Ambiguous Encounters: Young women’s expectations and experiences with intoxicated sexual relations in Danish nightlife

Introduction

Concerns in Denmark about sexual victimization of women, especially young women, have recently become more prominent, fueled both by the emergence of the #MeToo movement, as well as recent EU research highlighting Denmark’s high prevalence rates of sexual victimization (FRA 2014). These findings indicate serious discrepancies between the reputation of Denmark as a “gender-equal” country and the lived experiences of many Danish women. (Einarsdóttir 2020; Heinskou et al 2020), and have led some researchers to call such discrepancies between reality and ideology a “Nordic Paradox” (Gracia et al 2019), suggesting that specific socio-cultural and socio-structural conditions be explored more thoroughly in order to examine the reasons for the prevalence of sexual violence (Gracia & Merlo 2016;). While ‘the Nordic Paradox’ is contested by some (Humbert et al. 2021), the increasing concerns and attention paid to sexual victimization may also reflect an indication that views on harassment and other forms of sexual violence are changing and a marked decline in the tolerance with such occurences.

While researchers have sought to identify different factors that have undermined gender equality in Denmark, one potentially significant research area appears to have been somewhat neglected, namely the role of alcohol, especially within the social, cultural and sexual lives of young adults. Denmark, in comparison with other European countries, possesses a distinctive alcohol and drinking culture in which young people drink more and get drunk more frequently than young people elsewhere (Tolstrup et al. 2019). Furthermore, although alcohol consumption has declined slightly in recent years, studies show that Danish youth still drink heavily and often more than their counterparts in other countries (ESPAD Group 2020; Hibell et al. 2012; Pedersen et al. 2020). Researchers have emphasized the extent to which high rates of intoxication are an acceptable and normative aspect of socializing in Denmark, including its important role in young people’s sexual interactions (Järvinen & Room 2007; Demant and Törrönen 2011).

However, as well as emphasizing the potentially beneficial aspects of alcohol in the socio-sexual lives of young people, both Nordic and international research has also addressed the contradictory expectations young women face in nightlife, and the extent to which they, experience and perform sexual empowerment, and yetare still held accountable to ideals of sexual respectability when intoxicated, especially in situations involving sexual violence (Simonen 2011; Bernhardsson & Bogren 2012; Griffin et al 2013; Vaadal 2019; Bogren 2020). Similarly, research has highlighted that both young men and women engage in derogatory labelling and ‘slut-shaming’ of women, who fail to fulfil local norms of respectability related to certain drinking practices, socio-sexual behaviors, physical appearance, and risk management practices (Bernhardsson & Bogren 2012; Day et al 2004; Fjaer et al 2015; Griffin et al 2013;. In this way, young adults’ perspectives on heterosexual encounters in nightlife seem to be influenced by the interactional management of pleasures and risks, which for women is specifically related to vulnerability and empowerment. Despite the research on these issues, and while research on “hookup culture” has focused on patterns of social interaction, sexual capital, status competition, and emotional hierarchies (Ford 2020; Wade 2021), the role of intoxication has been left largely unexamined.

Given the importance of alcohol consumption within the social and sexual lives of young adults in Denmark, coupled with the extensive research on the role of alcohol in cases of sexual assault, it is surprising that researchers have not focused more on the potential relationship between intoxication and incidences of sexual victimization within the lives of young Danish adults. Such an exploration could provide important information on intoxicated sexual encounters, and additional insights into some explanations of why Nordic countries, and in this case Denmark, experience a high prevalence of sexual victimization. With this in mind, the overall aim of this paper is to examine the expectations and experiences of intoxicated sexual encounters among young Danish women (18–25), using narrative data from 28 in-depth interviews, and exploring what the women describe as pleasurable, regrettable and ambiguous aspects of experiences.

Youthful Intoxicated Encounters – A Combined Theoretical framework.

While much of the psychology literature has viewed intoxication as an individual component of drinking, anthropological and socio-cultural research has emphasized the importance of seeking explanations at the social rather than the individual level. Developing a more socio-cultural approach, MacAndrew and Edgerton (1969) argued that intoxication entailed a ‘time-out’ from the socio-cultural norms that apply to sober behavior, allowing, within limits, the performance of violent, rowdy, and other transgressive behaviors. However, since the notion of ‘time-out’ implies an unregulated pause, it is more insightful to see drunken behavior as a “new game” governed by other rules, norms, and meanings than sober behavior (Hill 1978; Järvinen 2003). In this way, alcohol disinhibition can be conceptualized as a boundary marker (Hill 1978), symbolizing a shift in the norms and meanings of interaction making it possible to mobilize “deviance disavowal.” Deviance disavowal allows for the violation of norms of interaction to be denied and subsequently excused, providing the possibility of constructing a “cultural alibi for disapproved sexual and social activities” (Race et al. 2022).

