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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

How do men get away with this?

251 replies

leavethingsalone · 05/08/2024 01:57

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?

OP posts:
XChrome · 05/08/2024 19:53

Hollietree · 05/08/2024 07:23

Tell me you are a man on Mumsnet without telling me you are a man on Mumsnet.

Grinding your body up against a woman you don’t know, without any indication that she consents to that, in a club/bar is 100% gross and unacceptable. Predatory behaviour. Never grind on someone again who isn’t your wife/girlfriend.

Grinding is only a dance move for consenting partners….. or a dirty perv without appropriate boundaries.

Edited

Yeesh. The so-called men on here. 🙄

Bertsmum22 · 05/08/2024 19:56

Unfortunately this is life and used to happen to me 20 years ago and probably would now if I was in the right place! She just needs to have her wits about her, not drink too much, have good friends around her and learn to tell men to fuck off and tell security etc if she’s in an uncomfortable situation.

XChrome · 05/08/2024 19:59

IpsyUpsyDaisyDoos · 05/08/2024 07:22

By your logic, she doesn't have to consent to being danced with? Shouldn't she get a choice?

And if we're going with nightclubs being a place where you can choose to touch someone because they just have to accept it, cos it's a nightclub. How about if, following a man deciding he's allowed to rub his crotch against me, I decide that what I really need to do is shove my knee into his crotch? Because I've had a drink and we're in a nightclub where I'm allowed to behave like this.

I can knee him in the balls and not face assault charges, right?

Yes, let's all go out clubbing and practice our new dance, The Kneejerk. I'm sure men will not mind this. It is club, after all.

IpsyUpsyDaisyDoos · 05/08/2024 20:00

XChrome · 05/08/2024 19:59

Yes, let's all go out clubbing and practice our new dance, The Kneejerk. I'm sure men will not mind this. It is club, after all.

I was just jiving, your Honour. It's unfortunate his crotch was in the vicinity of me lifting my knee.

XChrome · 05/08/2024 20:02

Felaku · 05/08/2024 07:34

I am a woman, just one who's intelligent enough to realise that nightclubs are highly sexually charged environments where grinding and other sexual passes are just par for the course.

I draw the line at groping, but grinding? I'm sorry but I see that as not a big deal in a nightclub.

Edited

"Intelligent." 😆

XChrome · 05/08/2024 20:09

IpsyUpsyDaisyDoos · 05/08/2024 20:00

I was just jiving, your Honour. It's unfortunate his crotch was in the vicinity of me lifting my knee.

😄I like to incorporate kicks and punches when I'm dancing, but guys keep on hitting my feet and fists with their faces. Clumsy oafs.
What did they expect? Kung Fu Fighting was playing.

IpsyUpsyDaisyDoos · 05/08/2024 20:11

XChrome · 05/08/2024 20:09

😄I like to incorporate kicks and punches when I'm dancing, but guys keep on hitting my feet and fists with their faces. Clumsy oafs.
What did they expect? Kung Fu Fighting was playing.

🤣🤣🤣

Hollietree · 05/08/2024 20:14

Can you imagine a man being told that part of going to a nightclub is being beaten up by other drunk men? If you step into a nightclub you should know that other men there are of course drunk, on drugs, feeling aggressive. You got beat up in a nightclub - oh well what did you expect - men go to nightclubs to fight, you gotta expect that if you go to a nightclub. Go to a supermarket instead of a nightclub if you don’t want to get beat up.

No exactly, doesn’t happen.

INeedAPensieve · 05/08/2024 20:19

I went to uni in the early 2000s. I remember being grinded on and moving away and them following me. Safety was going to the toilets and staying there for a while. Always got a sympathetic ear and the other women would rally round and make sure it was ok to go back out. Friends would help too. I remember being rescued this way and also being the rescuer. On numerous occasions. Too many to count.

The worst thing that happened to me though at uni was when I was at the computer labs finishing my essay. It was 1am in the morning, I had trackies a hoodie and a cap on (so not sexily dressed up in the union or a club), backpack full of my notes and I was walking home to my halls.

A group of guys came out of the student union and surrounded me and tried to persuade me to come with them to their house for an after party. I politely said no thanks and sidestepped them and continued walking. I'd only gone a few paces when I was grabbed from behind and lifted in the air.

