Stella Rogers interrogates the unsettling ‘power asymmetry’ of male-dominated party holiday destinations. Her article questions the capacity for safety and enjoyment in spaces that not only normalise but enable sexual harassment.

My holiday to Sunny Beach: the male domination of night-life spaces

Over summer, aiming for a cheap holiday, my friends and I went to the notoriously tacky, Sunny Beach in Bulgaria. Whilst many readers might be scoffing at the location (think Magaluf but a little worse), I really enjoyed my holiday. However, my biggest piece of advice to any woman travelling there would be: “Don’t go in a group of only women”.

Swarms of men on ‘lads holidays’ dominated the nightlife of Sunny Beach. At many events, my friends and I would joke about the male to female ratio. However. it wasn’t just the proportion of men that made these spaces feel, often, unsafe, it was how these men would take up this space.

On one night out, there was a higher level to the dance floor. Here, every girl I had come with was groped and subjected to creepy comments. This all came to a head when Travis Scott’s ‘FEIN’ started playing and every woman was essentially pushed off the stage. Whilst women were actively sought out in these spaces as potential sexual partners, they were not welcomed as peers. Many nightclubs encouraged this behaviour with ‘sexy dance’ competitions for women, where men were free to catcall lewd comments as much as they wished. If a woman had a boyfriend, or was with a group of male friends, she could count herself as ‘safe’ against the barrage of harassment from drunken men. However, this was only given due to her association with another man. Any respect given to women was often framed as respecting another man’s ‘bird’ or ‘girl’, instead of seeing them as autonomous beings worthy of dignity.   

Of course, I met men on this holiday who were very friendly and good intentions. However, if your safety is reliant on ‘the good ones’ protecting you, you are not in a safe space. Whilst my male friends were very diligent with making sure nobody was left alone, the fact that I felt I constantly needed a man with me was humiliating and infuriating. I’d like to think of myself as an independent person who can handle herself, yet the reality of the situation is that I still face a power asymmetry in certain circles. This became the most apparent to me when a man approached me and my male friend. After finding out I was not his girlfriend, the man’s eyes bulged, and he proceeded to corner me against the bar. Whilst brief (my friend intervened swiftly), this experience left me shaken. I couldn’t help but think what would have happened if my friend wasn’t there. The lack of women in these spaces made me question whether anybody would have helped me. In my own experience, women are more ‘tuned in’ to predatory behaviour and are more likely to intervene if they see somebody being harassed. Perhaps this feeling is why women are often more aware when they find themselves in a male-dominated space. The harsh reality for many women is a fun night out can quickly turn into an experience of survival and fear. This is a reality that men simply don’t need to think about in the same way.  

This required hypervigilance is how men are able to dominate spaces. In settings where the majority are women, men aren’t made to feel unsafe by how women use this space. Women haven’t been socialised to view men as pawns in a sexual marketplace. Therefore, the group dynamic of a large number of women does not encourage predatory behaviour in order to win kudos amongst their peers. I have been to various women-only nightlife events and there is always an overwhelming level of inclusion and positivity. It is important to note that women-only events are often tangentially linked to queer nightlife, which has always offered many women a more ‘safe space’ for a night out. Of course, there are cases where women have sexually harassed men. Cases like this do occur and should be condemned as strongly as when women experience similar harassment. Yet, these are examples of how patriarchal understandings of consent negatively affect both men and women, not a reflection of women dominating spaces in a predatory manner.  

I have seen such behaviour mirrored in the UK’s nightlife as well. In fact, a study by Drinkaware found that 63% of the women studied had been on the receiving end of inappropriate behaviour in bars, clubs, or pubs. ‘Lads holiday’ destinations simply offer a largely consequence-free realm to be predatory.

It seems that, after a lifetime of being told that they are entitled to women’s bodies, the boys who would pull pigtails and snap bra straps in secondary school, are now the men who potentially endanger women in night-life spaces. ‘Lads holidays’ have, unfortunately, become a much more sinister concept after my experience in Sunny Beach. Such destinations offer a realm where men can act how they usually do at clubs, bars, and pubs, but on steroids. A heady combination of lack of consequence, a pre-existing rape culture and patriarchal group dynamics was how men were able to dominate the nightlife on my holiday. If we want this to change, this behaviour must be called out and tackled at home first. So, when men do hit the club after a day of drinking sex on the beach in the sun, this unregulated space won’t be seen as a free for all for predatory behaviour, as it has already been ruled out as unacceptable in all other contexts. 

Sources:

https://media.drinkaware.co.uk/media/4hcgnghc/drinkaware-1824s-report-v40_bars.pdf?v=0.0.9