Given this possibility, how then is intoxication culturally connected to sexual encounters and notions of acceptable and unacceptable sexual conduct? Two connections can be identified: First, on an individual, social-psychological level, young adults still tend to interpret alcohol as a disinhibitor of sexual desire. Research on college students suggests that young adults (both young men and women) drink with the expectation that alcohol will increase their sexual drive and decrease their inhibitions (Abbey et al. 1999; Kuntsche et al. 2005;). Second, research also highlights the extent to which young adults draw on these expectancies in interactions. For instance, sometimes men encourage women to consume alcohol because they believe that women will become more promiscuous, sexually available, and interested in casual sex (George et al. 2006; Cowley 2014; Lindgren et al. 2008). Research on expectancies also suggests that men perceive women’s gestures as more sexually motivated when they have been drinking (Muehlenhard et al. 2016; Crowe and George 1989). This research has been important in theorizing the connection between alcohol and sexual relationships, and has also highlighted the relationship between alcohol intoxication and various forms of unwanted sexual experiences, (Abbey 2002; Testa et al. 2010). Moreover, studies indicate that women face additional sexual attention when they themselves are drinking or intoxicated, precisely because men expect them to be more willing to engage in sexual relationships in these situations (Franklin 2010), which may increase their risk of sexual assault (Mohler-Kuo et al. 2004).

Another key analytical focus is the role of norms in the links between alcohol intoxication and sexual encounters. One way to examine these is to use the theory of ‘sexual scripts’, a concept that seeks to explain how women and men are expected to act in sexual situations (Gagnon & Simon 1973; Simon & Gagnon 1986). According to traditional ‘scripts’, men are expected to initiate sexual action, while women typically play a more passive role as ‘gatekeepers’ (Kiefer & Sanchez 2007; Peralta 2007). However, today the notion of sexual freedom has become one of the dominant cultural frameworks people use in making sense of contemporary sexual encounters. Recent research suggests that some, especially younger women, take a more active role and purposefully participate in experimenting with different sexual relationships and ‘one-night stands’ (Donaghue et al. 2011; Gill 2007). In these contexts, alcohol intoxication typically plays a prominent role (Hamilton & Armstrong 2009; Fielder et al. 2014). At the same time, researchers have disputed the notion of contemporary ideals of sexual choice and freedom as necessarily liberating. For example, Illouz (2012) argues that sexual freedom and choice are dependent on competition and constant evaluation of one’s own and others’ sexual attractiveness, and that gendered differences in the social values attached to youth, sexiness, and modes of expressing sexuality still speak to women’s disadvantage. Similarly, research on “hookup culture” shows that although young women’s increasing involvement in hooking-up and casual sex can be seen as part of a more active sexual agency (Levy 2005; Paul and Hayes 2002; Gill 2007), women are also exposed to more harm within this culture (Wade 2021) because of their greater exposure to sexual violence and because of the gendered reputational work hookup culture entails (Farvid et al 2017; Marks et al 2019).

Moreover, while drinking to intoxication and losing control may allow young women to escape the demands of living in a neo-liberal society, using drunkenness as a way of engaging in behaviors deemed to violate normative gendered expressions, they still have to negotiate traditional notions of femininity, and manage elements of risk and uncertainty. Such tension between possibilities and troubles, or idealized and problematized subjectivities, is central to what ‘new femininities’ scholars (Budgeon 2013; Gill 2007; Gill and Scharff 2013) describe as the challenges involved in achieving successful femininity today. Tensions shape both young women’s drinking practices and their sexual practices, rendering their attempts to engage in post-feminist notions of freedom and sexual empowerment within contemporary cultures of intoxication a precarious path to negotiate (Griffin et al. 2013; Waitt et al. 2011). Furthermore, they can also be held accountable for rejecting unwanted sexual contact from men, as this goes against the traditional prioritization of masculine sexuality and desire (Simonen 2011; Hutton et al. 2013). This suggests that women are required to do reputational work both in sexual and heavy drinking situations. Acting on these conflicting norms can result in the reinforcement of traditional ‘scripts’ but also the enabling of new ‘spaces’ for action where norms, gender and power structures are up for negotiation (Bogren et al. 2022, Hunt et al. 2021; Cowley 2014).

Today, both desired and undesired sexual relationships/behaviors take place or are initiated in nightlife settings, where bars and nightclubs are characterized by a heavy drinking culture as well as a sexualized social environment (Grazian 2007;). Such contexts have been framed as social settings within which rigidly defined gender arrangements are present, where heavy alcohol consumption occurs, and where displays of hypermasculinity, sexual assertiveness, and aggression are common and even normative (Mohler-Kuo et al 2004; Weiss and Dilks 2016;). Participating in heavy episodic drinking to the point of intoxication and “hooking up” are viewed as normative behaviors within these settings and intoxicated sexual events are often central features (Harris and Schmalz 2016). These party settings are themselves scripted, arranged according to specific social, affective, and spatial patterns of movement and interaction. The climate within such scripted settings, “discourages intervention and normalizes risk,” allowing young men greater space to transgress normative boundaries and engage in sexual harassment and provocation, knowing few consequences will occur (Weiss and Dilks 2016: 174). Where such “cultures of coercion” operate, the stage is set for sexual aggression, harassment and sexual assault (Benson et al 2007; Harris and Schmalz 2016).