I started screaming at them to let me go and they just laughed, ran downstairs to the taxi rank at the main uni entrance and tried to bundle me into the car as I screamed and screamed.

Eventually one of them snapped out of it and went, oh mate I don't think she's up for the party haha. So his mate dropped me and they left me on the kerb, my heart pounding, my backpack thrown on the ground, all of them laughing like it was the funniest thing ever.

I never went to the computer labs that late ever again and asked my parents for a laptop. They didn't have a lot of money so they had to get one pretty much third hand and it was so slow and constantly crashed on me, but it was safe and I was in my room.

My heart breaks for all the young women now, especially as I've heard anecdotally that it's worse now due to social media etc. It's still happening. And it's awful. 😞

TheCadoganArms · 05/08/2024 20:25

C0rdeliaChase · 05/08/2024 19:51

How sad.

Not sure if it is 'sad' but it is probably fair to say that the vast majority of people in your average market town nightclub on a Saturday night are pretty far from being sober.

TheCadoganArms · 05/08/2024 20:32

Hollietree · 05/08/2024 20:14

Can you imagine a man being told that part of going to a nightclub is being beaten up by other drunk men? If you step into a nightclub you should know that other men there are of course drunk, on drugs, feeling aggressive. You got beat up in a nightclub - oh well what did you expect - men go to nightclubs to fight, you gotta expect that if you go to a nightclub. Go to a supermarket instead of a nightclub if you don’t want to get beat up.

No exactly, doesn’t happen.

Is unwanted 'grinding' in a nightclub the same as getting the shit kicked out of you? The former is bad but I would rather that then a group of men beating me up!

Hollietree · 05/08/2024 20:52

TheCadoganArms · 05/08/2024 20:32

Is unwanted 'grinding' in a nightclub the same as getting the shit kicked out of you? The former is bad but I would rather that then a group of men beating me up!

I agree somewhat. If I had to choose between the two - I would pick a gross pervy man rubbing his dick on my back without my consent, rather than having the shit beat out of me. But just because one is worse than the other doesn’t mean that the comparison doesn’t stand. Both are unwanted, both are things that can happen to you in a nightclub without your consent - but in both situations neither person should be victim blamed and told it was their fault or to be expected purely because they set foot in a nightclub.

5128gap · 05/08/2024 21:13

Do we really need to debate whether a sexual assault by a man is better or worse than a violent attack by a man? Surely the point is that there is a problem with male people hurting other people.

EdithBond · 05/08/2024 21:16

@INeedAPensieve Awful story. And to think they were intelligent/analytical/responsible enough to get into uni! Why it’s so important things like this get reported, so men who do it don’t get away with thinking it’s just a laugh/banter, and instead are made to realise they’re committing a criminal offence, whether they get prosecuted for it or not. I bet they didn’t give a second thought to the impact it had on you and your family.

NoisyDenimShaker · 05/08/2024 21:29

XChrome · 05/08/2024 19:10

Yes, but they aren't targeted because of their gender. Women are. It's actually unusual for men to be randomly attacked. It's almost always a robbery or a disagreement in a bar that somebody decides to escalate to a physical fight. Your friends are outliers if there was no robbery or argument as a motive.

Edited

@XChrome You say that it's unusual for men to be randomly attacked, but it's on a par with stranger sexual assault and unwanted touching, which of course mainly happens to women. The Office of National Statistics says that men are more likely to experience both stranger and acquaintance violence than women. (And we're talking stranger violence here, since we're talking about being harassed or beaten up in a night club.)

TLDR:
Men experience violent crime at a rate of 2.3% as opposed to 1.2% for women. For comparison, sexual assault happens at a rate of 2.1% for all people and unwanted touching has a rate of 2.6% of people.

Tragically, the massive, massive difference in violent crime experienced by men and that experienced by women is concentrated in domestic violence. Outside the home, the rates of crime experienced by men and women are very similar.

I do not even want to think about what that says about marriage and the hatred of women that men take out on their partners, and are therefore probably harbouring against all women.

Sources
2.1% of people aged 16-50 experience sexual assault (scroll down for data source.) There is also a Sky News article that quotes ONS data from 2020 that says 2.6 percent of people experience specifically unwanted touching. Sky News 2020 Crime Data Summary I'm going to bet that most of the unwanted touching is from males to females.

