Women: Could you squish an attacker's eye with your thumb if you needed to?

Yes i can, it is amazing what one can do with pure addellion, no matter the other persons size and streingth.

Yup.

Hmm.. Me getting raped or killed versus icky eye goo on my thumb.

I’ll go with the icky eye goo.

I can usually predict what I’d do in a situation and feel pretty confident about the guess, but this is one of those things I don’t think I’ll ever know unless it happens to me. I have such an issue with eyes and my survival instinct is pretty crappy, so part of me wants to say I probably wouldn’t be able to. But another part of me says, quite loudly, “You never know!”

Yeah, I honestly don’t think that I could. So I carry a knife around with me just about everywhere I go. Just a little two inch blade, but I’m pretty confident that I could stab some one in the neck or the eye if I need to.

i took a personal defense course in college, and the guy who taught it said if you have to, grab a pile of dogshit and throw it on the attacker. that sounds unimaginable, but i guess if you’re in the situation, you do what you have to and it’s hard to say what you will or won’t do if need be.

Eye trauma? ::shudder::

Oh yeah, easily.

If someone is trying to fuck me up, my goal is to obliterate any squishy areas he has unprotected. Plus, Jim does it in 28 Days Later, t didn’t look too bad.

I will do anything to secure my survival. Eyes are a great great target. So are the genitals. Don’t try any fancy moves, you don’t know how athletic the attacker is and you could be giving him an advantage. You scream and you bite and you fight and you survive and once you’re safe (physically and mentally) you seek retribution as much as you can or feel the need to.

Also, though everyone is saying what they would do, it’s important to realize that if you’re ambushed, inebriated, facing an armed attacker, disoriented, facing multiple attackers, etc… that most of this stuff would go out the window. I’m not saying that it’s a bad idea to protect yourself, but it’s also extremely important to realize that sometimes, there are situations where the only thing you can do to survive is just “take it.” And before you say, “no matter what he would do to me, I’d rather die,” or “there’s no way I’d ever let someone do that to me,” at least acknowledge that those statements are completely hypothetical.

Consider that millions of women and men ARE in that situation every year, and if they heard you make those statements, they would be affected by the implicit message that they somehow did not adequately protect themselves.

I didn’t mean to come in here and lecture, but it’s my job to speak up for those people. :(

@tonedef: I don’t want to speak for everyone here, but I thought it was implied that this was an “if you could” situation. By no means are the thousands of attack victims to blame for their trauma.

@tonedef, you raise a great point that no matter how much training someone goes through, there are always other variables that pop up. No amount of training can replicate the actual event. I really appreciate you taking the time to share that message and I agree wholeheartedly with your first paragraph.

However, I do not appreciate the tone and implications in your second paragraph. Billions of people are in billions of different situations each year, some much worse than what we are discussing here. I do not feel responsible in the least for how anyone reading this discussion, or any other discussion, interpret my comments, provided I have made myself suitably clear and not confusing. I sure as stars did not purposely give any implicit message regarding any other person’s past or future actions. I was talking about my own personal reaction based on self defense classes and overall life experiences; my statements are not hypothetical in the least. If the reader of a message chooses to interpret that message wrongfully based on their life experience, and is affected by it, that is their issue and not mine.

In looking back on my message, I could have clarified it by changing the “yous” to “mes”. However this is the same tone that the instructors use in self defense classes, and they use it for a reason – it’s strong and drives home their point. Regardless, I still feel my message is easily identifiable as my opinion, and to interpret it as sending ill-will or shame towards others is quite misguided.

I do admire you for speaking up for an in-this-discussion previously-silent representation though, and I know you were most likely not replying to me specifically. I simply had a reaction to your comment that I felt was appropriate to share here. I enjoy this community and I enjoy the ability to have thoughtful and respectful side discussions as I am now my other community doesn’t has pretty strict rules when it comes to questions and answers :)

I know what you mean, and I misinterpreted when you said, “I will do anything to secure my survival.” I think anyone would, and sometimes that “anything” is just surviving what happens in an attack. My reaction was mostly formed from all the arguing I have to do with people who criticize victims for not fighting enough. I didn’t mean to condemn you or any other jellyfish, though. Sorry if there was any offense.

I’m like a couple of other people here – I really don’t know what I’d be capable (or even able to do) in a situation like that. As pointed out already, there are unlimited variations on what could happen so it’s just too hard to say.

I know that I’d probably try to do everything I could to get out of the situation, so I’d try to harm the attacker in whatever way I could. But then I wonder: Would they have weapons or not? If they did, would I be more or less likely to survive the attack if I fought back or not? If they had weapons and I didn’t fight back, would they kill me afterward anyway so that I couldn’t go to the police? The fact of just not knowing either way is what makes me think I’d try to fight no matter what.

Indeed, this is very true. I fully agree that “ensuring my survival” might mean allowing the crime to happen and hope that a situation like DrasticDreamer’s does not occur. I am someone who thirsts for justice, so in situations like this I would try my best to memorize important details about the person/s so as to aid in a police report and sketch later. While I understand that many victims of crimes choose not to report or pursue the matter, I’m a vengeful bastard.

I definitely got the feeling that you were speaking from true and plentiful personal experience, and if I were in your position I would no doubt do the same as you did. No offense was taken. I’m really glad we had this discussion :)

Abso-fucking-lutely.

Hypothetically speaking.

August, I completely concur.

I took a little self-defense class once (one hour!) and the next year
someone tried to choke me. I immediately landed as hard as I could with my (high) heel on his instep. It totally worked. (The eye would have been next.) The instep was really easy to get at, and although this is not a soft place it made him jump wwwwwaaaaaayyyyy back. Then I ran away.

I’m convinced you should have the moves in your muscle memory. It’s too confusing to have to think about it when the time comes. Look at all the hypotheticals up there ^^^!

@tonedef: Speaking as someone who has had a gun shoved up at her eye I know what I would do. I cooperated and I was fine. In the case of someone trying to kill me, for a fact, and I had time to react, I would try to kill him just as much – I know that based on my other experience.

Yes, in the moment I think I could. Later on I would probably be really disgusted.