The concepts of sexual scripts, ‘new’ and ‘traditional’ femininities, and scripted settings are all necessary in developing a deeper understanding of young women’s interactional management of pleasures and risks in nightlife. Using this combined theoretical framework allows us to focus on the social effects of intoxication as experienced by the women in our study, and more specifically, to analyze the ways in which intoxication enables and disables their sense of agency as well as creating multiple ambiguities in sexual encounters.

Data and methodology

This article is based on 28 in-depth interviews with young women between 18 and 25, who have experience of drinking alcohol, participating in nightlife and have been involved to some degree in drunken sexual relationships.

Recruitment and participants

The majority of the women were recruited through social media networks, NGOs and digital postings by educational institutions, using a postcard, produced for the project, with a ‘nightlife photo’ as background and the title ‘sexual boundaries in the nightlife’ (in Danish: Seksuelle grænser i nattelivet). In connection with the interviews, participants were asked a series of socio-demographic questions to obtain some basic information on the background of the participants as well as using the information to monitor our sampl (Wasserman & Faust 1994). Almost all of the women in our sample are in secondary, university or vocational educational programs. Twelve of the women were 18–20 years old, while 16 of them were between 21–25. The majority lived in one of Denmark’s four largest cities. towns. Approximately half of the women interviewed were in a committed relationshipand the sexual orientation of our sample was primarily heterosexual.

Interviews and research ethics

Interviews were semi-structured to ensure consistency and comparability, but still open to modification according to participants’ individual differences. Most interviews lasted between one and a half and two hours. The interview guide was divided into three main themes; 1) participants’ alcohol consumption, 2) the meaning of intoxication and 3) sexual relationships in an intoxicated context. With the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic and the subsequent lockdown, we had to modify our research efforts and instead of doing the planned face-to-face interviews, began to conduct interviews digitally. This resulted in 25 of the interviews being conducted online. In the online interviews, the video connection meant that it was still possible to see each other, making the interaction somewhat similar to that in face-to-face interviews (Stewart & Williams 2005; Sullivan 2012). While online interviewing may in several ways be more convenient, (Turkle 2011; Willson 2012) it may also make it more difficult for the interviewer to achieve ‘rapport’ (Mann & Stewart 2000). Making sure that participants felt comfortable with being asked potentially sensitive questions, especially for online interviews where body language and facial expressions may be less obvious or noticeable, we emphasized the voluntariness of participation (Bier et al. 1996; Mann & Stewart 2000). All interviews were conducted by female researchers (the first-author and two assistants) and we believe that this further contributed to the creation of a safe environment for the participating women. Digitally signed informed consent was obtained before each interview and all quotes and descriptions have been anonymized. Overall, the project complies with the Danish Data Protection Agency’s GDPR rules and the handling of personal and sensitive data.

Data analysis

The interviews were transcribed verbatim and coded by the interviewers according to selected analytical perspectives on the role of alcohol and intoxication in 1) desirable and undesirable nightlife situations, 2) in sexual and gender norms and behaviors, and 3) in communication about and ways to handle specific processes of consent. The coding was done manually, by selecting quotes from each participant and placing them in documents under these main headings. Once the overall categories were completed, the interviewers went through them to gain an overview of salient topics or patterns that emerged such as age, setting or time related issues, or the importance of social relations and/or previous sexual experiences. In this way we were also able to pay close attention to divergent patterns across participants and conflicting perspectives within each interview to identify themes as well as increase the valid interpretation of the data (Antin et al 2015). All quotes are accompanied by pseudonyms to ensure anonymity.

Intoxication as desired change

That alcohol is a normalized and acceptable aspect of the social and sexual lives of young people in Denmark (Järvinen & Room 2007) was certainly confirmed by our interview data. The women in our study associated drinking not only with being social but also with many other positive qualities. They recounted how they became more relaxed when they drank and felt a release of their inhibitions. They also mentioned how they began to feel free and less responsible as they became intoxicated. Most striking of all was the fact that almost every one of them said that they felt more courageous in their interactions with men. However, while research suggests that becoming more courageous is often expressed in terms of increased aggressiveness among men, the young women in our sample experienced intoxication more as something which enabled them to act in ways otherwise not possible. Several dimensions were involved in this ability to act. First, echoing research on young women in other countries (Vaadal 2022; Simonen 2011; Griffin et al 2013; the majority of the women explained that flirting and being more active in approaching young men was the biggest difference alcohol made. For example, Clara (18) talks about how she uses alcohol to flirt or approach guys she is sexually interested in:

Well, it probably relates a lot to boys for me. That I can talk to them a bit more. But the ones that I think look good or that I really like, I find it a bit difficult to just go and talk to them if I haven’t consumed alcohol.

Such changes were very important to the women, and many of them explained that if they had been sober, they would have felt uncomfortable and awkward approaching a “sexually attractive” man. Intoxication enables young women to modify traditional sexual scripts providing them with a possibility to express a more active sexuality (Bogren et al. 2022).

