Justme ~
The Boston Strangler was really easy to defeat. ANY level of resistance against him, from making a noise to fighting back in any way, would cause him to run off. He got his jollies out of killing non resistant women.
Ted Bundy never kidnapped anyone who did not get willingly into his car with him (except those who were bludgeoned into unconsciousness while sleeping, and had no chance either to comply or resist).
Any resistance at all will generally cause the most dangerous types of serial rapists/murderers -- the experienced guys who have done it again and again and again, escalating from rape to murder, and with plans to keep going without getting caught -- to leave the woman alone. Provided, that is, that the resistance begins early enough: only one woman survived without crippling injury after getting into Bundy's car. Any resistance at all while in public was enough to chase him off. Waiting until they were inside the car, she was dead.
Non-educated resistance (flailing or striking the torso; yelling, etc) might stop those guys, but it will generally make the non-"professional" rapists angrier and more apt to do serious damage up to and including murder. But against the guys who intended murder in the first place, even non-educated resistance is often surprisingly effective.
Capable, educated resistance will generally deflect the majority of date rapes and other "social situation" sexual assaults, provided the woman has educated herself enough to understand the social dynamics of what is going on and does not stop to argue or discuss once she has begun to make her escape. Simply knowing the escapes from common grabs, coupled with a basic understanding of date-rape psychology, may enable her to make good an escape that she would not have been able to make without that knowledge.
There are a lot of studies that show an unarmed woman who physically resists a rape or sexual assault is more likely to be injured than those who do not resist. However, a closer look at the data generally show that a majority of women who were injured and also fought back generally were injured first, then began fighting back, rather than the other way around. In other words, it was the injury that provoked her to fight, rather than her fighting that provoked the injury.
I hope it is clear that I am not arguing for ignorance here. Obviously more training is better. Obviously a solid mindset is better than a flabby one and an assertive attitude is better than an aggressive one or a passive one.
What I am arguing against, very strenuously, is the ridiculous notion that women can't learn some basic physical actions that will increase their safety in any time frame short of "years." I strongly detest the fallacy that unless you are (physically and emotionally) prepared to take on the worst of the worst in an extended altercation, unless you dedicate years of your life to learning this stuff and spend half your waking hours thinking about it, well you might as well forget it and learn nothing at all. That's the foolishness I'm arguing against.
If you heard me arguing against getting more training than a weekend, or if you heard me saying that a single day of training without a good mindset and without continued practice, would be enough to take on every guy who ever landed on Death Row -- well, if you heard that, you heard wrong. That's not what I said.
I'm not arguing for false or misplaced confidence. I AM arguing that head-in-the-sand ignorance is a bad thing, training a good thing -- and training plus the commitment to practice and learn more is best of all.
pax
