“You kind of just let it go…”: women’s experiences of male sexual aggressions in mainstream nightclubs

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“You kind of just let it go…”: Women’s Experiences of Male

Sexual Aggressions in Mainstream Nightclubs.

“I Am Not Here for You” by Tatyana Fazlalizadeh. Brooklyn, NYC.

Renelle McGlacken

UvA ID: 11126779

MA Thesis Sociology: Gender, Sexuality and Society

Academic supervisor: Dr. Bojan Bilić

Second reader: Dr. Margriet van Heesch

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June 2016

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Acknowledgements

I would like to express thanks to both my academic supervisor and second reader for all your constructive criticism and insightful feedback. I am also truly grateful to my participants, without whose intimate contributions this thesis could not have been written.

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Abstract

In the UK and Ireland, mainstream nightclubs have become popular fixtures in the night-time economy, purporting to offer their patrons a hedonistic break in the routine monotony of daily life. However, the (hetero)sexual atmosphere which pervades these settings places female club-goers in tenuous positions, with its reproduction and legitimisation of a forceful heteromasculinity meaning that, for many women, men’s sexual aggressions are common parts of their nights out. This thesis will explore how female club-goers perceive, attribute responsibility for, and manage these aggressions, attempting to unsettle their spatial normalisation. From this, the notion of consent is found to be largely absent in mainstream clubs, with these hyper-sexual and gender essentialising environments constructing a woman’s presence here as a symbol of her consent. Furthermore, this research has emphasised the need to culturally reconceptualise the notion of sexual assault in order to account for sexual aggressions which are consistently trivialised and exempt from such classification.

Key words: nightclubs, (hetero)sexual atmosphere, heteromasculinity, sexual aggressions,

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Foreword: Setting the ‘scene’

Before beginning a discussion of women’s experiences of nightclubs, it is necessary to mark a distinction between recognisable club scenes. The two broad categories commonly used to discuss nightclubs are the ‘mainstream’ and the ‘alternative’/‘underground’ scenes. Hutton (2004) makes this distinction as her ‘participants tended to differentiate between

‘mainstreams’ and ‘undergrounds’ in terms of risk and safety especially the risk of violence and sexual harassment in mainstream clubs’ (Hutton, 2004:227). Whereas, underground nightclubs ‘were seen as having less emphasis on sexual encounters with better attitudes towards women’ (Hutton, 2004: 227), offering them opportunities ‘to construct a positive sexual identity that is different to conventional stereotypes’ (Hutton, 2004:232). Similarly, Boyd’s (2014) research into alternative club scenes in Canada found an enjoyment of dancing as the primary reason for visiting alternative nightclubs for men and women alike. Yet female participants felt that in ‘larger commercial nightclubs, there is an expectation that sexiness extends off the dance floor into sexual invitation’ (Boyd, 2014:503).

Boyd’s earlier work (2010) illustrates the tangibility of the mainstream, claiming that ‘it is important to understand the ‘mainstream’ as more than simply an imaginative entity – as not only discursive but also as a grounded, yet fluid, site which produces, maintains and reiterates the moral contours of heterosexuality (among other things) within the neoliberal city’ (Boyd, 2010:170). This is reiterated by Hubbard (2013) whose research explores the ‘(hetero) sexual practices and performances associated with ‘mainstream’ spaces of nightlife’ (Hubbard, 2013:272). The reproduction of heterosexuality in mainstream nightclubs is routinely signified through ‘aggressive ‘macho’ behavior’, ‘aggressive’ pickup scenes, heterosexual hyper-femininity/masculinity, and ‘popularized stereotypically gendered body types’ (Boyd, 2010:180-183). Therefore, despite variances in nightclub practices which depend on context, we can still use the concept of the ‘mainstream’ as a category to delineate a particular type of nightclub space and its associated routines. Unless explicitly stated otherwise this research will focus on the practices within mainstream nightclubs.

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Introduction

In the UK and Ireland nightclubs have become regular hotspots for adult leisure, they are places which grant consumers an opportunity to temporarily forget about the frustrations gathered through daily life and collectively ‘let their hair down’. Emphasised by the conception of the night itself as embodying a unique potential for transgressing the social norms which govern daytime routines (Melbin, 1978; Lovatt and O’Connor, 1995; van Liempt, 2015), clubs are often perceived as spaces which facilitate a bypassing of these social boundaries and scripts. Thus, nightclubs are widely treated as providing opportunities for behaviours which may be deemed unacceptable during the day. However, they do not offer this prospect to all patrons equally, as the ability to let loose and release one’s inhibitions may be experienced in tension with particularly feminine anxieties around risk, safety, and shame that are managed by women on nights out.

Women’s nightclub experiences are often imbued with uniquely feminine risks and

knowledges of how to manage these which highlight the conflict between the norms of the club and those of wider culture. This is shown through the excessive alcohol consumption that many nightclubs promote and which places women in difficult positions with public drinking and intoxication traditionally being associated with masculinity. Although these norms may be shifting, with alcohol consumption no longer strictly aligned with masculinity in dominant culture, intoxication is still a part of drinking which can be stigmatising for women. Lyons and Willott (2008) highlight this, with their research finding that ‘women’s drinking [was] acceptable up to a certain point. Once very drunk, however, women are

looked down upon, considered embarrassing and also ‘slutty’’ (Lyons and Willott, 2008:705). Furthermore, in nightclubs and night-time public spaces these perceptions of drunk women can also mobilise physical risks, namely sexual assault, with previous research reiterating women’s internalisation of these vulnerability discourses (Parks et al, 1998; Lyons and Willott, 2008; Armstrong et al, 2013; Brooks, 2011).

Therefore, female club-goers may experience the nightclub as a paradoxical space in which they must ‘cling on’ to boundaries whilst simultaneously ‘letting go’ of them. This links with Measham’s (2002) idea of ‘controlled loss of control’, which emphasises how clubgoers routinely maintain the balance between ‘letting go’ through using drugs and alcohol and minimising the risks which surround this. However, I would argue that through exploring the

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7 anxieties of women in nightclubs this concept may expand beyond intoxication culture and permeate much of women’s club experience more generally. Women often begin from positions of tension in nightclubs, with dominant feminine norms being reproduced in this space alongside a transgressive female hyper-sexualisation. As Boyd (2014) emphasises, ‘[t]hough women have to negotiate their sexuality within the confines of the patriarchal male gaze, men are not necessarily put in the same position of having to rupture such spaces’ (Boyd, 2014:503). Therefore, the release of inhibitions that nightclubs promise may be more of a possibility for men than women.

Moreover, the construction and reproduction of male (hetero)sexuality as an uncontrollable force in nightclubs often results in a condoning of sexual aggressions as a natural by-product of this. It is widely claimed that sexual aggressions and harassing behaviours such as groping and leering are commonplace for many female club-goers (Parks et al., 1998; Graham et al., 2014; Becker and Tinkler, 2015; Kavanaugh, 2015) and due to the frequency with which they occur and the lack of problematization that they receive, they are generally framed as

‘nuisances’ that women must put up with on their night out. However, the normalisation that surrounds these acts does not conclude that they are harmless, rather it reflects the club’s capitalisation on pre-existing gender norms in order to market an atmosphere and experience which reproduces male sexuality as dominating and aggressive and gives it the space to run free.

