In the late 1990s, the rules for unwanted advances in a nightclub were clear. The first line of defence was your own. Only you could decide if the advance was unwanted or not – and if not, you could apply words or force, depending on the context. ‘You’re not made of glass,’ as my Scottish granny used to say. If the advances persisted, your male friends or a chivalrous stranger could be deployed. Occasionally, if a lech was so drunk or so unable to read the room, the situation could be escalated to a bouncer.

I was a barmaid at the Liberty club in Bridlington for the summer after my A-levels, and I watched the bouncers make the sort of careful and immediate judgments we wish social workers and police could make now. Lee and Dave had a sophisticated response scale, equivalent in shared doctrine and meticulous criteria to the US military DefCon levels. These ranged from muscle-flexed preventative peacetime readiness, through to summary justice outside behind the bins.

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