It's interesting to reflect that men have a 2.3% chance of being violently attacked on a night out and women (probably mostly women) have a 2.6% chance of experiencing unwanted touching.

Sex
[This is 2018 data, as I couldn't find this section in the 2024 stats summary. Link ONS Violent Crime Data by Sex 2018]
Men were more likely to be victims of CSEW violent crime than women (2.3% of men compared with 1.2% of women1, Appendix table 1). This was true for all types of violence, with the exception of domestic violence, which showed no significant difference. The year ending March 2018 CSEW showed that:

  • stranger violence showed the largest difference in victimisation between men and women (1.4% compared with 0.4% respectively)
  • 0.8% of men and 0.6% of women experienced acquaintance violence

Office for National Statistics Crime Data 2024
9.Sexual offences
The Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) self-completion module provides a more reliable measure of long-term trends for sexual offences than police recorded crime data. Latest estimates from the CSEW for year ending (YE) March 2024 showed that 2.1% of people aged 16 years and over had experienced sexual assault (including attempted offences), no change from YE March 2023 (2.1%).
For analysing long-term trends, we use the 16 to 59 years age range to give a comparable time series. Although there is year-to-year volatility in these estimates, over the last 10 years there has been an increase in sexual assault. The CSEW for YE March 2024 estimated 2.6% of people aged 16 to 59 years had experienced sexual assault (including attempted offences) in the last year compared with 1.5% in YE March 2014.

The nature of violent crime: appendix tables - Office for National Statistics

Data from the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) and Police recorded crime. Data are included on prevalence and characteristics of victims.

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/datasets/thenatureofviolentcrimeappendixtables

C0rdeliaChase · 05/08/2024 21:32

TheCadoganArms · 05/08/2024 20:25

Not sure if it is 'sad' but it is probably fair to say that the vast majority of people in your average market town nightclub on a Saturday night are pretty far from being sober.

True, but not everyone in a nightclub will be high/plastered. And not everyone will be out looking for a shag either. I've never gone to a club in order to meet someone, it's always been to have a dance and a bevy.

NoisyDenimShaker · 05/08/2024 22:12

localnotail · 05/08/2024 13:13

Nope. No one reacted.

I guess it would have been different if I was a young girl?

Who knows? Probably. Which makes me 😡.

TheCadoganArms · 05/08/2024 22:59

C0rdeliaChase · 05/08/2024 21:32

True, but not everyone in a nightclub will be high/plastered. And not everyone will be out looking for a shag either. I've never gone to a club in order to meet someone, it's always been to have a dance and a bevy.

Not all clubs are the same I guess. Back in the early 2000s I was very much into my music and would head to Fabric, The Cross or Minstry of Sound where I paid a small fortune to listen to certain DJs. It was about the music and being in the moment, totally different vibe and atmosphere to say Infernos, Clapham Grand or Fez club which were basically full of people on the piss and on the pull to the backdrop of cheesy tunes.

spanieleyes22 · 05/08/2024 23:05

Sadly this is very common and something our daughters have to learn to cope with. Some self defense classes would
Be good. The best advice I could give to my dd was don't be polite. Learn to say fuck off in a strong voice. Always stay with your friends and watch out for each other. Go to the toilet in pairs. Never leave a drink unattended. Wear long sleeves if possible - lots of girls have been injected without knowing it until they suddenly feel inexplicably more drunk than they should. Don't drink too much stay alert.

My daughter got groped in her job the other day. Men still believe they are allowed and entitled to behave like this. It's sickening in 2024

XChrome · 06/08/2024 00:13

NoisyDenimShaker · 05/08/2024 21:29

@XChrome You say that it's unusual for men to be randomly attacked, but it's on a par with stranger sexual assault and unwanted touching, which of course mainly happens to women. The Office of National Statistics says that men are more likely to experience both stranger and acquaintance violence than women. (And we're talking stranger violence here, since we're talking about being harassed or beaten up in a night club.)

TLDR:
Men experience violent crime at a rate of 2.3% as opposed to 1.2% for women. For comparison, sexual assault happens at a rate of 2.1% for all people and unwanted touching has a rate of 2.6% of people.

