Alcohol and the meetings between young women and men

For this study, focus group interviews were carried out in different parts of Sweden with young women and men from varying social environments. The groups were taken from naturally existing networks of friends, with one of the principal items of discussion centering on the role of alcohol in the social interplay between the sexes. The analysis shows both similarities and differences in how women and men talk about the significance of alcohol in the contact-making process. Both parties attribute a similarly high importance to alcohol in the facilitation of flirtation. In the discussion of the pick-up situation, however, clear differences emerge. The women maintained that it was possible for a woman to take the sexual initiative and be intoxicated, albeit within certain limits. The men's description of the corresponding situation focussed on intoxication as a means of relaxed and natural contact with women.