Therefore, these issues of inequality which structure women’s experiences in nightclubs are socially significant, with their consistent trivialisation in wider society ignoring that, for many, they are lived as anxiety-provoking and sometimes dangerous realities. By aiming to better understand the knowledges of female club-goers we can gain an insight into the inner workings and agendas of mainstream nightclubs which place women in the paradoxical positions, as both subjects and objects of urban nightlife. Furthermore, by developing our awareness of women’s nightlife experiences we can also reveal some of the wider societal gender norms which produce and sustain their unequal social positioning. As the ubiquity with which sexual aggressions occur towards women in nightclubs and the difficulty that surrounds the naming of them stands to reflect how often these practices are shrugged away. By understanding the experience of female club-goers we can come to see that in nightclubs consent to sexual interactions is symbolically given by one’s entry into the club. Thus, the victim-blaming discourses which rape culture perpetuates are acutely felt in this space, with

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8 conventions of dress, intoxication, sociability, and dancing styles often being used against women to delegitimise any claims of sexual aggression or abuse. This thesis will argue that sexual aggressions have become normal heteromasculine performances in mainstream nightclubs and that the general disregard of these acts works to limit what is conceivable as sexual assault, thus furthering victim-silencing and -blaming discourses.

By exploring these areas of women’s nightclub experiences, this research contends that nightclub sexual aggressions and harassment should be acknowledged as valid and

recognised forms of violence. Before we can prevent these practices we must first give them names, which is a transformative process in itself, discursively altering what cultural

definitions of assault and abuse can encompass. Therefore, this transformation must occur from both inside and outside the nightclub, as Graham et al. (2014) state, ‘[t]o address the ambiguity of unwanted sexual overtures, changes are needed in cultural and bar norms about the acceptability of sexual harassment and aggression in bars and elsewhere’ (Graham, 2014:1422). Nightclubs do not exist outside of wider public discourse and therefore one cannot be changed without the other.

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Literature review

Nightclubs, sex, and sexual aggression

Nightclubs are commonly perceived as places of hedonism and exhilaration which embody the transgressive essence of the urban night. They routinely sell themselves by offering a break in the routine monotony of daily life, providing a space for consumers to let loose and release their collective inhibitions. Yet for women, nightclubs are often experienced as spaces of intensified male harassment through practices which accentuate cultural values that place women’s bodies and sexualities in the hands of men. The gender norms which play out in wider culture appear to be amplified in this space, where the possibility of hooking-up is habitually expected, encouraged, and tangibly felt. As Tan (2014) argues, ‘the affective ‘feel’ of club spaces encourages particular performances to take place, and these ‘feelings’ eventually work to crystallize hegemonic (i.e. heterosexual) sexual desires between bodies’ (Tan, 2014:33).

However, these sexual interactions taking places in clubs are structured on pre-existing and unequal social relations of power, with women’s bodies often being constructed as

subservient to the wills of male clubbers. As Hollands (1995) shows, ‘continuing assumptions about female sexuality means that many young women have to put up with verbal and

sometimes physical harassment on nights out’ (Hollands, 1995:64). These assumptions hinge upon traditional gender norms which render women as passive and willing in giving

themselves over to an aggressive masculine sexuality. Tan (2014) highlights this gender performance within mainstream nightclubs as she asserts that ‘[i]n the process of

(per)forming heterosexual relations, it is often the female body that is dubbed as an ‘open and available’ empty spaces waiting to be (ful)filled by men’ (Tan, 2014:34).

In addition to this discourse of female sexuality, the cultural notion that women’s bodies are out of place in a public context, especially at night, may be said to further assumptions of their inherent vulnerability. Wesely and Gaarder (2004) argue that ‘[w]omen's comfort levels within public, outdoor space decrease as they continue to associate this space with male violence and violation’ (Wesely and Gaarder, 2004:655). Therefore, the traditional connection between drinking environments and night-time itself with masculine leisure arguably amplifies this view of female sexuality, as women may be perceived as ‘asking for

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10 it’ simply by being within this space. Tan stresses this point, claiming that the ‘underlying assumption—which borders on slut-shaming and victim-blaming—is that women are rendered more vulnerable to unwanted sexual harassments when they are out clubbing at night’ (Tan, 2014:31).

Although these cultural values of femininity exist prior to and outside of nightclubs, I would argue that within this space these gender dynamics and (hetero)sexual expectations are amplified. This intensification arises from nightclub marketing strategies, whose emphasis of sexual promise and release of inhibition mean that ‘these spaces of nightlife are not neutral backdrops where socio-sexual relations unfurl; rather, these spaces are also productive of these relations’ (Tan, 2014:26). Rief (2009) also demonstrates this point as she argues that ironically nightclubs are ‘frequently described as an other reality … whose absorbing atmosphere facilitates the distantiation from routines of everyday life; paradoxically, while reproducing routines quite similar to everyday contexts’ (Rief, 2009:4). However, I would push this further in arguing that nightclubs often amplify dominant heterosexual discourses and consequently the gender performances which play out in this space become more acute and visible. This is highlighted within one of Boyd’s (2010) interviewee’s discussion of mainstream clubs:

‘I would say [the mainstream pickup scene] is more amplified. I wouldn’t say it’s different; I would say it’s more obvious . . . At a [more mainstream] club that I go to, this happens often, where I make clear body language that I’m not interested in dancing with somebody, very clear, very clear. Like I turn my back on them when they start coming up to me, I don’t make eye contact, I’m looking at the ground, sometimes I even glare at them, honestly. And it tends to take [them] a while to notice. Like when I was going to Celebrities on Davie [Street] […] almost every time that I went I had to get into a shoving match and physically push people off me and tell them to fuck off right’ (Anonymous, Boyd, 2010:181).

The normalisation of male harassment and aggression towards women in nightclubs can be identified through women’s pervasive adoption of self- and group-disciplinary strategies in order to manage this unwanted attention. For instance, Waitt et al.’s (2011) study found that many of the women in the sample employed a ‘range of management practices to sustain the boundaries of these spaces of privacy’ and to cope with men ‘routinely disrupting women’s control of space through physical and verbal interventions, and engendering discomfort’ (Waitt et al., 2011:268). The particular anxieties that motivated women’s detailed preparation

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11 for nights out centred on certain performances of masculinity which women often expected in clubs and bars. Similarly, Tan observed that ‘female clubbers often have to act as gatekeepers of their bodily space by limiting the extent of male sexual advances’ (Tan, 2014:34).

Although her research also highlighted the liminality between the experiences of liberation and oppression for women in nightclubs, with one participant sharing that ‘[t]here is an electrifying tension between feeling safe and succumbing to sexual pleasure’ (Tan, 2014:34).

Nightclubs, alcohol, and intoxication

Much of the previous research into gender dynamics within the night-time economy has focused on the effect of alcohol consumption, with alcohol understandably playing a large part in nightlife experiences. For instance, Lyons and Willott (2008) highlighted the gender essentialist discourses which regulate alcohol consumption, with their research illustrating a common pattern of vilification of drunk women and celebration of drunk men. They link these to essentialist discourses which tie women to the domestic sphere as carers and men to the public as hunters, arguing that women often internalise this disapproval of losing control and consequently regulate their female friends to prevent this (i.e. through management of friends’ alcohol intake) (Lyons and Willott, 2008:706).

