ABSTRACT
Club and night life, as well as youth music cultures, play a crucial role in the wider social processes in which gender and sexual identities are reproduced, modifi ed or transformed. This is rarely taken into account in the mainstream of gender studies research, but regularly emphasized by scholars focusing on the study of youth culture (e.g. Frith 1978), frequently interested in charting images, meanings and modes of conduct that depart from dominant values and moralities. Rave, club and night-life cultures in Britain too were seen to manifest, or even contribute to, the reconfi guration of heterosexuality and heteronormativity. Researchers stressed the emergence of new sexual codifi cations, the weakening of the divide between straight and gay scenes and the liberating ambience that opened up the possibility of enjoying ‘erotic pleasures beyond sexual boundaries’ (Pini 2001: 164-165, McRobbie 1994, A. Bennett 2001: 134, Measham et al. 2001: 56). It was argued that in rave culture gender relations assumed a more equal character shifting away from the ‘sex market’ ambience and predatory male behaviour of earlier discotheques, bars and clubs. This was seen as liberating and empowering particularly for women (e.g. Pini 2001, A. Bennett 2001). Other works on British clubbing scenes pointed to the sexualization of urban night life in the last years with a rising number of fetish, S&M, naked nights and sex clubs emerging on the night-life scene. The diverse aspects of sexual experience-the search for sex, the public expression of sexuality, the play with sexual characters and roles, the participation in sexual communities and the exploration of new forms of eroticism and desire in sexually charged environments-were all invoked as central elements of clubbing (P. Jackson 2004: 35).
