Uh Oh, someone has a reading comprehension problem. In my second post I stated:
"Luckily this was in Louisiana and not in Diogenes Land where you actually have the right to defend yourself against sexual assault. "
I hear that Sylvan Learning Centers are having a special this month and may be able to help you out. We all wish you the best of luck.
My apologies for missing that.
Now, can you actually turn your meager intelligence to the substantive issues that we’re dealing with? Or is that a bit tough for you?
Unfortunately, for some of the morons in this thread, this apparently does not go without saying. I completely agree with the rest of your post.
Right on, Dead_Badger. You said it sensibly and well. I get the impression that most of these people have never been in a potentially life threatening situation (note I said potentially). The assailant is behind you so how the hell would you know if they have a weapon or not?
I have to run now but I will work on it when I get back. “Meager intelligence” is not something that I have ever been known for but the “asshole” assertions are right on according to my friends and family.
When I’m taking a leak I’m in a very vulnerable position. A strange man has just come from behind and grabbed my penis which you understand is a very private and very sensitive part of my anatomy. This is not a position I’ve ever found myself in. In my 28 years on this earth I’ve never had a stranger, or someone I knew for that matter, grab my johnson in a public bathroom. I’m going to be shocked, angry, and frightened because this kind of behavior just isn’t something I’m accustomed to. In my mind only a wacko is going to grab my cock without permission so I believe a violent reaction is warranted. I might not fear rape or even my life but I’d certainly feel I was in harms way.
I’m not saying I’d give him a Godfather style beat down but I could certainly see throwing a few elbows and punches until I felt like I was no longer in peril.
Marc
Once again, no one is saying that no forceful reaction is justified, only that it cannot exceed what is reasonably necessary to stop the assault.
I also want to reiterate that legal recourse is justified as well. Use whatever force is reasonably necessary to get out of the bathroom and then go call the cops.
But you can’t use force which is punitive rather than reasonably defensive.
That’s really what it comes down to. Some people are interested in punishment, whether from anger or fear or both, and feel punishment is a valid response. Others feel ending the situationto be the primary goal, and the degree of response (verbal escalating to physical) should be solely geared toward that goal.
I hold to the latter, because that’s how I’ve been trained (in defense and martial arts) and because my personal moral system recoils against (what I deem to be) unnecessary violence.
And if I might say, Shagnasty, the whole “those who disagree with me have obviously not been in the situation, or they’d agree with me” thing is a silly and unreasonable rhetorical tactic, and a weak argument to boot.
But just to make you happy, I have been in life-threatening situations, more than once. And my opinion as stated above was the same then as now. My reaction has been pretty consistent: I defuse the situation and leave. In one armed robbery and two attempted muggings, I’ve left the punishment to the legal system, and it hasn’t let me down.
In a situation where 1) the individual is taking a piss and not paying attention to what’s going on behind him 2) he’s suddenly attacked 3) fighting with his pants down (putting him at quite a disadvantage), he’s supposed to…what? Stop at ever motion and see if the attacker is adequately disabled? I am willing to put money on this that the entire encounter took less than 10 seconds, which is not a lot of time, especially if you are, for all you know, fighting for your life. Defending yourself until an attacker no longer presents a threat, in this case, means when he goes limp (ooh, poor choice of words, unsconscious). There’s no way to determine what’s going on in the mean time.
You people who always argue against the excessive use of force are simply holier-than-thou and not considering the effects that a situation like this would have on an individual’s perception of events. To be sure, neither do juries and that’s why expert witnesses in this area are called in by the defense to explain to people like you (who just don’t have a way to conceptualize what’s going on someone else’s head in such a situation that is so far out of your realm of experience that guessing is compeltely off-base). Don’t take that as a slam, it’s a statement.
In this case, I would [inexpertly, like everyone else here] argue that the differentiation between reasonable and unjustified (or whatever qualifiers you choose) is the difference between “pounding the attacker into unconsciousness” and “pounding him until he’s unconscious and then pounding him until his skull splits open.”
Ten seconds is not a long time.
I mentioned it , in response to this quote from DIO
None of the two posts that mentioned this fad , mentioned anything about the orientation of the perp. I would imagine that Dio extrapolated that some guy grabbing a wang , must be gay , so thats how it came up.
Clear on this ?
Declan
As an addendum to my post, I’m always curious to see what constitutes “reasonable force.” The argument always goes something like, “I have no idea what reasonable force would be but I know that this isn’t it.” For those of you who cry, “but that’s excessive,” please give us a concrete example (not the standard “the minimum until the attacker stops” bullshit).
Olympic jab, cross, hook combination (repeat until attacker is unconscious)? Flying mare into Japanese or Russian arm bar? Israeli-style bearhug?
I will admit that these are three things I’ve often seen in self-defense classes as “legitimate” ways to deal with threats such as the one described above and there are distinct levels of “harm” that one could reasonably expect to come to someone on the receiving end of these.
I quite agree, but I don’t think you should play down quite how frightening and potentially dangerous a situation it would be in which to find yourself. I also tend to think that in this sort of situation the benefit of the doubt, if any, should rest with the person who didn’t creep up behind someone and grab their dick. We’re only human, and if in the heat of the moment we overreact somewhat, it’s not surprising. Clearly this isn’t the sort of reasoning that should be taken to extremes, but given the uncertainties and subjective interpretation involved, I do think there should be some leeway given to people defending themselves, rather than a strict test of minimal force. I wouldn’t want to be the one to legally define how much leeway, but thankfully I’m not a lawyer. What I’m trying to say is that the behaviour that can reasonably be expected of someone who’s been attacked unawares with their pants down is not the same as the behaviour that we, with the luxury of both hindsight and lots of time to think about it, deem necessary. I don’t think this is a punishment mentality; it’s just a different view on what’s a reasonable reaction, in extremis.