Similarly, Hubbard (2013) emphasises the double standards within drinking discourses, with women facing ‘more opprobrium than men when they drink, despite appearing less likely to perpetuate violence or nuisance’ (Hubbard, 2013:271). Likewise, Brooks (2008) claims that women are held more accountable for their behaviour when drunk whereas drunken men are contrastingly often relieved of responsibility (Brooks, 2008:345). Because of this, women often claimed issues of drink-spiking or sexual assault as their own responsibility, with those who got ‘too’ drunk often facing blame for their incapacity to stay vigilant (Brooks,

2008:344). Moreover, female drinkers are regularly judged against a gender and class standard that men are not, meaning they ‘need to perform a balancing act in order to protect against a stigmatized identity’ (Rolfe et al, 2009:333).

Yet rather than simply focusing on the effects of alcohol consumption at the individual level, alcohol use can also be theorised as constitutive of Anderson’s (2009) concept of ‘affective atmospheres’. Anderson describes these atmospheres as ‘spatially discharged affective qualities that are autonomous from the bodies that they emerge from, enable and perish with’ (Anderson, 2009:80). Jayne et al. (2010) emphasise this possibility, arguing that alcohol consumption can create an ‘embodied, emotional and affective ‘excess’’ (Jayne et al, 2010:

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12 551). This means that drinking can work to dissolve social barriers by facilitating a feeling of collectivity and belonging whilst also simultaneously providing an emotional and subjective experience. Therefore, it can be argued that ‘alcohol, drinking and drunkenness is used to generate particular embodied, emotional and affective experiences that, while varying

between individuals, nonetheless creates collective drunken mind-body-worlds’ (Jayne et al., 2010:551).

The softening of social boundaries and creation of an affective atmosphere that alcohol and nightclubs afford may also increase the amount and force of male (hetero)sexual attention that women experience. As although heteropatriarchal practices of heckling and harassing women exist in the daytime, these behaviours may be given more license within an

atmosphere of relaxed social boundaries, intoxication, and hetero-sexiness. At the same time, my own previous research (McGlacken, 2015) into this area demonstrated a pattern of female alcohol consumption which was partly intended to distract from the force of male attention. As Tan claims ‘the engineering of affective atmospheres may distort how clubbers are conscious of themselves as being entrenched within patriarchal matrices of power’ (Tan, 2014:27). Thus, women are placed between the tensions of staying alert to protect personal and group safety and also maintaining a level of intoxication that provides enjoyment and also a detachment from unwanted male attention.

Within previous research, nightclub gender dynamics have largely been studied in connection with intoxication culture (Brooks, 2008; Hutton, 2004; Lyons and Willott, 2008; Waitt et al., 2011). Yet I believe it is necessary to explore women’s experience of the heterosexual practices of nightclubs and the routine aggressions that arise within this without limiting one’s scope to alcohol and drug consumption. Although these are important factors within nightclub practices, this partially diverts from the gender dynamics which are at work inside and outside of the club. Reducing such acts to alcohol consumption ignores the frequency with which they also occur outside of drinking environments. Consequently this shirks the responsibility of agents for their own actions and limits us to a critique of alcohol and drug use rather than the gender roles that nightclubs reproduce. Furthermore, this focus reflects cultural understandings of alcohol consumption as fuelling dangerous behaviours and placing drinkers, particularly women, in vulnerable situations.

This can be seen in campaigns such as UK alcohol awareness charity Drinkaware’s (2015) ‘You wouldn’t sober, you shouldn’t drunk’ campaign which ‘aims to address sexual

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13 harassment, like groping and inappropriate sexual banter, which many young adults say they often experience as part of a night out’1. Although campaigns such as this can be recognised as signs of cultural intolerance to sexual harassment, they ignore the nightclub’s part in encouraging such behaviours along with their encouragement of intoxication. Moreover, this campaign does not acknowledge the gender dynamics which are at work here, as although it highlights that women experience harassment significantly more than men on nights out (‘[a]lmost a third of young women have received unwanted physical attention and touching on a night out, and 10% of men’2_{), it does not make any suggestion that these practices are}

often the expression of cultural gender ideals.

Although it may be amplified by them, the notion that women’s bodies belong to men precedes and transcends nightclubs, alcohol, and drugs. Grazian’s (2007) study of the ritual of ‘the girl hunt’ illustrates this by showing how sexually aggressive behaviours in clubs and bars are often linked to normative performances of masculinity and homosocial bonding rather than heterosexual desire. Thus, gender is highlighted as the source of such practices, rather than alcohol. Instead of this focus on intoxication as instigating male sexual aggression and yet also helping women to manage this, it is necessary to explore the cultural

normalisation that reproduces and sustains these behaviours in nightclub settings. In this vein, Becker and Tinkler (2015) investigate how people attribute blame for sexual aggressions in public drinking spaces. They found that ‘alcohol, context, and gender moderate how people attribute responsibility and blame for sexual aggression in public drinking settings’ (Becker and Tinkler, 2015:236). Furthermore, their respondents’ used ‘[t]raditional norms not only [to] prescribe male pursuit and female passivity but also [to] proscribe sexual aggression’ (Becker and Tinkler, 2015:251), even when this contributed to self-blame for victimisation. Similarly, Kavanaugh (2015) highlights the ways in which certain behaviours are normalised within club spaces, observing that ‘[v]ictims’

acknowledgment of such incidents as criminal or even deviant is often obscured by the social contexts in which they occur’ (Kavanaugh, 2015:454).

Therefore, although alcohol plays a prevalent role in sexual aggressions this thesis will place the nightclub setting itself at the foreground of inquiry, to problematise how women perceive,

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https://www.drinkaware.co.uk/press-office/students-call-for-universities-to-take-action-against-drunken-sexual-harassment

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14 attribute responsibility for, and manage the sexual aggressions and harassment which

routinely occur in this space.

Methodology

In our attempts to do justice to the corners of social life that we analyse we must embrace a truly qualitative Sociology, to use rather than striving to lose our subjective positions and embodied knowledges. This approach has seldom been demonstrated as vividly as in the work of Donna Haraway, whose passion for metaphors, situated knowledges, and re-establishing the accountability of scientists for their knowledge claims inspires my fervour for qualitative research. Haraway (1988) argues that rather than aiming for an impossible level of objectivity which provides a false ‘transcendence of all limits and responsibility’, ‘only partial perspective promises objective vision’ (Haraway, 1988:582-583). Thus

Haraway’s ‘[f]eminist objectivity is about limited location and situated knowledge, not about transcendence and splitting of subject and object. It allows us to become answerable for what we learn how to see’ (Haraway, 1988:583).

When putting this into practice another feminist philosophy guides my relationship with research, namely Cynthia Enloe’s (2006) call for taking women’s experiences seriously. Although Enloe demonstrates the necessity of this viewpoint using the context of women and the U.S. war in Iraq, this preposition is crucial in all research areas and positions. Such a requirement may seem obvious and overly simplistic, however bearing these words in mind allows us to realise how often women’s experiences and knowledges are overlooked or undermined. In terms of this thesis’s focus, Enloe’s position provides an insightful practicality with which to politicise women’s routine experiences and common sense knowledges. For me, taking women seriously involves a validation of emotional and

embodied knowledges, both of which have been historically feminised and thus stigmatised according to a patriarchal hierarchizing of knowledge forms.

