Bars are weird places for bodies, especially for me and my female body. In most other places there are standard rules about how it’s okay to touch someone, what to say to someone, how to interact with someone. But when it comes to the bar it seems as if this all gets jumbled, thrown in the air and mixed up. Of course people have different thoughts about what is okay when it comes to touching their body especially when drinking. But the bar is this weird social environment where things get a little tricky. There’s dancing, it’s crowded, there’s alcohol… and things seem to go wrong… a lot
I think about my body when I’m at the bar a lot more now. I’ve been at the bar both drunk and sober and my rules on who can touch me and how normally stay the same (my girl friends really have no limits, my close guy friends can jokingly touch me in ways that guys I don’t know cant, if I invite a random guy to dance he can touch me in certain ways, guys and girls that I have not entertained at all are not welcome to touch me at all).
This past weekend I was in a bar and it was much like the same, a lot of my guy friends were there and I mostly hung around them the whole night, we hugged and danced and they joked around with me in ways that were only okay because we had talked about it before. There was one guy there who I had mutual friends with but didn’t know too well. I hugged him hello and engaged in conversation but did not dance with him, allow him to buy me drinks, or joke with him in the same way as the others because I was not on that level with him. At last call he began to make some weird comments like “Call me daddy” that at first tried to ignore, thinking he was joking, but when he continued to insist and go to hug me I forcefully said I wouldn’t do that and went to separate myself. He grabbed my arm as I walked away so I was facing him, said “fuck you bitch” threw his beer in my face and the bottle directly after. I’ll save you the details of my reaction but luckily things didn’t escalate much further and I left the bar.
My main thing here is that we constantly live in a place where because a woman lets a man kiss her, he thinks then it’s okay to touch her boob and if it’s not she’s a tease. Or if we don’t joke around with everyone the way we do some people we’re stuck up. Or once I say no it’s okay for a man to get mad for it. I have a right over my body to let who I want touch me and if I say you can’t, you can’t end of story. I can joke around with people I am comfortable with one way and if I tell you not to joke with me that way you respect that. I’m still very upset about the whole situation, I’m upset that nothing happened to him, I’m upset that I didn’t get to say more, I’m upset that no one will be mad for more than a day because “he had been drinking”. I’m tired of excuses being made for people who don’t accept other’s limits and body boundaries and wishes. I should be able to say no without fear of retaliation… but we see everyday that that’s not the culture women live in.
Unruly Bodies 
“He had been drinking” is such a poisonous response to have to something. Especially in the case of women, the mere presence of alcohol is enough to cause her to lose her bodily agency in the eyes of society, no matter whom is consuming the alcohol. If a man is drunk and invades a woman’s space, he is just drunk and therefore cannot be held responsible. If a woman is drunk and a man invades her space, however, drinking is dangerous and therefore the woman MUST be held responsible. I’m sorry that happened to you. Thank you for sharing this post.
Bar culture is so weird. It’s this hotbed of gross men and out-of-control senses of entitlement. I know a number of straight women who go out to gay bars in order to avoid the inevitable ass-grabbing but find that it’s just as bad or worse. Except the excuse isn’t “he’s been drinking,” it’s “oh he’s gay, it doesn’t matter.” It’s always really awful when things get physical like they did with you and I hope someday you’ll be able to go to the bar and not have to worry about it.