As most of the women feel that they can only ‘perform’ when intoxicated, it is clear that they have positive expectations of their social and sexual abilities when they have consumed alcohol (Patrick & Maggs 2009), and hence view drinking positively (Kuntsche et al. 2005). Such positive expectations were often expressed retrospectively in the interviews, as in Maja’s (22) statement here:

For example, that one guy has just been the sweetest guy for so long, and then we finally ended up at some party where we were drunk, and then it finally worked out. And it has just been so amazing, and then I’ve just been like: “yes, it was good that I got drunk at that party”, because then I got drunk with him and then it’s just been a really good night… if we hadn’t been drunk, then I would never have had that opportunity to do

In fact, several women mentioned that they had met their boyfriends while they were drunk and if they had not been intoxicated they would never have got together, emphasizing the cultural expectations attached to alcohol. However, drinking did not only enable them to flirt, it also enabled them to act more assertively in public spaces or to speak more openly about sex with their partners. Selma (22) noticed that she often would combine what she sees as feminine and masculine behavior when intoxicated:

When I am drunk I get very silly and girly, but also more masculine, sitting with my legs spread out, speaking very loudly, and generally taking up more space in the room.

And for participants, who had been in long-term relationships, it could still be difficult to express their sexual desires or feelings. For example, Lisa (21) explained that until she got drunk, she was unable to tell her boyfriend that when they had sex, it hurt:

Because the thing with my boyfriend, I’ve wanted to say it for a long time, and then I actually said it. The first two times I actually said it while I was drunk (laughs). Yeah, that is when it comes out.

Regardless of their relationship status, a number of women also mentioned that their sex drive intensified when they became intoxicated, supporting the notion that alcohol can facilitate not only sexual encounters but also stimulate and increase women’s desire (Abbey et al 1999). Several participants felt that it was only permissible to admit to a more “promiscuous side” when drunk, again alluding to how intoxication contributes to a reconfiguration of sexual scripts (Bogren et al 2022). Mona, for example, noted that kissing a guy at a party was almost a success criterion for her when she was younger. She explained that kissing, especially several men in one night, was perceived as more legitimate when drunk. Neither she, nor any other woman she knew, would find such behavior acceptable if she had been sober. In a similar vein, Camille (18) described the difficulty of admitting to a more assertive sexual side:

Maybe I am a little sleazy. The thing about not being able to say no: “okay, am I one of those people who can’t say no or do I just crave sex or boys when I’m drunk?”. Like, is that a part of me? It can be really hard to accept, both the day after but also just in general when you’re sober., but when you’re drunk you can do this and that and break these boundaries.

Such examples suggest that becoming intoxicated operates as a boundary marker symbolizing a shift in the norms and meanings of acceptable behaviors, which allow women to be more assertive sexually (Hill 1978; Järvinen 2003) and adopt a more active role in sexual relationships (Donaghue et al. 2011; Gill 2007). They also suggest that becoming intoxicated may play a potentially prominent role in their ability to experiment sexually and engage in ‘one-night stands’ (Hamilton & Armstrong 2009; Fielder et al. 2014). However, while it may be more enjoyable to explore a more sexualized version of the intoxicated self, it may not be simple to move between different but acceptable sets of norms and behaviors for the intoxicated and the sober self. In addition, while some women might criticize their own intoxicated sexual behavior, this sexualized ‘power’ is sometimes applauded by friends, as Henriette (24) remarks:

I met up with the girls from my class later in the day where we went swimming, and they were like… well, I thought that is a bit stupid but they thought it was funny that I was like kissing this one guy, and then suddenly no longer wanting him, but going with another guy (…) I think they just thought that maybe it seemed like I might have a bit of power somehow.

These examples suggest that many of the women viewed becoming intoxicated as a possible way of modifying traditional feminine patterns of behavior, while working to maintain a reputation of still being a ‘nice girl’ thereby still adhering to more traditional criteria of the respectable woman (Bogren et al. 2022; Skeggs 1997).

Intoxication as compromising boundaries

Just as most of the women expected positive effects with alcohol and intoxication, many of them had expectations of potential negative consequences, or had experienced something compromising as a result of being intoxicated. In this section, we focus on the range of negative sexual experiences, from the pressures and expectations that impacted their actions, to feelings of regret to to occasions of harassment and assault.

Some of the women in our sample felt pressured to act in a sexual and assertive manner even though they did not really feel like it. For example, Louise (20) describes how she persuaded herself to act more ‘sexually’ because otherwise she might be viewed as boring:

But then it’s one of those things where I’ve just convinced myself that maybe I was a little boring if I didn’t kiss him here or dance a little more sexually on the dance floor. Where I might not have felt comfortable, but where I thought ‘oh, people won’t think I’m fun to be with if I don’t do this.

Similarly, Marie (23) noted that she often felt forced to engage in sexual activities even though she didn’t really want to:

So, I think it was really awkward that we were put together and we were both like “well, now you just get on with it!”. And I remember we kissed at one point because I was like ‘I guess that’s what I’m supposed to do’ - I felt like that’s what I was supposed to do, so that’s what I did.”

Such experiences illustrate how these young women perceive the norms in their social group, which pressure them into more explicit sexual encounters when drinking, even though they might have been happier just sitting at a table chatting with others.. While these examples highlight the extent to which some women are uncomfortable with their own or others’ pressures to be more sexually active in nighttime settings, our data also suggests that many women only realize these pressures or regret their behaviors later. They admit to getting carried away in the intoxicated moment, forgetting that sexual behavior might have negative consequences for future relations. As Laura (24) explains:

I had sex with one of my friends, and I only afterwards realized that maybe it wasn’t the smartest thing to do, to bring our friendship in that direction. I would probably not have done it if I had been sober. It’s like, “ugh” it seems totally insignificant when you’re standing there having a few beers and having fun.

