In this article I argue that rave participation is best understood as a form of accommodative resistance. Such a framework, it is maintained, helps highlight the nuanced influences of normative social discourses in relation to people’s experiences and descriptions of moving in, through and past active rave participation. Specifically, the research findings presented herein are based on ten women’s narratives about their participation within Toronto’s rave scene circa 1994 to 2000. As such, this research represents an effort to make these women’s particular – yet conspicuously absent – experiences central to analyses of rave participation. More generally, it is an argument for the importance of engaging various interlocking social discourses – including, but not limited to age and gender – vis-à-vis people’s (sub)cultural experiences.

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