Wacquant (2015) demonstrates the need to shift from this traditional conception of what constitutes legitimate knowledge, stating that ‘[w]e grant the dignity of knowledge to propositional information carried by language and located in the mind. We overlook procedural or practical knowledge acquired and manifested in concrete deeds’ (Wacquant, 2015:3). Practical, tacit, and lived knowledges which arise from feelings and emotions inform our daily lives and emphasise the body as an inescapable mediator for how we come to know. However, within academia these knowledges have often been invalidated. Nevertheless, my

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15 exploration of this research area will treat these forms of knowledge with the authenticity that they deserve, illustrating the link between taking women and traditionally feminised

knowledges seriously.

Data collection methods

Consequently to explore this research area I used semi-structured interviews which strive for rich embodied narratives rather than generalizable themes. These interviews are informed by the methodological insights above and also more specifically Oakley’s (2016) discussion of ‘the gift’, a concept arising from previous methodological explorations of interviewing processes (Limerick et al., 1996). This notion frames participants’ contributions to research as a ‘gift’, a sharing of their personal experiences and understandings, thus highlighting the generous one-sidedness of this interchange. This analogy provides a useful framework to interpret the irreducibly unequal relationship between the researcher and the researched. As Oakley claims that ‘the dependence of researchers on what research participants are willing to contribute from the memories and stories of their lives’ (Oakley, 2016:208). Therefore, where it was relevant I shared my experiences of nightclub sexual aggressions with interviewees, offering my own stories in an attempt to establish an empathetic and

comfortable space for discussing experiences which, due to the focus of this thesis, are not always easy or pleasant to recall.

Although this exchange of experiences does not diminish the power balance inherent in the interview process, it does lend support to the creation of rapport and also helped signal to interviewees that I am acquainted with mainstream nightclubs. Rubin and Rubin (2011) suggest that this lets ‘interviewees know that because you are familiar with their world, superficial answers won’t teach you much’ (Rubin and Rubin, 2011:101). Although, women’s experiences are diverse and my nightclub experience is not to be taken as necessarily generalizable to other women. Nonetheless, having a pre-existing interest and involvement in this social area means that my interviews were guided by an empathy that arises from my own lived experience of nightclubs and those I have lived them with. As when discussing practices which wider society often blames women for, the creation of shared understandings and empathy is significantly valuable.

My research sample consisted of eleven White women from the UK and Ireland who identified as heterosexual and were all in the age range of 20-22. Being of a similar age, location, and ethnicity as my participants helped to develop a sense of affinity and shared

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16 understanding within the interviews, aiding open discussions. Interviews followed an open-ended interview guide involving questions that sought rich and emotive narratives. Interviews were recorded using the recording software of my mobile phone and transcribed without technical software to aid in a human and emotional understanding of language. All participants’ names and any names mentioned were anonymised.

Ethical issues

Due to the subject matter of this thesis, stories and memories discussed by participants were often of a sensitive nature, therefore necessitating a careful approach. All participants were informed of the research focus when asked for their participation and could withdraw their participation at any time during and after the interview. Where appropriate, information for helplines and websites was supplied to participants. However, despite the seriousness of some recollections, many participants spoke of their experiences with an easy frivolity, reinforcing the understanding that nightclub sexual aggressions are subject to widespread trivialisation, sometimes even by those who endure them. Nevertheless, I treated participants’ accounts of sexual aggression seriously, attempting to unsettle their cultural disregard and provide these women with the serious consideration that their experiences deserve.

Data analysis

Data collected was analysed using a feminist discourse analysis which Lazar (2007) describes as aiming ‘to show up the complex, subtle, and sometimes not so subtle, ways in which frequently taken-for-granted gendered assumptions and hegemonic power relations are discursively produced, sustained, negotiated, and challenged in different contexts and communities’ (Lazar, 2007:142). Therefore, I hope to reveal the ways in which nightclubs reproduce essentialising gender dynamics that encourage male harassment and sexual aggression and also explore how women themselves experience and manage this in the club space. This analytic approach takes a strongly reflexive stance, critically assessing one’s position within and accountability for producing the research.

Furthermore notions and judgements of oppression/liberation, pleasure/pain, etc. are to be critically examined rather than taken as universal and complete categories. To do justice to one’s research sample we must steer clear of generalisations and allow theory to inductively arise from the data instead of prematurely applying frameworks onto the social field. This adherence to feminist notions of equality in research drives my decisions to explore areas

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17 which I am already well-acquainted with. Otherwise, as Lazar notes, it ‘can be problematic when the direction of expertise flows from traditionally privileged groups at the centre to subaltern groups’ (Lazar, 2007:142). Therefore, feminist research attempts to avoid making knowledge claims about groups which we are not part of, although the realistic limitations of this ethical undertaking are clear when we consider the researcher’s academic position as typically one of authority.

This thesis will be laid out into five chapters, beginning with an overview of the

(hetero)sexual atmosphere and practices of nightclubs, their amplification of dominant gender roles, and their encouragement of sexual aggressions. This opening chapter will provide the backdrop to then explore the main research focus of sexual aggressions in mainstream nightclubs. The subsequent chapters will then largely follow Becker and Tinkler’s format, focusing on how young women: perceive; attribute responsibility for; and manage sexual aggressions in mainstream nightclubs. Finally, the key points of the research will be discussed in a concluding chapter and suggestions for what could be done in light of the information gathered will be offered.

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Chapter one: Nightclubs as amplifiers of dominant gender roles, heterosexual

scripts and encouraging sexual aggressions

Despite their purposes beyond this, nightclubs are still culturally recognised as key locations for casual sexual encounters. The dominance of this view of nightclubs and their reproduction of this through promotions and events which essentially sell sexual possibilities means that as Tan (2014) states they ‘are not just places for leisurely drinking, dancing, and socialising in the evenings, but also a (hetero)sexual marketplace’ (Tan, 2014:24). This marketplace is fuelled by an amplification of pre-existing gender norms in ways which are simultaneously culturally compatible and contradictory. This is due to their general framing of femininity as one which reinforces the cultural view of women as sexual objects yet also attempts to equip the postfeminist discourse of female (hetero)sexual liberation. As Tan reflects, this ‘revised (post)feminine (hetero) sexuality has encouraged women to perform an array of contradictory subjectivities ascribing to both femininity (having a well-adorned, disciplined ‘docile’ body) as well as masculinity (being sexually confident and always ‘up for it’)’ (Tan, 2014:24). This means that for many female club-goers there is a significant sense of preparing oneself and one’s body to meet the gender norms of the club. Although men may ‘dress up’ to meet formal clothing requirements (i.e. generally no tracksuits or trainers), women often regard clubs as places where they must present their most attractive self. Matilda expresses this in her discussion of the routine that is required for a night out:

Obviously the nightclub is one of the few places that you do get very y’know dressed up for and you try and look the nicest that you possibly can. And I don’t know why that is, and I know that you don’t, like I don’t think I do it to get with a guy. If I was looking at why I do it, it would be because y’know you wanna look as good as all your friends. And y’know like it is fun, it is fun to get dressed up sometimes and I suppose be feminine in that way. (Matilda)

