Fertile spaces: Is it ever OK to pull on the dancefloor?

Pulling on dancefloors never used to be an issue: historically, clubs were designed to be places of sexual freedom and expression. LGBTQ communities flocked to legendary venues like The Garage or the Loft to dance and fall in love, or lust, in a safe, queer-friendly space. After these halcyon days, clubbing split down the middle: a high-street club experience catering to a mass audience and a core of venues for more underground tastes and personalities.

On suburban high streets up and down the country, lads would pull on white button-downs, douse themselves in Old Spice and head out in the optimistic expectation of finding someone to pull before the lights came on at 2AM. Girls would congregate in chip shops cackling at hapless men like a coven of witches bound in unity by the satanic joys of chips ‘n’ cheese. In specialist dance music venues like the Hacienda, pilled-up ravers would hook up in euphoric union — as I said before, MDMA is a very loving drug. But for the most part, clubs existed as spaces to get wasted with your friends and pull. Then dance music went mainstream, and everything changed.

Nowadays, dancefloors and dance music festivals are overwhelmingly white, heteronormative spaces. This poses its own challenges: while things are gradually improving, many nightclubs aren’t safe spaces for LGBTQ people, women and minorities. And as more queer venues close down, it’s important that the nightlife spaces we have available to us are genuinely safe, for everyone. Which makes it a good thing not to have cis-straight men treating clubs like their own personal fiefdoms, cracking on to any unfortunate women.

The explosion of dating apps has also made us less likely to pull on nights out. Why bother flirting with someone IRL who’ll probably just reject you anyway, when you can enjoy your night out with your mates and swipe right on someone tomorrow, when you’re lonely and on a comedown?