Examples like these suggest that getting carried away and ignoring potential regret could be ascribed both to alcohol myopia (Steele & Josephs 1990) and to the scripted setting of group norms which sometimes dictate what kind of behavior is expected in intoxicated nightlife settings.

Many of our participants recounted one or more instances of regret in relation to intoxicated sex. While some of them described occasions in which they had had a prior relationship, as in Laura’s case, others described regret because they had had sex with someone, who they were not really attracted to. Josephine and Mona both explain that this happens, in part, because they sometimes forget their ‘standards’ when drunk: a regret also sometimes voiced by men, although maybe for different reasons (Hunt et al. 2021). However, Henriette (24), in the following quote, describes one particular instance where she was actually shocked to discover that she had ignored her body’s signals:

… and then I think it was also - this might be a bit detailed - but I think I could see that there was a bit of blood on the sheet, so I know that my body hadn’t actually been turned on, and I think that was maybe a bit… a bit violent to see. Because it just showed that… well, that my body hadn’t even wanted to, even though my head might have wanted to in the moment. Yes, I think it was… it was a bit of a hard experience (…) And I think it’s a bit crazy that I couldn’t even listen to my own body’s signals during it.

Even though the women in our sample had experienced compromising situations as a result of either their own pressures or those in their social surroundings, what was even more striking was the extent to which these young women had experienced sexual harassment and assault, experiences highlighted in several Danish studies (Deen et al. 2018; Oldrup et al. 2016: Petersen et al. 2021) and other Nordic countries (Mellgren et al 2018; Vaadal 2019). In describing these experiences, the majority of our sample reports that unwanted physical touching usually happens in nightlife settings and often without knowing exactly whose hands did the touching as Henriette (24) describes:

When you’re on the dance floor there are often ‘ghost hands’, like when there’s a hand running down your back or maybe someone has grabbed your ass but you don’t know who did it.

While the majority of the women expressed the view that being touched or verbally abused was uncomfortable and inappropriate, they nevertheless described these behaviors as normal and even expected when attending clubs and bars, a situation noted by others (Petersen et al. 2021; Mellgren et al 2018; Fileborn 2016; Weiss and Dilks 2016). For example, Laura (24) says that she used to think that she had to learn to live with “a hand on her ass” whenever she was on the dance floor. And Line (18) recalls the first kinds of parties she went to where she learned that this was ‘normal’ party behavior:

In my teenage years, I went to these ‘soda-discos’ and it felt like it was part of the experience of going to a party to go there and have your ass touched. I still feel like it is like that in the nightlife and at parties now. But it is mainly when people are drunk or under-the-influence.

While she doesn’t say it explicitly in this quote, Line, connects unwanted touching to men and male drunken behavior. As others have noted (Stefansen 2020; Hirsch et al 2019), these narratives suggest that the setting shapes women’s interpretations of what sexual transgression is and whether or not it is ‘normal’. However, not all types of unwanted touching could be tolerated or ignored As emphasized by Laura:

Then some big tall guy comes and grabs me from behind. Well I can’t, I never saw his face, and he sticks his hand down my pants, under my panties and starts touching me. Um. That’s just a crazy thing to do and to feel like that he was entitled to do so. I mean. It was really extreme.

While the unwanted touching is usually sudden and short-lived, there were examples of men who continued to want physical contact, dancing too close or in other ways forcing themselves onto women, in spite of attempts to push them away, as Lisa (21) tells:

It was a guy. He works right next door to us - he works at a pizza place and he kept trying to kiss me. And he kept doing that, and he’s huge - he’s scary. And nobody said anything about it. And I just kept saying that I had a boyfriend…

While in both Lisa’s and Laura’s accounts, they did eventually manage to stop the aggressive behavior, but without any assistance from others. Handling such aggressions on their own without help, further suggests, that certain clubs were “hot spots” (Weiss and Dilks 2016; Krebs et al 2009; Graham & Wells 2001) and these behaviors viewed as normal (Pugh et al. 2016). While both Lisa and Laura managed to extricate themselves, others were less fortunate and recounted stories of rape. For example, Mona (22), describes how she was sexually assaulted by two men in a dark corner of a Copenhagen nightclub:

They pushed me to my knees, put my hand here and my mouth there…and….sort of without me really knowing what was happening. It was very dark. I couldn’t see anything. And it was them who did all the movements and told me to hold it.. you know…I had to fight two people…But you know, I have no doubt at all that they singled me out in a crowd because they could see I was drunk.

Mona believed that she was targeted because she was visibly drunk, a point noted by other women and other research documenting how the targeting of drunk women was excused by men on the grounds that intoxicated women were obviously more willing to engage sexually (George et al. 2006; Cowley 2014; Franklin 2010).