Although this may be felt as enjoyable for some, other women spoke of this routine as an effort which was often stressful, as Bella highlights ‘sometimes it’s tedious like you sit there and you’ve just had dinner and you’re like for god’s sake I’ve now got to get ready and it’s gonna be so much effort’. Women’s bodies require a more intensive transformation process than men’s in order for them to fit into the space, hence they must first be disciplined before they can attempt to ‘let their hair down’. Fiona described this transformative work in a similar

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19 way as putting on a costume so that she can consequently perform the feminine act required within the club:

I’d probably do myself up a lot, like cos yeah maybe that’s the thing like when you’re going out you’re kind of being someone else for a bit. Like if you’re in a club and so you put make up on and I wouldn’t be like I am now, but I wouldn’t be like slutty at all. I’d just wear like a nice dress and maybe heels. (Fiona)

This conceptualisation of nightclubs as spaces which make visible the performance of gender may be due to the exaggeration of traditional gender norms within this environment. If clubs are places in which women feel they must emphasise their femininity, then many may relate to Fiona in that they must temporarily become ‘someone else’ to fit in. That nightclubs regulate these polarised gender performances means that they can evoke real anxieties for women around achieving gender normativity in an often paradoxical space. Due to the club’s co-existing values of women as conventionally feminine (i.e. hetero-sexy) and as equipping masculine values of excessive drinking and being sexually receptive, women must often carefully negotiate these gender ideals in order not to breach (or breach as little as possible) traditional values of respectable femininity. This anxiety is highlighted in Fiona’s avowal that she ‘wouldn’t be like slutty at all. I’d just wear like a nice dress and maybe heels’. The worry that surrounds being conceived as ‘slutty’ highlights the precarious balance women may endeavour to strike in clubs, to conform here without rupturing there.

Skeggs (1997) argues that ‘White middle-class femininity was defined as the ideal, but also as the most passive and dependent of femininities. It was always coded as respectable’ (Skeggs, 1997:99). As public drinking, intoxication and sexual looseness have long been symptomatic of the lower-classes, these acts may be problematic for women in club

environments. Therefore, Fiona’s discussion of what she would wear in a nightclub and how she would wear it seeks to distance her from being grouped with the largely figurative

category of ‘slutty’ women which clubs work to normalise, yet which are also excluded from normative femininity. Brooks (2008) touches on this, arguing that ‘[w]omen who deviate from accepted standards of social and sexual respectability (e.g. by drinking heavily or dressing in a ‘provocative’ way) may also risk social exclusion by other women’ (Brooks, 2008:334). Although men also face the pressures of performing a hegemonic masculinity which prides itself on sexual conquest and excessive drinking, unlike femininity these norms generally do not conflict with those of wider masculine culture.

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20 Therefore, by following traditional heterosexual scripts and feminine roles by being sexually passive yet ultimately willing, women may be able to conform to the practices of nightclubs without risking their feminine respectability. This can be seen in Charlotte’s distinction between the type of interaction she would have with a man during her work as an erotic dancer and that she might have in a nightclub:

[I’d touch a man] on the leg or the arm probably, I mean I do it at work, just to try and give me that physical contact thing. But that’s a work thing and it’s a different scenario in a nightclub, I’d never really try and pull a man in a nightclub. It kind of just happens doesn’t it? There’s that many men trying to get onto girls and that and if you wait, like fishing – if you put your hook out there someone’ll bite [laughs]. (Charlotte)

At work Charlotte’s sexual assertiveness is driven by an incentive for money, as by engaging a man she increases the chances he will hire her for a lap-dance. However, for her, this dynamic is not appropriate in a nightclub as it disturbs the traditional gender norms generally expected of these spaces. Moreover, this would be unnecessary precisely because of these norms, as she suggests it is much easier to wait for men to come to her with the frequency that this occurs. However, there are undoubtedly exceptions to this pattern, as demonstrated by another respondent’s open frustration with these routines:

Like I hate this whole coy, I’m coy I’m gonna dance here until someone comes up to me. Like just do it yourself. I feel as though it’s much more appropriate to do it, let’s say in the smoking area, where you’re not literally touching anybody or dancing up on top of them. (Clare)

Clare’s response that it would be more appropriate to approach a man in a situation where she is not imposing on his personal space and can also converse means that her assertiveness in sexually-motivated interactions is not simply reflective of her adopting the masculinity conventional of nightclubs. Rather, she criticises the practices which stem from this and employs a ‘pulling’ style which is confident yet respectful, performing an arguably

transgressive femininity. Nevertheless, female initiation was still seen as uncommon by other women interviewed, as shown by Matilda’s expression of the anxieties that surround

deviating from traditional gender scripts:

I don’t think as many women approach guys in a club situation. And I think there is that sort of “oh she asked you out?” I think there is shame for guys in that. I do think

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21 if a girl that approached a guy, like there’s definitely more shame in getting shot down or the guy would feel, I’d be more nervous that the guy would say no just because his mates were there (Matilda).

For Matilda, concerns around gender performance and diverging from the routine sexual dynamics revolve around the possibility of inflicting shame on oneself and the man involved. This is due to the potential of women’s adoption of masculine roles to be felt as emasculating for the man involved, relegating him to the feminine position. This is arguably even more humiliating in sexual interactions as it unsettles traditional heterosexual dynamics and especially those which take place in intensely heteronormative spaces such as mainstream nightclubs. Julia discusses the boundaries of how active women can be in nightclub sexual routines:

I guess it’s a lot different though cos guys like obviously dance behind girls cos sometimes they see that as there ‘in’. Like the guy that tried to put his hands on me and things. Whereas girls can’t really do that. Like I guess they can dance in front of them and things, but I guess they go for more of a conversation first. (Julia)

The suggestion that it would be inappropriate for a woman to dance behind or put her hands onto a man in a nightclub reveals the limits surrounding gender disconformity. Rather than adopt a masculine gender display, women who want to divert from the passive role may seek to bend rather than break traditional gender norms. As to break with such dominant ideals may, as Matilda discussed, result in humiliation for both parties involved. Although it is based on gender displays at college parties, Ronen’s (2010) study demonstrates this anxiety as she found that ‘[d]irect requests to dance, verbal or otherwise, were extremely unusual. When women initiated, they risked punishment for their gender incongruent agency’ (Ronen, 2010:366).

However, the ubiquitous gender norms of women dancing and men approaching means that many women who do not desire any sexual attention may receive it because their non-interest can be construed as playing into these sexual dynamics. Boyd (2014) highlights how

women’s dancing in mainstream clubs is imbued with sexual assumptions, with her participants discussing how their ‘sexualised displays of femininity on the dance floor incurred unwanted, insistent male attentions beyond the performance itself and were,

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22 practices is not always straightforward as women’s passivity can itself be read as

participation.

