Pubs and clubs

[sunshineandbooks]

Since having DC, I rarely visit clubs or pubs any more as my social activities tend to steer away from drinking. However, I do like a good dance, so average a night out at a club about once a year. That night out was this weekend just gone.

I had a great time, but I was struck by how awful some men can be. Some were lovely, some tried it on but took no as an answer first time, a couple were absolutely dreadful.

One guy was so persistent that not only did I have to spell it out that I wasn't interested, but I actually had to resort to "will you just fuck off".

I was with a group of girlfriends, but had I been on my own (as I used to be quite often in the past) I would have been very unhappy leaving this club with this guy still around. Likewise, if I hadn't had plenty of friends around inside the club I would have had no choice but to get the bouncers to intervene and chuck him out. TBH I wish I'd done that anyway now.

Looking around me, it was a pattern repeated all over the place, with young girls being particularly targetted. Now I handled this. I'm a 36-year-old mother of two with an abusive ex and self-defence training, but the thought of naive 18 year old girls going out there and facing this horrifies me. I know many 18 year olds are more than capable of handling this, as was I at that age, but many aren't, it's really horrible and IMO it's wrong. Why should women have to go around in groups for their own safety? They're going to a nightclub not a bloody war zone. Why are we (as in society) tolerating so much crap behaviour from sexually predatory men? Why did I think only of my self-preservation at the time instead of making a stand for all women and having him chucked out? Am I so conditioned by society that I consider this a normal part of a night out? It's really got me thinking.

As it happens, I had a great night, but I really feel like I'd like a personality test done on people before they're allowed in. Am I alone in wishing you could have same-sex (non-gay) clubs where you can go and dance without any unwanted attention?

The last one I went to out pubbing & clubbing it was horrendous. There were 6 of us and every single one of us was grabbed, rubbed up against and letched at. It started within 2 minutes of us entering the first, fairly empty pub where a bloke pressed up against us at the bar. Plenty of room for him to stand elsewhere. And it ended as we were walking back to the mini bus and a bloke slapped my friends behind and said "cor. Nice arse".

For the hard of thinking, I know the difference between letched at and flirted with. I also know the difference between sexual assault and drunken fooling around.

Overt sexual attention from males seems to be presented as a desirable thing right now, with the even more sinister twist that a good, strong male can protect a female from the unwanted attention of other males.

Then I read about how 2/3rds of Asian families support the notion of the honour code and I really start to worry.

I sometimes feel women's rights are going backwards.

So do I. I'm also afraid the legal protections we fought for are under threat. They're fragile as it is. On the more cheerful side, this could be due to young women believing the battle's already won - and, when they start losing ground, will fight for it.

I hope so, anyway!

I think it's fairly normal to want excessive male attention in your teens and twenties - it's part of the self-identification, boundary-setting process for most young women. But I wish they were fully aware of their right to pick and choose. It really shocked me that more women than men blamed the rape victims in that TV experiement (was 3 or 4 years ago, I think; can't recall the details.)

I am a woman in her thirties and the last time I was in a club I had my dress lifted to waist level when I walked across the dance floor.

I'm not ashamed to say that I bent his hand back while calmly (but extremely loudly) asking him what the fuck he thought he was doing. I don't know what depressed me more: the fact that he did it in the first place, or the fact that he clearly thought he'd done an unremarkable thing and was shocked rigid at my reaction. I had to let his hand drop as I was clearly never going to get an answer.

What the fucking fuck???!!!

Well done.

I have done that on the Tube a few times btw. Highly recommended - you get a round of applause!

Yeah, it's quite satisfying. But also not an option available to everyone and it doesn't solve the problem that they shouldn't be fucking doing it in the first place. I can't think about it for too long or the read mist descends: who do they think they are that they can lay their hands on another person? What sort of community are they growing up in that condones this? Is this how they see their mothers? What sort of doublethink do they have to employ if not?

Just another reminder that we're not proper people.

Urg. Absentfather, you have IRKED me with your talk of 'precious flowers' and 'sheltered lives'. In my post I said that I got into some "difficult situations". And by "difficult situations" I wasn't talking about having to ask someone to not look at my chest. I was talking about unwanted attention leading to verbal abuse, sexual assault and rape. Obviously, those things happened because I am a precious flower, thanks for making it clear to me.

