CW: mentions of rape, sexual assault, and gendered violence.
In the first iteration of my band, our singer/rhythm guitarist and our beloved friend, Cooper* roared out some lyrics over, and over, and over: “kill a fucking rapist”. With passion, I saw his spit flying from my spot behind the drum kit.
Cooper loudly made it unsafe for any rapist, creep, or assaulter in the scene. I distinctly remember him saying, “if X makes it to the next gig, I’ll make sure it’ll be their last.” He was everything you’d want in an ally. First to pack a punch (honestly, way too often), the last to leave you unprotected.
Less than a week later, it came out that Cooper had assaulted his ex-girlfriend. It was a ‘complicated’ situation, he claimed in tears. The relationship was toxic. We heard many versions of that story, but the crux of it remains: he assaulted his girlfriend. The same Cooper that we could count on to keep us safe from any way-too-handsy people in the pit, the same Cooper that carried me up the first time I went urbexxing, the same Cooper that so many looked up to and trusted.
The point of this story isn’t about Cooper. No, it’s the sheer hypocrisy of it all. In a counter-culture scene all about radical politics — fuck cops, kill rapists, fight back against systems of oppression — there are way too many instances of this exact situation, and, no exaggeration, something like this comes out every fortnight. For a scene all about sticking it to the man, there sure are a lot of creeps.
“The drummer of that band dated a minor.” “The vocalist of this band hit their partner.” “You know that person? Yeah, that metalhead — you know it came out that he assaulted someone? Crazy shit.”
Gendered violence in this scene isn’t as clearly defined as it was on Cooper’s end.
Let me first establish: I am no stranger to mosh pit violence. I’ve busted my nose, had multiple concussions, had head wounds, assorted bruises, random cuts I can’t trace the source of. So, I understand that the nature of moshing is often aggressive, regardless of generational differences.
Way too often, genuine foul play gets disguised as a stray casualty. Large, fully-grown men target ‘weaker’ bodies in the pit, repeatedly thrown to the floor, charging towards them with too much force. If moshing is all about the rawest form of self-expression, it is quite telling that this unadulterated self-expression ends with oppressors causing intentional, targeted harm to whoever they consider ‘other’, ‘weaker’, or more ‘vulnerable’.
This doesn’t just happen in the mosh. Only last week at a local hardcore show did a man ‘floor two girls’ who ‘weren’t even in the pit’. On an Instagram story call-out, an attendee of the event pointed out “nobody did anything… once again women making the scene safe because they’re the only ones to call out violent male behaviour.”
We can have a burn book of all the harmful people who’ve come to shows. It’s a small scene. But this does nothing when people just accept these incidents as ‘side effects’ of going to mosh.
It’s on you to mosh responsibly. The nature of the pit is controlled chaos. Don’t get in if you don’t want to get hurt.
True disclaimers, but how much more cover can this give until someone takes it too far? If I want to mosh, I don’t want to worry about being dogged by a man on a power trip that he doesn’t even realise he’s having. They’re often thrown out too late. If I want to go to gigs, I don’t want to question if a band member has done something creepy before telling them “sick set”. How many more band members with allegations do we turn a blind eye to until someone dies? How many justifications are we going to give? Our politic is both co-opted to cover for doers of harm and used as an aesthetic. Values don’t mean shit anymore.
“This song’s about finding your local rapist, and beating them to death.” In the corner, a boy’s girlfriend stands, holding his drink. D-beat ensues. A femme tries backing out of the pit, angled elbow in front of their body. Gutturals. A person keeps getting floored by a disproportionately larger guy they don’t know. A breakdown. Someone falls and gets pulled back up by their bra strap.
In a DIY subculture all about creating and shaping the spaces we want, we have to actively intervene when we see harm. Perpetrating the same systems of harm you face, this time on your terms, doesn’t make you punk. It just makes you an asshole.