While the above examples have highlighted the extent to which sexual harassment and aggression frequently occur in public, the women also described how such behaviors were even more common in private and with men, whom they already knew. This supports the research that most women are sexually assaulted by men they know, not by strangers (Deen et al 2018; Ullman et al 2006; Friis-Rødel et al. 2021). For instance, some of our participants, reported falling asleep at a friend’s house during a private party and then waking up to find a friend touching them or trying to have sex. Rikke (18) describes how a childhood friend having sex with her while she was sleeping:

I had felt really bad when we went to bed, so I was just completely “passed out” while I was sleeping, very deep sleep. But then I wake up and there’s like, something’s moving me and I’m thinking like this for a little bit: “what the hell is going on?” and then I wake up to find that my childhood friend is raping me.

Similarly, Camille (18) describes how she woke up naked at her childhood friend’s house after a party and was unsure whether they had had sex because she couldn’t remember anything. Later she was shocked when she discovered that they had actually had sex:

Deep down, I just felt really raped, also because I knew this boy was interested in me, so I knew he at least really wanted to. I don’t know if I said yes or no in that.

As the example indicates, a direct link exists between being intoxicated and being sexually victimized. In fact, many of the women stated that they had cut down or ceased to drink alcohol altogether at parties precisely because they wished to return home safely. As Emma (22) explains:

Of course, there is also an element of security, because at home you can drink exactly as you like without fear. I think as a girl, you always have in the back of your mind that you have to be able to take care of yourself to a certain extent when you’re out.

Although many studies have noted the extent to which sexual assault occurs in private (Ullman et al 2006; Chen and Ullman 2010), what is often omitted is the extent to which intoxication was a significant factor. When women are sexually victimized by friends, they feel not only violated but also betrayed.

The Ambiguities of Intoxicated Consent

So far, we have shown that becoming intoxicated can affect the sexual relationships of young women in both positive and negative ways. However, for most of the sample, their experiences are neither clearly unpleasant nor clearly pleasurable. In this section, we attempt to highlight the multiple ambiguities they face when engaging in intoxicated sexual encounters. In fact, the underlying but significant theme in many of the narratives is that becoming intoxicated creates difficulties in being able to accurately interpret other individuals’ sexual signals. As Line (18) notes:

Or you can be misread yourself, you can feel that you are perhaps giving some pretty clear signals yourself: ‘I don’t think this is cool’ or ‘I find this uncomfortable’, ‘would you please not do that?’, without it then being perceived by another person, right? Especially when you drink, it doesn’t get any easier to read people when you drink.

While this idea of intoxication potentially adding to miscommunication was prevalent in the data, other research has documented that intoxication frequently appears as an excuse by those who have committed sexual assault (Schierff & Heinskou 2020; Scully & Marolla 1984). Researchers have also questioned the extent to which miscommunication is widespread, finding instead that women, who say no to sex often do so in accordance with refusal norms and men clearly understand (Beres 2014; O’Byrne et al 2008). Moreover, research also indicates that young women themselves disproportionately hold other young women, but much less so young men, responsible for ‘miscommunication’ (Hlavka 2014).

A number of nonconsensual situations also developed between individuals, who had previously been sexually intimate (Petersen et al. 2021). For example, Maja (21) reported how in the process of flirting or kissing, they had subsequently been pressured to perform unwanted sexual acts.

He suddenly just forced my head down to his cock until I gave him a blowjob. I kept saying no, and eventually, I just decided to get it over with…I really just thought we were friends. But then he did that thing and I haven’t really talked to him since.

While kissing, she had not intended to engage in additional sexual activities. However, she ultimately consented to oral sex in order to avoid conflict. Several women in our study also described how they had unwillingly consented to sex as a way of quickly handling an unpleasant situation (cf Alcoff 2018; Muehlenhard et al 2017). Laura (24), for example, decided to remain passive in order to get the incident over with as quickly as possible:

I did nothing else. I think I almost froze. Um. Which, I’ve learned, is a fairly normal reaction. I don’t know if I was thinking: “well, the damage is done, so I might as well just stay calm and it’ll be over in a minute.

Later in the interview, she explained that when she was younger, she was generally more likely to ignore her lack of desire and ignore her personal boundaries because she didn’t want to ruin the ‘good vibe’ by causing any problems, especially when she knew the man:

It was at a party, and I had agreed to it in the first place…. I definitely found it hard to say stop in the middle of it all. Literally in the middle of everything. I also think that I, when I was a bit younger… I tended to go along for a bit too long, even though I didn’t think it was fun. But it’s been a matter of maintaining the good atmosphere, of not feeling ashamed at school next week.

This is another example of the influence of the scripted setting, where not spoiling the good atmosphere weighs heavily, a tendency especially prevalent among the younger women.

Another kind of example, also frequent in our data, was the implicit connection between agreeing to go home with somebody and conveying the meaning that they were also agreeing to have sex. Many described it as difficult to avoid, if the man expected it. As Lotte (24) explains:

Well, I think when alcohol is involved, people don’t say no. I was much younger and was like, well, that’s just the way it is. And if he thinks we should have sex, then we should probably have sex.