The difficulty for women to clearly signal their disinterest in nightclubs may be due to the sexual atmosphere that these spaces commonly work to reproduce. Within these atmospheres it is largely assumed that all club-goers share the same sexual goals as highlighted by all my respondents associating mainstream clubs with casual ‘hook ups’ and sex. Hence,

establishing consent through signals may seem unnecessary as it is already symbolised by one’s presence in the club, as Tan summarises ‘[t]he underlying assumption—which borders on slut-shaming and victim-blaming—is that women are rendered more vulnerable to

unwanted sexual harassments when they are out clubbing at night’ (Tan, 2014:31). Moreover, by following the conventions of dress and popular dancing styles, women’s bodies may actually be read as giving off sexual signals as these acts are imbued with sexual

assumptions. This was felt by many of my participants as they described the concerns that regulate how they prepare for nights out:

I do think that when you consciously make I suppose an effort to look good, y’know like lots of make-up, hair – something done with it, not usually tied up, like y’know something fancy, and then a dress or y’know like an outfit that […] I think if you are dressed like that definitely hit on you more, definitely, a hundred percent. And I think that’s because of the assumption that if you’re dressed like that it’s not for you, it’s for a reason. (Matilda)

It’s like people think that they’ve made an effort to look nice, to look good, they’ve got their bums out, their boobs out, it is a come on. But sometimes we just do that cos we wanna look nice. So I wanna make an effort for me. Not for you, not for anyone else, not for my friends, for me. (Ella)

Therefore, some women may be caught between fulfilling the bodily norms of the club and evoking an unwanted sexual attention or alternatively not ‘fitting into’ the space. Hollands (1995) highlights this coding of sexuality within clothing, dancing and other clubbing practices as he observes that ‘there appears to be a disjuncture between the symbolic display and verbalisation of sexuality expressed in language, dress codes, glances and posturing, and to paraphrase the Coke commercial, 'the real thing'’ (Hollands, 1995:36). Although in reality these practices may be disconnected from actual sexual acts and empty of sexual intention, the expectations that they are spatially infused with means that they may arouse responses

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23 that read them as denoting sexual consent. This means that harassment and sexual

aggressions are commonplace in mainstream clubs because they are largely produced and sanctioned by the space in which they occur. As Becker and Tinkler (2015) argue, ‘the ubiquity of non-consensual grabbing, touching, fondling, and kissing in public drinking settings means that much of it is so normalized that it goes unnoticed’ (Becker and Tinkler, 2015:236).

However, it is pertinent to note that the normativity of these nightclub masculine

performances is also structured along racial lines, with the aggressive male heterosexuality that clubs endorse being generally unproblematic when White. As Boyd (2010) highlights, ‘public displays of ‘playful’ aggression are to some extent expected when young,

heterosexual, inebriated (white) men gather and could, therefore, be considered part of the ‘normative’ corporeal conduct in a way that aggressive behavior by racialized men or displays of poverty, such as panhandling for instance, are not’ (Boyd, 2010:175-176). In the interviews of this research race was only mentioned by one participant who felt that ‘creepy’ and aggressive sexual behaviours were usually associated with foreign nationals:

And I hate to be racist but a lot of the time it is like foreign nationals, like in Ireland it’s not usually like Irish guys. It’s usually like, in [a club I go to] in Dublin, it’s definitely like foreign people. In Limerick there’s not as big of a foreign population but it’s just like what you notice. They’re on their own and maybe they just don’t have friends to go out with. (Bethany)

Rather than simply indicating that certain groups of men, here foreign nationals, are more sexually aggressive than others, these cultural distinctions between normal/abnormal,

moral/immoral masculinities may reflect that these bodies are hyper-visible in White spaces. This is illustrated in Bethany’s observation that ‘In Limerick there’s not as big of a foreign population but it’s just like what you notice’. This is epitomised in the recent incidents involving Danish3_{and German}4_{nightclubs banning entry to refugees due to allegations of}

harassment towards female club-goers. The moral panic surrounding the figure of the male refugee highlights how dominant practices are only normative when committed by normative bodies, and how stigmatised bodies do not embody the privilege with which to wield these acts. Although this research cannot make assumptions about Danish and German nightlife

3

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/danish-nightclubs-ban-reufgees-using-language-rules-after-sexual-harassment-complaints-a6821566.html

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24 cultures, it seems unlikely that nationals of both countries do not also engage in some of the mistreatments of women which mainstream nightclubs generally promote. Rather, these faux-concerns for the safety of female club-goers express the further stigmatisation of refugees in Europe, as rather than simply enforcing a zero-tolerance policy on harassment and punish individuals that disregard this, these out-right bans of entry to refugees are the product of racist ideologies.

Therefore, dominant masculine norms themselves evade problematization and instead criticism is directed at these being adopted by the ‘wrong’ bodies. Masculine power cannot be determined simply on the basis of sex difference, as Connell and Messerschmidt (2005) suggest ‘we also must factor in the institutionalization of gender inequalities, the role of cultural constructions, and the interplay of gender dynamics with race, class, and region’ (Connell and Messerschmidt, 2005:839). Therefore, as Bethany’s observation demonstrates, men who are regarded as ‘foreign’ may be deemed as having restricted access to practices sanctioned by a hegemonic masculinity that is reserved for men who fit the culturally normative masculine position (i.e. those who are White, middle-class, able-bodied, heterosexual, etc.).

Class and age are also significant in defining problematic masculinities as many participants related a ‘creepier’ atmosphere to cheaper clubs and clubs associated with older men. This highlights how women’s understandings of which clubs to avoid (see Hollands, 1995; Parks et al., 1998; Waitt, et al., 2011) often rest on class and age judgements. Ella and Julia

expressed these demographics as markers of concern on their nights out:

Sometimes you just wanna have a night out with your friends and there’s people like leering at you and stuff and like tryna touch you. It’s like urgh get off me. But yeah that doesn’t seem to happen as much now. So I don’t know if I’m going to better places? I don’t… I think it actually goes back to class, I think it depends on the type of places you go to, like when I was younger we just used to go to the really cheap places where people were probably from a lower class. But now I’m earning and I can afford to go to a bit more middle class – upper class type places you don’t have that behaviour as much or if someone’s attracted to you then they’ll do it in a more subtle way than tryna like grind on you or something. (Ella)

There’s one here […] but it’s now shut, so basically that’s where, I’m not saying free entry is the reason why but like maybe it is because you don’t have to pay to get in, so

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25 then there’s a lot of older creepy guys in there. Like some people are just out by themself and just kind of wanna, I dunno, find someone. But yeah it’s the kind of typical sticky floor, sticky guy that kind of thing. But yeah like you just have people that won’t leave you alone and just, like yeah it’s just creepy. (Julia)

Cheaper clubs carry with them class distinctions which may serve to legitimate expectations of a more aggressive masculinity. However, rather than essentialise sexual aggressions and harassment as only the product of lower-class masculinities, it may be more accurate to suggest that cheaper clubs capitalise on female objectification and traditional heterosexual scripts more than those considered ‘upmarket’. Cheap drinks, free entry, and less refined surroundings may add to a club’s creation of the mainstream’s characteristic sexual

atmosphere, as these elements work together to fuel the affect of debauchery, lewdness, and social looseness that such clubs sell. Thus, a female club-goer may conclude that to avoid these, she has to financially negotiate her way around the urban night, if she can afford to do so.

Age differences and particularly older men were also identified as signifying clubs that should be avoided. Older men were regarded as ‘creepy’ and anxiety-provoking bodies which are hyper-visible in the sexual atmosphere of mainstream clubs. This can be seen in part of a discussion about a previous night out between two participants:

Laura: Did you see in [that club] though, there was a really large old guy with like a pint in the bit with the sofas and stuff.

Bernadette: Oh yeah just sat there watching, it was disgusting! He was just sat with a pint just looking at the girls… it was vile.

