‘Staff can't be the ones that play judge and jury’: Young adults’ suggestions for preventing unwanted sexual attention in pubs and clubs
| Author | Bianca Fileborn |
| Published date | 01 June 2017 |
| Date | 01 June 2017 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/0004865815626962 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Australian & New Zealand
Journal of Criminology
2017, Vol. 50(2) 213–233
!The Author(s) 2016
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DOI: 10.1177/0004865815626962
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Article
‘Staff can’t be the ones that
play judge and jury’: Young
adults’ suggestions for
preventing unwanted sexual
attention in pubs and clubs
Bianca Fileborn
La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia
Abstract
This paper explores young adults’ suggestions for preventing unwanted sexual attention in
licensed venues. Despite emerging evidence that unwanted sexual attention and sexual vio-
lence are significant issues faced by young adults in the night-time economy, there has been
little introduced in the way of preventative strategies or campaigns. Drawing on a mixed-
methods research project undertaken in Melbourne, Australia, I contend that exploring
young adults’ suggestions for prevention is instructive in a number of ways. Young adults
are the primary users of licensed venues and thus may provide insight into potential strategies
for prevention. It can also illuminate the discursive positions that young adults draw on in
talking about prevention and their understandings of unwanted sexual attention.
Keywords
Licensed venues, night-time economy, prevention, sexual violence, unwanted sexual attention,
young people
Introduction
Licensed venues have recently been the focus of extensive crime prevention campaigns
and interventions. Rafts of measures such as lock-out strategies, ID scanners, and legis-
lative reforms have been introduced both within Australia and internationally. While
young adults are typically the targets of these interventions, their own voices and per-
spectives are seldom heard when it comes to issues pertaining to safety and crime pre-
vention in the night-time economy (although, there are of course exceptions to this, see
Brooks, 2011 for example). Additionally, the bulk of these measures have been con-
cerned with the prevention of men’s alcohol-fuelled violence; with the ‘one-punch’ laws
introduced in New South Wales in 2014 perhaps the most blatant example of this
Corresponding author:
Bianca Fileborn, Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society, La Trobe University, Level 2, 215 Franklin
Street, Melbourne, Vic 3000, Australia.
Email: B.Fileborn@latrobe.edu.au
(Quilter, 2014). Yet, there is increasing evidence to suggest that young adults, and par-
ticularly young women, commonly encounter sexual violence and unwanted sexual
attention on a night out (Fileborn, 2012, 2014; Kavanaugh, 2013; Parks, Miller,
Collins, & Zetes-Zanatta, 1998; Watson, 2000). Despite this, there has been little in
the way of preventative efforts in response to sexual harm in the night-time economy.
Drawing on the findings of a mixed-methods research project undertaken in
Melbourne, Australia, this article considers young adults’ suggestions for preventing
unwanted sexual attention in venues. Exploring young adults’ ideas for prevention is
instructive in a number of ways. First, young adults may provide useful insights into
practical strategies for prevention in venues, given that they are the primary inhabitants
of these social spaces.
1
It can also open a window into the ways in which young adults
understand prevention and the discourses that inform their views. In the context of this
research, it can also provide insight into the ways in which young adults view and
understand unwanted sexual attention and sexual violence in venues. The findings of
this research illustrate that young adults hold complex and nuanced understandings of
both prevention and sexual violence, although many also continue to draw on dominant,
victim-blaming narratives of sexual violence prevention.
What is unwanted sexual attention?
Before continuing, it is helpful to elaborate on what is meant by ‘unwanted sexual
attention’: that is, what is it that we are trying to prevent? The concept of ‘unwanted
sexual attention’ utilised in this study was underpinned by Kelly’s (1988) continuum of
sexual violence. Accordingly, sexual violence is understood as including ‘any physical,
visual, verbal or sexual act that is experienced...at the time or later, as threat invasion or
assault, that has the effect of hurting her or degrading her and/or takes away her ability
to control intimate contact’ (Kelly, 1988, p. 41).
Participants in this study typically saw unwanted sexual attention as constituting a
broad range of behaviours, from the ‘minor’ to the ‘extreme’, inclusive of actions such as
staring, verbal comments and groping, as well as behaviours that would likely fall within
legal definitions of sexual assault or rape. Likewise, participants recounted experiences
of unwanted sexual attention that ranged from staring, verbal comments, and inappro-
priate or unwanted touching through to violent sexual assaults. This is largely consistent
with the spectrum of unwanted sexual attention and sexual violence in licensed venues
identified by existing research (Fileborn, 2012; Kavanaugh, 2013; Kavanaugh &
Anderson, 2009; Watson, 2000).
However, whether a particular exchange or interaction was seen to constitute
unwanted sexual attention was dependent upon more than just the form behaviour
took. The contours of the ‘unwanted’ were shaped by a range of intersecting factors.
Certainly, the perceived ‘severity’ and/or physicality of behaviour were influential here.
Yet, different individuals held divergent understandings of what constitutes unwanted
or, indeed, harmful behaviour. Context and identity were also fundamental in informing
whether an exchange was classified as an ‘unwanted’ and harmful one, with the harm of
an unwanted exchange often downplayed in venue contexts where participants experi-
enced a sense of community and belonging (that is, where they felt that other patrons
were ‘looking out’ for them and that they related to others in the venue). This of course
214 Australian & New Zealand Journal of Criminology 50(2)
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