The rhetoric of innocence was used to free themselves from responsibility and the rhetoric of helplessness was used to explain why it is impossible not to drink in the world of young people. Drinking is a very effective means of achieving important things in the world of young people. Partying is positively labelled as a way of fitting in and establishing social contacts. The greatest difference between girls and boys, however, is found specifically in their partying. The rhetoric of safety comes out in girls' discourse.
Girls try to protect both themselves and their friends from the more unpleasant effects of partying.
They want, for instance, to prevent drunken sexual experiences. Likewise they try to ensure that their partying causes as little trouble as possible to outsiders. Also the type of partying that girls are used to is rather different from that of boys. Investigating girls' partying at close range shows that intoxicant usage culture is still differentiated between the sexes regardless of the similarities. In the world of intoxicants, girls loosen up and push back the boundaries set for them, but many of the fences erected by socialisation still remain in place.