Older men’s bodies may be read as ‘out of place’ in clubs that are usually associated with a younger clientele making them appear hyper-visible within these spaces. However, the sexual atmosphere within mainstream nightclubs lends another layer of discomfort to the presence of older men which may reflect the cultural associations surrounding intimate relationships which involve large age gaps. Relationships between older men and younger women, although more normalised than those between older women and younger men, carry cultural connotations of ‘creepiness’ and the dynamic of ‘predator and prey’. This was reflected in Charlotte’s observation -‘cos of me being like 22, if I was to go to a nightclub where most of the men are 30, I think I’m quite a target then really … [laughs]. I’m quite aware that, yeah, I am a target’. Therefore, although older men may enact a masculinity and heterosexuality

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26 which is largely similar to younger men in nightclubs, their performance of this may be felt as acutely distressing due to its cultural inappropriateness.

Moreover, there was a general feeling amongst most participants that older men were more sexually orientated than younger men in nightclubs. As Matilda expresses ‘I do think older people are more out because they want to find somebody or get with somebody than I think students are’. However, this is somewhat contradicted in her response to the question ‘Do you think people ‘getting with each other’ is a big part of all nightclubs?’ by her stating ‘yeah I would say so, definitely yeah. I’ve never been in a nightclub that didn’t [laughs]’ (Matilda). Hence, rather than older men being particularly sexually-oriented in clubs, the reactions of disgust and concern which some women may feel from their presence could largely reflect cultural anxieties and moral panics surrounding sexual engagements between ‘young’ and ‘old’ bodies. Nevertheless, as Hubbard (2013) observes, ‘the night-time economy is imaginatively, symbolically and materially segregated on age, class and gender lines’ (Hubbard, 2013:279).

Therefore, the sexual atmosphere that nightclubs work to manufacture and maintain is largely structured along the same axis of power at play in wider heteropatriarchal society. This means that women may often find clubs difficult spaces to navigate and control due to their routine utilisation of postfeminist discourses which emphasise women’s sexual freedom whilst simultaneously reducing their roles in clubs to sexual objects. The reproduction of traditional gender dynamics which discipline women to be sexually passive and willing habitually results in a lack of power to ‘opt out’ of the sexual norms of the club and thus frequently subjects women to unwanted attention, harassment, and sexual aggressions. However, as touched upon in this opening chapter, women have developed tacit feminine knowledges which identify sources of significant concern (i.e. class and age distinctions) and motivate a selectiveness within the night-time economy in the hopes of avoiding particular expressions of masculinity.

However, it is important to note here that although the majority of participants expressed views which suggested that a particularly aggressive male heterosexuality was pervasive in nightclubs, this was not the case for all participants. Out of the eleven, one woman felt that male sexual aggressions and harassment in nightclubs only occur on ‘very rare occasion[s]’ and are reflective of individual personality traits rather than dominant cultural norms, as her narrative below highlights:

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27 For me, I don’t think it’s a society wide thing where guys don’t understand. I think it’s just some people just don’t get it. And to be fair, in nightclubs most people are intoxicated so they’re like, even if there was some way of stopping it I’m not sure whatever that would be. I don’t think it would impact drunk people who go to a particular nightclub where generally the majority of people are there in order to have sex with people. (Clare)

Although she was able to draw on club experiences which involved men’s sexually-motivated forcefulness or unwarranted persistence in interactions, for Clare, these instances represent individual behaviours rather than practices. However, Clare somewhat justifies these behaviours through her references to the club’s promotion of intoxication and its hyper-sexual atmosphere, providing them with an explanation rather than regarding them as so uncommon as to be disconnected from the context in which they occur. This points to such conduct being produced and legitimated by nightclubs and their sexual norms, thus

constructing them as spatially sustained and occurring in a wider and more systematic fashion than individualised actions. Therefore, the association of mainstream clubs with an

overarching (hetero) sexual functionality was felt as ubiquitous by all participants and although sexual anxieties were not identified as customary parts of clubbing for all of them, these were substantial concerns for the majority. In order to explore this, how women

perceive, attribute responsibility, and manage these ‘downsides’ (Matilda) to their nights out will be now be explored.

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28

Chapter Two: How women perceive sexual aggressions in nightclubs:

“It’s bad, it’s like normalised. And there’s not much you can say, cos it’s just like yeah some guys do that”

As discussed in Chapter One, the sexual atmosphere that mainstream clubs produce can be problematic for women as they do not occupy the space on an equal footing to men. Rather, men’s assumed sexual dominance is given space to play out, which despite adding more weight to the harmful cultural ideal of the insatiable male libido, affords men more of a legitimate possibility to opt out of the sexual atmosphere as they are largely expected to be the aggressor if interested. Although, as Grazian (2007) reflects, cultural and interpersonal pressures to assert one’s masculinity for the sake of homosocial bonding are often felt acutely by men in this space. Nevertheless, the gender essentialising discourses which nightclubs perpetrate produce and normalise a male sexuality which is often forceful and assaultive towards women.

These aggressions are largely rendered culturally invisible, as Kavanaugh (2015) argues that ‘[w]hile not felonious, such incidents reveal a cultural atmosphere in nightlife spaces where forms of sexual assault, such as unwanted touching, groping, as well as drug-facilitated forms of coercion, are normalized’ (Kavanaugh, 2015:456). As such, these issues escape

problematization and despite many women expressing anger or concern over their frequent occurrence they are merely reflected upon as ‘the downside to it, that’s just like something that happens’ (Matilda). The women of my study repeatedly downplayed the seriousness of such acts, which rather than indicating that these issues do not matter, shows an

internalisation of their disregard in this space. Julia demonstrates this response, by describing the aggressive attention of men in clubs as an occurrence that ‘happens a lot but it’s not like that bad. Well it is bad anyway but…’ (Julia). The frequency of these acts legitimises their occurrence and their acceptability is bolstered by the fact that they are rarely followed with punitive repercussions for the perpetrator. Therefore, shrugging these behaviours off may represent a strategy which allows women to continue to frequent and enjoy nightclubs, as they are often unable to prevent or rectify their occurrence.

Charlotte also makes this connection between frequency and normality, expressing that ‘it’s a brush off the shoulder. Even you asking me ‘can you remember a nightclub experience of this’, I mean it’s happened so many times that I can’t even, I couldn’t even think of a

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29 specific one to tell you. Like it’s that many times’ (Charlotte). Becker and Tinkler’s work also found this response in women’s recollection of sexual aggressions, suggesting that they are ‘so normalized and ubiquitous that unless they had experienced something particularly egregious, some respondents could not recall witnessing it at all or in enough detail to provide a narrative of the event’ (Becker and Tinkler, 2015:242). My own findings

emphasised that detailed recollections of incidents may only ‘stick out’ in memory to female club-goers if they surpass the typical severity of male aggression expected within clubs. This is demonstrated in Bethany’s and Fiona’s accounts of particular instances:

I remember one night I was wearing like a leather skirt, which I thought was fine and like flat shoes and a top and this guy like smacked me on the arse and I was drunk but I went crazy, I was like “what the fuck are you doing?” (Bethany)

I’ve had a guy put his hands like right between my legs whilst I was walking. (Fiona)

That these cases of sexual aggression and violence stand out of the commonplace occurrences correlates with Becker and Tinkler’s finding that ‘unwanted contact from men remains

largely invisible unless it rises to the level of physical threat. Women’s accounts of unwanted sexual contact—which involved being groped, grabbed, and even assaulted after rejecting unwanted touching—reflect this’ (Becker and Tinkler, 2015:245). Although unwanted

touching should be firmly within the spectrum of sexual violence, in nightclubs these acts are often granted a license they would not receive if committed elsewhere. Fiona underlines this when discussing her response to the man putting his hand between her legs:

Fiona: I think I hit but not like proper, just from like shock and then he just smiled and walked away.

