club

Anon

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I was out with some friends in a club (a group of 4 young women) when a man, who was about 10 years older than us, started hitting on my friend, she told she wasn’t interested but he didn’t leave us alone so we all said she’s not interested and moved away, he wouldn’t leave us alone until one friend physically pushed him away. He acted extremely offended like we were the ones in the wrong and this is something I still think of about 4 years later. I don’t feel safe in clubs and if I can avoid it I don’t leave my house in an evening. Just a few months ago we were sat at a table in a bar and a man came and sat next to my friend, she told him to go away multiple times and he didn’t. His friend came and sat next to my other friend and said to us ‘what is up with her?’ Meaning the friend that told the other man to leave so we said ‘we want you both to leave us alone’ they didn’t get the message until being physically pushed away. My friend is not afraid to physically push people away!

a

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I was in a club with a friend who thought she was spiked, she was showing all the symptoms so we rushed over to the bouncer and got help immediately. The police turn up and look very disinterested and tell her it’s just her overthinking it. We proceed to tell them we had many encounters of sexual Harassment and we believe it was one of those men that did this to her in the club and the officer proceeds to smirk and giggle to himself. He was a male officer. Fair to say we lost all our trust in the police. And I can’t help but think it’s because he thought so little of us as women.

Bella

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Around my second year in university I was on a night out with friends. We went to a club and were having a great time on the dance floor. Then I feel a hand brushing my body. I move away. Then I feel a hand on my ass. I turn around and a guy stares at me with a sheepish grin on his face. I tell him no. After the third or fourth time, me and the girls move away to a different part of the dance floor. Suddenly I feel a hand grabbing my ass, and trying to go places. I turn around and there was the same guy grinning at me. I was disgusted and angry. I threw my drink at him and punched him the face, hard. You’d think he’d be shocked, but he actually had the gall to offer me another drink and a chat at the bar ‘to make up for it’. So I told him to fuck off unless he wanted the left fist too, and showed it to him. By that time my girl friends must also have looked ready to break his nose, so he went away. For a long time I was mad that he didn’t stop at ‘no’. But really he should not be touching random girls in the first place.

Becky

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Freshers week 2010. In the nightclub, I remember seeing a group of 8 guys from my halls standing in a semi-circle. There was also one very drunk girl from our halls. Each guy made out with her, then passed her on to the next guy. I didn’t call them out but should have – they were taking advantage of her intoxicated state and that is not okay.

Sophie

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5 years ago, on a night out at university, a man grabbed my crotch. I was battling my way through the crowd in a club to get to the bathroom so was separated from my boyfriend and friends. A man grabbed my crotch from behind. I snapped my head around quickly to see who it was but he’d moved away. I was wearing soft material shorts and he grabbed so hard it hurt.I was so scared he might assault me again in the crowd. I ran to find my friends and boyfriend and was crying by the time I found them. Through tears I told them what had happened and that I needed go home immediately. My boyfriend wasn’t even angry or upset on my behalf but reluctantly agreed to leave, my friends were annoyed that I was leaving and ruining the night. I cried myself to sleep and woke up crying in my student halls, nobody in my flat comforted me or knew how to react. It was clear they didn’t think what had happened was an issue at all. I think about that time I was assaulted every single time I’m in a large crowd.

Eloise

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Two years ago I was at a night club in which we realised very quickly that we didn’t want to be there. My three friends and I were dancing and enjoying the music when some guys (pretty much a minute after we entered the club) crowded around us in a circle and started dancing behind us. At first I just shook it off, men alway do this in clubs there’s nothing I can do about it, but I felt them get closer and closer and I felt so claustrophobic and felt like I couldn’t dance without them thinking I was dancing up against them. All of a sudden one of my friends turned round and headed for the exit. We followed her wondering what was wrong. She said, in tears, that one of the guys had put his hand up her playsuit and grabbed her bum. We decided to go home and I remember feeling so angry at men for thinking they can just do this to us, like they have a right to our bodies! I was saying this to my friend when all of a sudden a large group of people (of mixed genders) passed us and one guy from the group passed me and grabbed my genitals and then just proceeded to walk down the street with his friends. My friend and I were so shocked, and I didn’t even react at first as it was so sudden then by the time I did he was far away. I just remember feeling so scared in that moment. Feeling like I was so helpless against men’s innapropriate desires. I, as a female, am physically weaker than most men and I felt so exposed to the idea that that man could have done way worse to me if he wanted and there was nothing I could have done at the time. I was just glad I had my friends there with me.

Brooke

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A few weekends ago I was hanging out with a few gal pals and one of them told a story about how she went to a club to dance with their friends who were all female. A man came up to them and began grinding one of of them, she said to him “Sorry we aren’t interested we are just here to dance with each other” Then he tried to dance with the other women in group and stayed with them until another male noticed their distress and approached and danced with them to scare him away. To my friends I said: “It is really awful that males feel like they can do whatever they want with women if another male isn’t “claiming” them and that we need men to “save” us from men” To which another one of my female friends responds: “yeah but at least it’s nice they do it” Come on ladies! You have to stand up for women or else no one will! It’s a societal problem that men don’t respect womens’ authority and boundaries don’t accept as part of life it doesn’t have to be this way.

Anonymous

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I have a curvy body, i was never really comfortable in it so i barely ever reveal skin. One night my friends forced me to go to the club with them. i felt uncomfortable the whole time. (I don’t drink) i was the DD of the night. A guy came up from behind me and GRABBED my ass. I was pissed so i turned and hit him. My friends dragged me away saying “it happens all the time” “take it as a compliment”. I was furious, i honestly do not understand how they perceive it that way. Later that night, i asked them if that has ever happened to them they said no. They’re both the complete opposite of me: tall, skinny, model like. They told me they get asked out and flirted with but never grabbed. But if it did happen, it isn’t a big deal. I don’t know how they see it that day but i can’t see them the same way after that. This just made me more insecure in my own skin.

Night out

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I hate that every time I go out to a club guys will start asking me to dance or even harrasing me, not stoppig when I tell them to. Most of the time they only ever stop when I tell them I have a boyfriend. I hate that to be left alone, I have to declare myself someone elses “property”. A “no” from me is never enough.

Marie

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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).