I’ll agree that on first read it sounded like Shagnasty’s dad delivered something of an excessive beat-down, but he was cleared after all, and the post that started this whole thing wasn’t excessively detailed. I also don’t think it’s necessarily true that rendering someone unconscious is excessive force; as pointed out, you don’t know what weapons someone has on them, and they did initiate violence against you. In the urinal-bashing example the attacker apparently didn’t stop attacking until he was knocked out, which to my mind suggests that excessive force was not used. If you think someone is armed, it’s just not sensible to step back unless you know they’re incapacitated or you can get away safely. We in this thread have no real way of knowing what the case was with Shagnasty’s dad. Given that he was cleared at the time, I think it’s fair to give him the benefit of the doubt.
Was this Matt dude, grabbin weiners in the bathroom ,or was he just making a pass on a normal bar floor ? I am gonna assume that he was making a quick pass , in which case this would apply , as previously posted by , me.
Neither the two posters who had this experience or their father mentioned that the perp was gay , neither did I
So how did you assume that the perp was gay , it could have easily been a college frat iniation
[sarcasm]yeah I can see how the two cases could be comparable[/sarcasm]
Declan
So you’re saying that if he had tried to cop a feel in the bathroom, they would have been justified in killing him?
I don’t give a shit if he was gay or not and this angle really has no point to it. Yes, I guess I assumed the guy was gay, but so fucking what? What difference does it make. Your “gay panic” argument works the same either way.
[sarcasm]yeah I can see how the two cases could be comparable[/sarcasm]
[/QUOTE]
As a matter of fact, they are comparable as far as the bullshit “gay panic” defense is concerned.
And once again, are you saying that if someone tries to touch your dick in the bathroom that you are justified in killing them?
Shagnasty: IMO your father did the right thing. At least we can be assured the dick-grabber will never try it again. If something like that happened to me, I would have slammed his head into the hardest, immovable surface I could find (sink, tile wall, etc.).
So, if i understand your argument correctly, a measured response, with “limits on physical response,” is only necessary in case of making a pass on “a normal bar floor.”
Actually, in the case of Matthew Shepard, he didn’t even make a pass at his attackers. They found out he was gay, and lured him into their truck by telling him that they were gay.
Just a hypothetical for ya. Say, for the sake of argument, that Matthew Shepard had, in fact, grabbed a guy’s weiner in the bathroom. Do you think that such behavior would warrant this “reaction”?
He died five days later.
The reference to Shepard’s tears is not simply gratuitous emotional rhetoric. According to the prosecution in the case, the presence of the tears indicated that Shepard was conscious for some time after the beating occurred.
Strange, then, that the OP somehow managed to stop himself from beating the guy unconscious, isn’t it? If the OP is bright enough to assess the situation and use the appropriate level of force necessary to stop the assault, I have confidence that one day you will be too.
Really? It couldn’t possibly be that I have been in a situation in which I had to stop an attack on my person and perhaps have some idea of what I’m talking about?
You’re awfully confident about that statement…
Do try to keep up. There are two cases currently being discussed. In each case, I’ve already said at least once that the protagonist used an appropriate level of force for the situation. For those too slow to keep up, I’ll say it one more time: Shagdaddy, based on the revised description of the incident, used appropriate force to stop the assault on his person. The OP did too.
You are reading something into what I said that isn’t there.
I was the victim of an attempted mugging outside of my apartment building in Brighton, MA in December of 1999. Two guys grabbed me from behind suddenly, demanded money, and, by instinct, I punched one of them in the face only about a second or two after they grabbed me, broke free, and ran. I went to my apartment as soon as it was safe and called 911. They mugged two girls and one guy at knifepoint to the throat within the hour. They were caught by the police during the last mugging.
Both guys had gotten out of prison for the same thing only 2 months before. One plead guilty to all counts and went to prison for 3 years. The other plead not guilty. I had to reidentify him in a lineup that the defense set up almost a year later and I was successful. I also had to provide testimony for the trial. He was found guilty and sentenced to five years in prison. In this case, I was thrilled that the legal system worked and neither I nor any of the other victims were killed.
Is anyone going to say that wasn’t a measured response? That happened in the open where it was obvious what should be done. If I had fought them, I would have surely been killed. If something else happened in an enclosed space, I am not sure what I would do. I don’t know about anyone else but my adrenaline starts flowing so hard and fast that normal thought processes are interrupted and am taken over by the “fight or flight” response (that is what it is there for). If you are trapped in a small room, you may have no choice but to fight.
I was specifically referring to the second example, but since my post was unclear on that point, I’ll address this. I am glad that the OP was able to solve his problem without violence. As others have pointed out, the action that the attacker performed was a sexual assault and the OP certainly has a right to defend himself. Please review Zipper JJ’s comment about the possible cause for a “mellower” response. Had the OP responded by physically defending himself against the attacker, would have make him stupid? Conversely, does the way that the dad chose to deal with the assault make him stupid?
In my experience, the people who cry loudest about this have never encountered this sort of situation. See also my next response.
Since you hadn’t mentioned that you have experience to the contrary, I don’t see why this isn’t a valid assumption.
Please note that I consistently used “people like you” etc. in my post. This was not strictly a personal attack, but rather a comment on a certain mindset that I’ve noticed in this thread (and others, but that’s beside the point) please reread.