R.M: Do you see that as sexual assault or just something that happens?

Fiona: I think the way you’re calling it sexual assault like I would call it that, but in the moment I wouldn’t, I’d just be like this is part of it. But it is sexual assault yeah. R.M: Did you tell anyone about that when it happened?

Fiona: Yeah.

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30 Fiona: It was probably just like a really quick thing, like “aw man that’s horrible” and then that’s it. Yeah, nothing else. Cos it’s like, it’s bad, it’s like normalised. And there’s not much you can say, cos it’s just like yeah some guys do that.

Fiona’s observation that ‘in the moment’ the act would not have been viewed as a form of sexual assault emphasises the club’s spatial norms which naturalise behaviours that would be shocking in other public settings. As touched upon earlier, the sexual atmosphere of the club almost shuts down serious responses over these incidents as they are ultimately regarded as something one should expect and therefore part of the blame is transferred onto the self for wilfully entering the space. This indicates a sense of female powerlessness over these situations and in many ways over one’s body in nightclubs, as though through entry into this environment women symbolically hand over their rights to personal space and bodily

integrity. This is exemplified in Fiona’s comment ‘there’s not much you can say, cos it’s just like yeah some guys do that’. The restrictions around expression of these assaultive acts reflects their cultural exclusion from the lexicons commonly used to describe illicit forms of aggression.

Therefore using terms such as ‘harassment’ may seem harsh and extreme, consequently portraying the person who uses them as irrational and over-sensitive. This relates to rape-culture discourses and myths more generally which often rely on sexist notions of women as innately neurotic or sensitive to nullify claims of assault as untrustworthy (i.e. ‘crying rape’) (for further discussion of rape myths see Edwards et al., 2011). Thus, due to the stigma surrounding such expression, it becomes almost embarrassing to label such acts with these terms, especially as club-goers are so used to them being completely nameless. Even though women often discussed these incidents with their friends the following day, they were typically spoken about with an indifference that arises from experiencing such behaviours so frequently and with little control over their inevitable recurrence. This is shown in Matilda’s, Bethany’s, and Ella’s narratives:

I mean the next morning I suppose if I wake up with my friends we’d probably just be like “oh how disgusting was that” or laugh about it or something. I don’t think people really… But if someone was to say something, I feel like you wouldn’t be taken seriously, especially if it was something seemingly small. Dy’know like if a guy just grabbed your arse in a club, which has happened, I don’t think anyone really cares, I think it’s just like that “well what do you expect?” sort of thing. Like people aren’t

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31 gonna like applaud that guy, they’ll be like “oh what a dickhead” but they’re not gonna go like do anything about it. (Matilda)

It’d be “Oh that’s gas like” y’know it’s not like “Oh my God we need to find out who that was and like report him” y’know. It’s kind of just allowed. (Bethany)

Treat it as normal. Like they’d be like “oh my god, that’s disgusting” like “it’s not on … but there’s nothing you can do about it and it’s gonna happen and it probably won’t be the last time that it does happen”. (Ella)

The air of trivialisation surrounding sexual aggressions which are deemed less serious than the more socially recognisable forms (i.e. penetrative assaults) links with Kavanaugh’s claim that ‘women often experience quite different and varied incidents, many of which are not self-defined as legitimate or ‘ideal’ forms of victimization’ (Kavanaugh, 2015:454). Therefore those acts which do not fall into these ‘idealistic’ categories are unable to be problematized and are thus constructed as normal, limiting what we can conceive as a social and political issue. This model of addressing sexual violence, and violence more generally, is problematic as it perpetuates structural oppressions by dismissing violence that does not meet specific criteria, even if this criteria is not reflective of the large-scale lived reality of such acts. This is exemplified in the cultural construction of male to female rape as only truly legitimate when committed by a stranger, in a public setting, when there is evidence of physical force, and when the complainant is viewed as culturally respectable. As Stevenson (2000) contends ‘Victorian stereotypes and expectations of feminine behaviour have had, and continue to have, profound implications for the ways in which modern women are regarded in the trial process’ (Stevenson, 2000:345).

Yet even acts that do surpass the expected level of male aggression and violence in

nightclubs can be shrugged off, again drawing back to the fact that they occurred in such a space and whilst intoxicated. This is highlighted in Fiona’s example and also in another incident discussed by Matilda in which she described how a man followed her into a toilet cubicle and groped her when she was underage in a nightclub. After immediately telling her friends what had happened a friend’s mother was phoned to collect the group, yet discussion of the assault and any ensuing actions over it were suppressed:

His Mum was like “What? What happened?” and everyone was just kinda like “be embarrassed, don’t say it”. Like I sort of told cos she was asking me what was wrong,

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32 but the vibe in the car was like “don’t say anything”. But then I remember being like to his Mum, like sort of saying what had happened and then cos we were waiting in the car for everyone to get in and then some guy that I knew from school came up to me and was like “I heard what happened, I’m gonna call the police” and then [my friend’s] Mum told him not to. (Matilda)

Here, it is clear to see how the notion of ‘ideal forms’ of sexual assault regulates what is actually conceivable as assault, as Matilda’s age, intoxication, and location in a nightclub invalidate her as an appropriate victim. Rather, the cultural associations tied to these details attach blame and shame onto Matilda, inferring that she ultimately brought the situation on herself whilst also denying that a ‘situation’ even occurred. Becker and Tinkler argue that the gender roles which pervade mainstreams clubs mean that ‘[w]omen, like men, are socialized to expect men’s aggressive sexual conduct and to engineer their own behavior so as to avoid its most serious manifestation (rape) while enjoying the less catastrophic ways that men control/dominate their bodies’ (Becker and Tinkler, 2015:253). Therefore, the onus is put onto women to prevent such violence happening to them, as even when men commit

‘excessively’ aggressive sexual acts, rape myths may still fuel judgements that frame these as a woman’s failing.

In regards to their perception of sexual aggressions, harassment, and assault in nightclubs, some of the women interviewed utilised feminist knowledges. These were thought of as motivating a critique of the club’s gender performances and routine oppressions that other women may not be interested in discussing or even able to discuss. This is shown in Alice’s reflection on her personal experience of harassment in nightclubs:

There have been like a few instances, it depends on how you define harassment but actually the night that I didn’t get drunk but still had a hangover the next day I had two separate instances that were a bit like annoying. They’re probably, I mean you might class them as harassment. Cos of what I’ve studied at uni [Gender and Women’s Studies] there’d be a large range of things that I’d consider harassment, even in clubs. But it might be something that other people wouldn’t consider, but I obviously would. (Alice)

The assumption that the ‘definition’ of sexual harassment is more inclusive amongst those who are exposed to feminist understandings suggests that being equipped with a feminist

“You kind of just let it go…”: women’s experiences of male sexual aggressions in mainstream nightclubs