Nick66
Rock n' Roll Doggie ALL ACCESS
But it seemed everyone was doing it. The girls too. Not that I ever complained but I was always getting groped. And other guys were groping girls. And girls would look at the person responsible and seem to decide whether to say 'fuck off' or dance with them.
It's like it was an accepted behavior.
I really appreciated the honesty and self-reflection in your post, all of it.
This is the bit that interests me most, however, and it goes to this issue of the "unwanted sexual advance."
In the scenario you described, it wasn't the sexual grabbing by strangers that the women (and men) had an issue with. They just didn't want to be grabbed by undesirable strangers. Only you really may not know how a stranger in a sweaty club is going to respond before you do the grabbing. And making the issue even murkier, for everyone involved, is when it seems like everyone in the club is doing it.
So what's the answer? No one ever grabs a stranger in a sexual way in any situation, no matter how erotically charged? That's the easy, straight forward answer. But what's the correct behaviour when someone grabs you? To always respond negatively, even if you welcome it, to discourage the behaviour? To what extent are we, as a society, willing regulate these things? Isn't this more of a societal issue of how we raise our boys (respect women) and how we raise our girls (respect themselves) than a legal one? I think perhaps so.
Just one of the many reasons this issue is so nuanced and complex. We can call what you did "assault", as you have, but the truth is the legal system is for the most part completely unsuitable for dealing with situations like this. Criminal law is all about bright lines and objective standards, and frankly just not very good at adjudicating these scenarios. We have an incredibly difficult time simply prosecuting acquaintance rape. No one would even want to think about the nightmare of trying to prosecute the kind of behaviour your'e talking about.
Anyway, these are rhetorical questions that I don't have the answers to. I do know it makes me happy I'm not 22 and at uni anymore.
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