If I had a pound for every time I’ve grabbed the hands of a friend and pulled them across a club in an attempt to rescue them from a drunk, slobbering male swaying behind them and occasionally fondling their arse cheek, I’d be rich enough to buy a VK for every single person in Life on a Friday night – maybe even on a Sunday night, come to think of it. In fact, call it two VKs and a Jägerbomb.

If you’re female and you’ve ever stepped foot in a nightclub, be it at home or at university, chances are that you’ve been on the receiving end of unwanted attention at some point. A heckle of ‘nice tits!’ received on the walk home is only to be expected from wearing a revealing top, and a bum-pinch at the bar is club-speak for ‘hi, nice to meet you.’ There comes a point, however, when we must question the normalisation of this behaviour: are we allowing sexual harassment to become as regular a part of our night out as cheesy chips from the Van of Life?

My first experience of bar drinking when I was 17 left me horrified that middle-aged men closer to my dad’s age than to mine (and considering the size of the town I live in, possibly even knew my dad) felt that it was acceptable to accompany their sleazy “evenin’, sexy” with a fond pat on the arse. Excuse me, mate, but I probably go to college with your daughter? I put it down to the fact that small-town life forced 18- and 50-year-olds alike to the same watering-hole, and was confident that once I branched out into more youth-based clubs the problem would vanish. Of course, in reality, the truth was the complete opposite – and it soon became evident to me that three cans of Fosters and a vodka shot are all it takes before hands are roaming all over the Cindies’ dance floor and the bodies of its female occupants.

“If all else fails, do the conga. That’s definitely not sexy”

One memory that always sticks with me is a time when, after I’d observed a guy in the club groping my best friend and asked why she wasn’t doing anything about it, she actually admitted to me that it had become so commonplace that she “didn’t even notice it anymore.” In July and August 2015, insight agency ICM carried out a study on students’ experiences of sexual harassment in nightclub environments, and the results published by alcohol education organisation Drinkaware are significant: 54 per cent of female students said that they had encountered some form of sexual harassment on a night out (including inappropriate touching, comments or abuse) and 43 per cent among these said that they experienced this on almost every night out. If a man sidled up to you in the street and slapped your arse in broad daylight, or pushed his groin into the back of you while you were queuing for the till in Sainsbury’s, it would be completely unacceptable. Why, then, do dimmed lights, a deafening DJ set and a few shots of tequila legitimise this practice?

Some temporary solutions, many of which are age-old and frankly fool-proof, are as follows…

1) Pretend you have a boyfriend

The words “sorry, I have a boyfriend,” are enough to send any guy packing, ensuring that he puts as much distance as possible between you both as he imagines a six-foot rugby player that would be ready to break his face. Even if it’s not the prospect of a burly boyfriend that puts him off, he would never disrespect another ‘lad’ by stepping on his toes. Shame that the simple words “sorry, I’m not interested” probably wouldn’t have the same effect.

2) Head to the loos

Fact: the girls’ toilets in the club are the safest place in the world. If you’re having a dodgy experience on the dance floor, make a beeline for the bogs where compliments on your outfit and female solidarity await. There’s nothing like a stranger asking you for a tampon or offering you some lippy to restore your faith in humanity.

3) Grab your pals and do the conga

Rallying your troops and having a dance-off is by far the best bet when it comes to driving off undesirable behaviour. Form a tight circle and dance the night away: if you’ve got a persistent bugger who is – for some reason – still not repelled by the strong stench of feminism and perseveres with his gyrating on your friend, yank her into the middle of the group where she can throw some shapes in a circle of trust. If all else fails, do the conga. That’s definitely not sexy.

To the left, to the left

However, although effective for a few hours or even a night, these sticking-plasters are not a permanent solution to such a deep-rooted problem. So my real piece of advice, and the one I tend to follow myself, is 4) tell them to fuck right off. If somebody in a club (or anywhere else) is touching you or heckling you or even looking at you in a way that makes you feel uncomfortable, have the confidence to turn around and stick it to them. Your night out and self-confidence is not worth sacrificing to a moron who doesn’t know how to behave, and such behaviour will continue being a routine part of club life unless you speak out against it