idea whether their advances are welcome or not. If some men can control their desire to be sex pests, they all can, and instead of needing to raise our daughters to minimise and accept it as going with the territory, we (as a society) need to tell men to keep their hands to themselves.

You seem to be under the impression that everyone goes to a club to have sex and therefore harassment should be expected. A lot of people go to have a good time with their friends and dance. Some go to pull but it isn't mandatory for people on the pull to grind their penis against you like a baboon.

I went out Friday to a local club first time since forever with few friends. There were very few people over there but a live band was playing so we went to listen. Plenty of space. Yet we had to change places maybe 3 times to get more space because of the men. They would not get the hint. Me and another friend who are slightly older than the other girls just told to guys to give space and they were so offended and started to talk back. Just another reminder of why I don't do clubbing and why clubbing is very annoying when you're not drunk.

God that is so offensive, 'off chance' you're a woman.
Get lost with your passive aggressive bullshit.
I am a woman. And I think grinding in a nightclub isn't that big a deal. OK. Not. That. A. Big. Deal.
And I don't need your pity either.

I wonder if those making a big deal over grinding who also say that I'm a man realise how f*ing offensive they're being.
Doubt it.

I thought clubs had put a stop to grinding ?

Most women don't want to be sexually harassed. You don't mind, which is unusual.

They're finding it hard to believe a woman would have these views, because the majority of us consider it sexual harassment to have a man's genitals rubbed against us, and you say it's not big deal.

I didn't say I didn't mind, just not that big a deal given the context.

Because it isn't that big a deal given the context of being in a nightclub.

Men will only call out other men when bad behaviour is happening to women they care about .

Agree with you Hair.
The implication that normal bodily autonomy applies everywhere else except for a nightclub, where it seems women are supposed to surrender to being a piece of meat or we're 'hard of thinking', is part of the problem.
Why is it so difficult to understand that a lot of women do go out with their mates to enjoy the music and dance? Bollocks to the idea that nobody does this. Where else should women go if they really love music, possibly want to hear a particular dj, and want to enjoy a night out with their friends? I can't think of anywhere else they would go.
The 'grinding' might be some people's definition of what's to be expected, but it's absolutely gross to criticise other women for calling it out for what it is, wherever it happens.
Why shouldn't women talk about the harm it does, discuss their anger over things never changing, and say that they are basically fucking fed up with men dominating the social spaces with their sexualised/aggressive/threatening behaviour?
We'd like to do that without being called naive or stupid, mostly because we're far from it. We've put up with years of it ourselves and we're sick of the same damaging, incessant shit happening to our daughters, nieces etc.
Some manky bloke rubbing himself against you in a club feels the same as some manky bloke rubbing himself against you on the tube. The 'context' is that it's a violation in all places.
Apologists for this behaviour can shove it, especially when they believe they're providing us with some valuable insight into the way things work out there, after dark, in the nightclubs because we're naive and stupid.
At what point in the legal definition of sexual assault do they stipulate 'oh fuck that love, you were asking for it by stepping over the threshold of the club'?
That's the victim-blaming attitude women have been up against forever, and still come up against when they get their cases to court.

It all smacks of 'boys will be boys' (and worse) if you ask me.

That was long, sorry.
Sore point for me. I've always loved music - only ever went out to clubs for the music. Don't drink (stopped by then)/take drugs and about 20 years ago had my soft drink spiked in a club. Collapsed and couldn't move my legs, got dragged out onto the pavement, bouncer got me into an ambulance and I spent the night in hospital. Never caught the bloke that did it, only hope he didn't go on to do worse, but let's face it, he probably did.

To you.

It is a big deal to the many women on this thread telling you that it is a big deal to them. You just keep dismissing this.

It's not a big deal to you and that's your prerogative. Other women are perfectly entitled to go for a night out without sexual harassment.

Not strictly true.

I've had men call out other men behaving badly or at least step in to deflect (because, let's face it, men are also at risk from overly aggressive men).

My partner has stepped in when he's seen it happening as have my son and my brother.

Sadly confrontation can lead to a punch in the face . Let security deal with it that is why they are there . There should also be a large notice upon entrance to a club that the venue is monitored by cctv that can be used for prosecution.

I think your posts illustrate perfectly how and why it still happening.

You have completely normalised and internalised the idea that women should expect to he sexualy harrassed in certain conctexts and, if we don't want to be sexually harassed, we should avoid those places.

No.