Claire and Jose get off their cake: ecstasy, raving and women's pleasure in 1990s Britain

Momentous shifts in British nightlife were catalysed by the drug ecstasy during the 1990s. This article explores the tension between older attitudes towards women's drug use and new discourses of feminine pleasure by using materials produced by Lifeline, a Manchester-based drugs harm reduction charity. These leaflets provided advice to young women about how to navigate nightclubs when taking ecstasy. By reading these sources against the grain, this article recovers the pleasures occluded by them and reconstructs what ecstasy and rave meant to young women, beyond the narratives of risk and harm presented to them through the media.