Tragically, the massive, massive difference in violent crime experienced by men and that experienced by women is concentrated in domestic violence. Outside the home, the rates of crime experienced by men and women are very similar.

I do not even want to think about what that says about marriage and the hatred of women that men take out on their partners, and are therefore probably harbouring against all women.

Sources
2.1% of people aged 16-50 experience sexual assault (scroll down for data source.) There is also a Sky News article that quotes ONS data from 2020 that says 2.6 percent of people experience specifically unwanted touching. Sky News 2020 Crime Data Summary I'm going to bet that most of the unwanted touching is from males to females.

It's interesting to reflect that men have a 2.3% chance of being violently attacked on a night out and women (probably mostly women) have a 2.6% chance of experiencing unwanted touching.

Sex
[This is 2018 data, as I couldn't find this section in the 2024 stats summary. Link ONS Violent Crime Data by Sex 2018]
Men were more likely to be victims of CSEW violent crime than women (2.3% of men compared with 1.2% of women1, Appendix table 1). This was true for all types of violence, with the exception of domestic violence, which showed no significant difference. The year ending March 2018 CSEW showed that:

  • stranger violence showed the largest difference in victimisation between men and women (1.4% compared with 0.4% respectively)
  • 0.8% of men and 0.6% of women experienced acquaintance violence

Office for National Statistics Crime Data 2024
9.Sexual offences
The Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) self-completion module provides a more reliable measure of long-term trends for sexual offences than police recorded crime data. Latest estimates from the CSEW for year ending (YE) March 2024 showed that 2.1% of people aged 16 years and over had experienced sexual assault (including attempted offences), no change from YE March 2023 (2.1%).
For analysing long-term trends, we use the 16 to 59 years age range to give a comparable time series. Although there is year-to-year volatility in these estimates, over the last 10 years there has been an increase in sexual assault. The CSEW for YE March 2024 estimated 2.6% of people aged 16 to 59 years had experienced sexual assault (including attempted offences) in the last year compared with 1.5% in YE March 2014.

Yes, I'm aware of the stats. None of it indicates anything about motivation, so it's not relevant. My point was men do not get attacked simply because they are men. Again, most attacks on men are not truly random (in the sense of having no known motive) though the person may indeed be a stranger. They are most often the result of robberies, gang violence and personal disputes like bar fights.
Women, otoh, are often attacked simply because of our gender. Men don't experience that.

BestZebbie · 06/08/2024 01:04

sashh · 05/08/2024 05:51

In my teens I used to wear stilettos with steel heels. Easily scraped down a shin.

Yes, I was just thinking this - when I was at Uni at the turn of the century the dancing behind someone and grinding them was endemic, but a swift high heel kicked backward into the front of the shin (like a horse) generally moved them straight on without a fuss - that response seemed to also be generally accepted by the men as "play silly games, win silly prizes" / worth a few kicks to find someone who pressed back and they could then pull.
In retrospect, not sure any part of that anecdote really stands up today.

QueenBitch666 · 06/08/2024 01:28

XChrome · 05/08/2024 03:31

OP, they know it isn't considered appropriate. They haven't been living under rocks. That's why they like it, because they are rapey pigs who like to bulldoze over women's boundaries.

Less of the animal slurs. Animals don't behave like drunk, entitled, porn addled, rapey pieces of shit

79Beastie · 06/08/2024 01:47

I remember being 19 years old dancing to Ricky Martins livin La vida loca at the bar in a night club in the 90s with my big sis when a guy thought it would be a great idea to grab my arse. Well that didn't work out of very well for him as I spun round with a clenched fist and threatened to punch his lights out. He jumped back a few paces with his hands up saying sorry I didn't mean too. I got over it and enjoyed the rest of the night

kkloo · 06/08/2024 03:12

Haven't read the full thread but I saw on facebook the other day that there was a women only nights at a club in Dublin and there was so much outrage from the men in the comments.

XChrome · 06/08/2024 03:16

QueenBitch666 · 06/08/2024 01:28

Less of the animal slurs. Animals don't behave like drunk, entitled, porn addled, rapey pieces of shit

Actually, male animals do commit rape. This has been documented in multiple species. Dolphins are one of the worst offenders, odd as that may sound.