Many of these examples can be seen to highlight how norms of gender, sociality, and sexuality exert a form of disciplining power (Linander et al. 2021), resulting in women agreeing to certain actions that uphold traditional gendered sexual scripts, in which men define and control sexual relationships (Kiefer & Sanchez 2007; Peralta 2007). Other examples include some of the respondents describing how they agreed to have sex because the man in question was physically stronger. They were scared of the consequences if they tried to refuse. As Rikke’s (18) explains:

Sometimes I wish I’d just …. swung a proper fist. Just punched. But still, when I think back on it, I couldn’t have done it. Because for one thing, you get mega scared, there’s a man on top of you who’s bigger and stronger. Especially this guy, he was six feet tall and big. So, I just couldn’t have done much.

In this case, the man’s size and stature, independent of his behavior, operated as an unspoken form of power, even though he had not been violent (for similar findings, see Ford 2020). However, while only a few of our participants reported agreeing to have sex because of the man’s physical size, what was more common was that they felt that they had to consent because to refuse would mean creating a bad atmosphere. This in turn might affect their reputations or social standings in their social group. The women were concerned with how they might be portrayed later by their friends, if they had refused, although they also described how today, because they were older, and more experienced, they would behave differently. In the example below, Louise’s (20) describes how saving face worked as a coping strategy to avoid the anticipated social consequences of awkwardness and rejection(cf. Scarduzio et al 2018):

I think it was very normal in my very early days, because I didn’t want to be so… boring and I wanted to be exciting to the guys….. But it could very well be that somebody was hitting on me and I didn’t really want to, but I also didn’t want to get into that situation where there was that awkwardness and …… rejection, so I just interacted with them how they wanted it. But thankfully that’s something I’ve grown out of.

Age and inexperience were especially pertinent for the younger women, who often described how they feared that their reputations may be impugned. As Camille (18) suggests:

Well, I think I’m actually really bad. That’s something I’ve found out about myself. That it’s pretty damn hard to be dismissive when you’re drunk. Especially because I might be afraid of the things that happen afterwards.

Camille describes how difficult it is to reject a guy and even more so when drunk. Similarly, Anna (18) explained that if someone refused to have sex with someone they had kissed, they would be talked about in a negative way by their friends:

Yes, otherwise you’re a bit of a dry cracker (…) No one says that. But then you hear from others: ‘Oh, we were just getting started, and then she didn’t want to, and that was just really bad style’. And then you don’t want that blame put on yourself.

As these examples suggest, the process of sexual consent is subject to various forms of power relations, where the norms, values and ideals associated with social and sexual relations, as well as intoxication, can help to control how a woman behaves and what she will agree to (Linander et al. 2021). As we have shown, women sometimes consent without actually wanting to have sex or be sexually intimate. Consent, therefore, as a concept, can contribute to hiding the forms of power that influence, especially young women, who also have little experience with intoxicated sexual encounters. As Vaadal (2022) has suggested, age-scripts may be intertwined with sexual scripts, and while especially the youngest women in our study may wish to portray themselves as being more sexually active and hence able to determine what takes place in sexual encounters, they may nevertheless be constrained to abide by the norms of more traditional sexual scripts. Researchers have noted that these situations may produce “schizoid subjectivities,” (Ringrose 2011) forcing young women to occupy an “impossible space,” which becomes even more difficult to navigate in situations where the young women are intoxicated (Renold & Ringrose, 2011; Griffin et al., 2013; Fjaer et al. 2015).

However, consent has also been shown to be a socially contingent in that the woman’s friends may become involved in determining and defining the precise nature of the intoxicated sexual experience (Jensen & Hunt 2020). Although there existed examples of this in the data, what emerged to be more prominent was the extent to which our participants recounted how their views of a specific incidents changed over time. For example, Camille (18) describes how, in a conversation with her sister, shortly after she had had sex with a man, when she had been so intoxicated that she couldn’t remember anything the next day, describes how she gradually calmed down about the event and became less upset, because her sister described a similar occurrence and implied that such incidences often happened:

My feelings were actually okay with it afterwards, but I was still in shock. But I also think that whole shock feeling passed quickly because I felt like it was something that happened to a lot of girls. And I remember searching a lot on the internet about it, and it just seemed like it was a bit every-day-like. Or not an everyday thing, but something that had happened many times. And then I just thought, okay, I calmed down since I wasn’t the only one. … only …. this winter, where I kind of relapsed into it, where I was like: “wow, that was a victimizing experience for me actually”. Which I’ve probably only realized now.

Camille, and other women changed their views or feelings about these experiences when told that these events were commonplace. In believing and accepting this, it allowed them to feel less violated, at least for a while. Similarly, for several years Maja (21) ignored the ‘victimizing’ aspects of an experience in which she was assaulted by two men at a party and where the two men agreed that one paid the other money to have her to himself:

This thing with the two guys, it is only in the last month or so that I realized that it was kind of an assault of some kind and that what happened was not okay. It happened about 2 and a half years ago. But only now am I clearly seeing that it was a really fucked up thing.