I am not sickened by male sexuality. In my younger days, I was very fearful of confrontation. I wish I had had more confidence, and I hope my own daughter will have more of it. But it's a sad thing, in my opinion, that the lack of it would make me SO VERY VULNERABLE, and that I deserve somehow to be considered pathetic because of it. You know, one of these 'precious flowers' you are talking about.

You are quite right to be irked MoChan.

That sort of thing makes me angry too. Telling women that they are 'sheltered' or 'precious flowers' because they do not wish to be sexually harassed and assaulted, as they go about their daily business, is victim blaming.

It is also manhating as it implies that sexually imposing yourself on strangers is normal male behaviour and something women should expect from men. It is our fault if we don't find this normal male behaviour acceptable.

Personally I think rather more of men than that.

Thanks Beachcomber.

What I also find irritating is when people refuse to acknowledge that tolerating something at a low level (ie, this harmless groping, or whatever it is that's considered harmless) might lead to something worse.

What Absentfather also seems to fail to understand is that standing up to a man is harder if he's a lot bigger than you, and giving off an air of not-being-afraid-to-get-rough. I had an early lesson in not-standing-up-for-myself at school, aged 11. I told a boy (a big lad, well built, a foot taller than me) to back off, and he punched me in the mouth. Hard. I looked around and the other boys were all smirking and the girls were pretending not to have seen what happened, presumably fearful of drawing attention to themselves. I felt very foolish.

It didn't help me to 'stand up to him'. It might have been successive incidents of male aggression in the face of my standing up for myself that actually led to my fear of confrontation later.

Plus, there always seems to be an assumption that this is about sex; that when you are sexually harassed, it's just about that a person wanting to have sex with you, and making it known. It's about much more than that. It's power play. It's ritual humiliation. When people do things like pulling skirts up in a public place, it's not because they expect that woman to turn to them and think, "mmm, hot, I fancy you", is it? They MUST know it's not going to get them laid. They're doing it to bring that woman down a peg or two, make everyone laugh at and deride her. At least, that's how it looks to me.

Women are just as bad, in a bar on holiday last year a drunken woman started writhing and rubbing herself up against my DH who tried to back away (too afraid to touch her in case she cried assault) when I told her to F off she squared up to me and said DH had been sexually pestering her.

Axure, that woman was wrong. Everyone who behaves like that is wrong.
But, unless you live in a different universe from the rest of us, far more men behave wrongly in that way, towards women, than women do towards women or men.

axure that particular drunken woman may well have been as bad as the vile specimens that I have encounter but I'd be stunned if the majority of woman are 'just as bad' as some of the examples given on this thread alone.

I remember the classic club double whammy - incessant pestering for phone number, dance, drink purchase etc, followed by being called a bitch and frigid if you insisted they took no for an answer.

I've had less trouble in more alternative clubs, including fetishy goth ones where a lot of people, not just women, were dressed in a very provocative way. It just goes to show that the old chestnut about clothing is bullshit.

nightclubs have always been predatory places, maybe if you just go once a year you are not really used to how they haven't really changed

maybe if you just go once a year you are not really used to how they haven't really changed

Yeah, but I had higher hopes for the TWO generations after me!

I was going to do a post on this very same problem but forgot. I have to say that at 51, the last time I went out I was pestered by a bloke who insisted on dancing with me like I was a professional dancer - I'm not. It was interesting to observe that the floor was filled to capacity when it came to 'ladies' only dance - don't ask, i live in a rural area, and I found that his approaches where bordering on the abusive. I told him several times I didn't want to dance, as did others. He wouldn't listen.

I told him several times I didn't want to dance, as did others. He wouldn't listen.
:(

Yep, so this has sod all to do with 'misinterpreting' signals (you) and everything to do with ignoring signals (him). It pisses me off that a harassed woman needs confirmation from others to be sure she's not being an arse! But, often, we do need it, and I'm glad you got it.

I've just realised that what I wanted to write is a whole different thread, so I'll post that ...
And thanks for the pointer!

Once me and my mate got harrasssed by 2 blokes one each harassing us, followed us to the toilet, bar etc we had to make some excuse and take a walk around the block to loose them,

only for a Yoohoo moment at a taxi bay :O

Itsnotunusualtobe garlic I didn't say the majority of women are as bad, just that women can also be sexually aggressive towards men. It's disgusting behaviour for both sexes, alcohol has a lot to answer for, I'm sure these letches wouldn't do it sober.

Me and my friend spoke abut this earlier predatory people in clubs tend to be older, for men its generally older women (think welch) who grope men and generally older men who do it to women.

puchai - have my first