Marie

Just the other night I was in a nightclub with a group of friends. There had been a few guys (strangers) that had come up behind me and some of the other girls and tried to dance with us, but we were able to move away or turn to block them out of our circle. There had also been guys that touched my butt as they walked by. Then later one guy came up behind me and tried to hold me and dance up against me. I pushed him back, but then he just came closer and pushed into me and tried to hold me again. One of my male friends physically pulled me away into another space and then the rest of my friends moved so that the guy was cut out of coming closer to us. I was pissed off but embarrassed that I couldn’t fend off the guy on my own so I didn’t really say anything. The next day when my friends and I were discussing how the night was someone said ‘there were a lot of creeps there’. I’m so sick of not being able to go out with my friends without being harassed by boys/ men. In another club when I was on holidays I sat down on my own inside because I had a stomach ache and there were no seats outside where my friends were getting some air. At least 3 different guys approached me trying to chat me up even though I don’t speak German and repeatedly said ‘no’ and ‘go away’. I ended up going outside so that I could stand with my friends even though I felt physically sick. In my home city I once went to a gay bar with my friends. When I got a taxi home with my male friend and asked him if he enjoyed the night he said that he did except for when he went to the bathroom on his own and 2 different men squeezed his butt. I said ‘That’s what it’s like for girls in every other club’. He was shocked. As a gay man he has never groped a girl in a club but my other friend who is straight just seemed uncomfortable that I was pointing out the behaviour from men that girls and women experience regularly (every night out).