However, downplaying the victimizing aspects was also something that some women deliberately did immediately after a compromising event. For example, Ditte (20), walking home from a bar with a man who insisted on having sex with her, despite her attempts at saying no, decided not to let the incident upset her:

I was so drunk and I had puked on the way home, and was sure that I did not want anything with him, but he said that now he had walked me home, he should also come in with me. He did not care that I said no. But I decided that I do not want such negative things to pull me down. Making such a decision made it easier to get on with things.

Whether the normalizing or downplaying of sexual harassment and assault happens immediately or over time, it may be connected to issues of non-reporting, where women feel partially to blame because they were intoxicated or because they do not wish to tarnish their reputation and draw attention to themselves as sexual victims (Hansen et al 2021). The seemingly passive acceptance of sexual victimization appears to be in sharp contrast with the increasing politicization and broadcasting of women’s unwanted and undesired sexual experiences (Lee 2007), promoted most recently by the #MeToo movement and the growing solidarity and collective action against male sexual harassment. Perhaps it is the ambiguous nature of many intoxicated sexual encounters that makes it so difficult for young women to understand their victimization and react against it.

Conclusion

In this article, we have examined the expectations and experiences of young Danish women describing intoxicated sexual encounters In examining these as pleasurable, regrettable and ambiguous experiences, they reflect the Janus headed nature of alcohol (Yokoe 2019), where alcohol is both “celebrated and tolerated, while at the same time condemned and controlled” (2019: 267). While consuming alcohol and experiencing a certain degree of euphoria may create a belief that more traditional norms of feminine behavior can be “thrown off” or temporarily rejected and the promise that something sexually exciting and enabling can occur (Bogren et al. 2022; Patrick & Maggs 2009;), such beliefs, as many feminist researchers have highlighted, may be short-lived. Young women may still find themselves “boxed in” by the more traditional expectations of others and themselves, but especially by young men, who may view the sexual encounter not through the lens of a ‘sexual freedom script’ but instead a more traditional sexual script (Hunt et al 2021). Consequently, instead of finding young men willing to embrace the new liberated, but inebriated, young woman, our participants in this study found themselves too often the victims of sexual pressure, harassment, assault, and in some cases, rape.

Becoming intoxicated did sometimes give several of the women in our sample a real sense of sexual courage and even potency to actively flirt with different men and feel a certain degree of sexual freedom. It allowed them to act outside the confines of heteronormative sexual scripts in several ways, not only in terms of flirting and making sexual advances, but also by being able to act in more assertive and powerful ways, as well as voice their experiences of sex to their partners. In this way, the pleasurable experiences with intoxicated sexual encounters are related to the women’s own agency.

The regrettable experiences that many women talked about, seem, in contrast, to be related to a lack of agency. These had to do with processes of sexual consent, in particular problems of correctly interpreting the sexual signals of others or ensuring that others understood what they themselves were signaling. The young women found themselves being misunderstood and attempting to extricate themselves from potentially unpleasant situations.

Even when they did not want to have sex, they sometimes found themselves unwillingly agreeing to it for a number of reasons. For some it was easier and faster to get the sexual encounter over with, instead of creating a conflict A few felt overwhelmed and intimidated by the physical stature of the man and afraid to stop him (Ford 2020). But the main reason most of the women agreed to sex they did not really want, was that they were concerned that if they said no, their reputation or social standing among their friends (and peers in general), could be jeopardized, not because they had been too “free,” or sexually “loose” but instead because they would be judged to be not “cool” and hence boring. While this suggests that sexual freedom scripts are less an option than an imperative (Illouz 2012), it also points to conflicting sexual and social norms, emphasizing the complexities and hidden power structures of sexual consent processes (Linander et al 2021; Hunt et al 2021; Petersen et al 2022). The women in the study also discussed transgressing their own boundaries, when engaging sexually. Navigating the balance between being aware of and taking care of one’s own boundaries and living up to social and cultural expectations is not easy and illustrates the strength of traditional sexual scripts where women must also manage both their social and sexual reputations (Hunt et al 2021, Bogren et al. 2022). Consent processes are highly gendered, and our analysis confirms gender differences between young women and men’s experiences of intoxicated sexual encounters. While the men might regret having sex, when drunk, with someone they find unattractive or low status (Hunt et al 2021; Petersen et al 2021), they rarely compromise any sexual scripts in ways that young women are likely to.

Finally, the ambiguous aspects of intoxicated sexual encounters may explain how intoxication and related norms and practices may exert their own “pressure” on women to consent to unwanted sex or to avoid defining an experience as regrettable. There are so many positive expectations connected to drinking, it may be difficult to admit to the fact that the intoxicated sexual experiences were not as pleasurable as initially hoped. But understanding a situation or event as ambiguous may also be a socially productive way of not allowing one’s identity or self-understanding to be harmed by what occurred (Khan et al 2018; Huemmer et al 2019). In this way, ambiguity might be a way for the women to navigate the delicate balance between norms and expectations and experiences that did not live up to either of these aspects. The findings in this study point towards the importance of further exploring intoxicated sexual encounters especially among younger adolescents, who have less experience with intoxication and with sexual encounters Hence they may be more vulnerable to being sexually exploited. It may also point towards the importance of paying attention to the discussion of ambiguous encounters as narrative strategies for maintaining agency and a sense of self that goes beyond the confines of an intoxicated sexual situation.