Since when did groping become socially acceptable?

Last Wednesday I went to the club Bed. Prioritising partying over the safety and comfort my own bed turned out to be an unfortunate decision. The antics that greeted me there made me feel nauseous. And not just because of one too many jaegerbombs.

According to its website, Bed nightclub in Leeds is the ‘epitome of social elegance’. Judging by my visit there, it has a long way to go in living up to these claims.

As soon as my best friend and I approached the dance floor, she was hoisted up onto the stage by a gruff man who attempted to make a move on her without a word of warning. Her attempts to squirm away were met with a confrontational ‘do you think you’re better than me?’ Unsurprisingly, her reply was a yes; she did think she was better than him. His apparent pulling tactic of mounting girls from behind decreased his chances of sharing saliva with them from unlikely to nonexistent.

While this saga was playing out, I had been dragged into the midst of the gyrating crowd by two rugby lads who evidently thought it was amusing to grab me inappropriately. Unluckily for them it had the effect of making me feel more violated than inclined to whisk them to bed.

If this was not enough, when we decided on some respite in the chip shop a few hours later, we were subject to further abuse. While ordering some of the greasiest food possible, a stranger yelled across the room that he wanted to, um, take advantage of my mouth with his, err, man part. Is this romantic? Attractive behaviour? A proposition that would ever provide him with a female bed companion? Not in the slightest.

I’ll stop there with the anecdotes as this article aims neither to be a self-indulgent list of stories about my life, nor a feminist rant about the disgraceful behaviour of men today. Instead, it intends to draw attention to the worrying trend of guys treating girls as pieces of meat who are simply ‘there for the taking’.

The laddish, uni culture of binge drinking and one night stands has only enhanced this derogatory minset. In Unilad’s article ‘The wet factor’, female genitalia are referred to as a ‘verticle ham sandwich’. And another article entitled ‘Chubby girls: they need loving too’ proved too horrifying to even read beyond the first paragraph in my search for offending quotes.

Ultimately, websites like these are more harmful than entertaining. The attitude portrayed in them is insulting and objectifying, whilst the language is just plain rude. I am not suggesting we go back to the days of courting, chaperoning and witholding any phsical contact. But, even in a club, manners and respectable behaviour still count for something.

You grope and harass girls in a club, you spend the night alone.