Years ago, I found out the hard way that when male rabbits fight, they go for the testicles of their opponent, literally biting them out. Sorry Doody.
Is not grabbing/punching your opponent, male or female, in the groin, biting and scratching something innate in humans or is it something modern man(kind), even in the most primitive peoples have somehow agreed to?
Hey, if I were being mauled by a gorilla or lion, before I die I’d love to go knowing I gave them a good shot in the groin first! :eek:
Edit: They may rip me apart, but I’d love to imagine my hand still firmly gripped down there when they find my killer!
I’m basically a runner. I don’t want to fight anyone, verbal or physical. I found out coming up with 2 exuberant brothers fight sometime supersedes flight. So I learned to punch hard. And where to punch hard. Groin works for me. I punched my hefty younger brother once in the middle of his shoulder blades, he went down like a rock. He still talks about it.
(Daddy, I’m sorry, don’t flip in your grave, yes we fought all the time when your weren’t around)
We share a common ancestor with chimps. Chimps are known to specifically rip off genitals and bite/tear off the face of people/ I presume other chimps when they attack them, so I would think the behavior is innate and not learned. I mean you could be being beaten to a pulp by some huge guy and clearly outmatched but if you start trying to rip his nuts off, bite off his nose, or gouge out his eyes, that can be enough of an equalizer to deter, neutralize, or even turn the tide of a losing battle where your death would otherwise be imminent.
If I feel like I’m about to actually be killed by someone, or lose consciousness and not knowing how far an opponent is going to take if after I’m asleep I would have no problem severely disabling/disfiguring them if I felt it was the difference between survival and death, we are wired to survive at all costs in the majority of situations.
Just remembered that when fighting, some animals (I think this is what happened with my rabbits) attacking the groin, usually male, but I suspect females would do it to, is to reduce/eliminate the chances of mating by your rival.
Would be hilarious if humans, when fighting for the affection of someone, immediately goes for the groin. Aggghhh…I’m going to make sure you never make babies or have any fun with him/her!!!
*Rough and tumble or gouging was a form of fighting in rural portions of the United States, primarily in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It was often characterized by the objective of gouging out an opponent’s eye but also included other brutally disfiguring techniques, including biting, and typically took place in order to settle disputes. Though gouging was common by the 1730s in southern colonies, the practice was waning by the 1840s, by which time the Bowie knife and revolver had made frontier disputes more lethal. Though it was never an organized sport, participants would sometimes schedule their fights (as one could schedule a duel), and victors were treated as local heroes. Gouging was essentially a type of duel to defend one’s honor that was most common among the poor, and was especially common in southern states in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.
When a dispute arose, fighters could either agree to fight “fair”, meaning according to Broughton’s rules, or “rough and tumble”. According to Elliott Gorn,
Around the beginning of the nineteenth century, men sought original labels for their brutal style of fighting. “Rough-and-tumble” or simply “gouging” gradually replaced “boxing” as the name for these contests.
— Gorn (1985)
Ears, noses, lips, fingers and genitals could be disfigured in these fights, but Gorn notes:
The emphasis on maximum disfigurement, on severing bodily parts, made this fighting style unique. Amid the general mayhem, however, gouging out an opponent’s eye became the sine qua non of rough-and-tumble fighting, much like the knockout punch in modern boxing. The best gougers, of course, were adept at other fighting skills. Some allegedly filed their teeth to bite off an enemy’s appendages more efficiently. Still, liberating an eyeball quickly became a fighter’s surest route to victory and his most prestigious accomplishment.*
If truly in a fight for my life, then I’d fight with pretty much no restrictions, yeah. If that means violent disabling of my opponent’s testicles, so be it. Although I think my best approach is to punch hard in solar plexus, then flee - I’m usually faster than almost anyone else around in a foot race.
If it’s truly “you and me, one must die” then sorry, yes, my rules of engagement will be very broad.
In my twenties I was jumped by a much bigger guy who was going to beat the crap out of me after I said something that apparently offended him. I landed a knee to his groin and he went down hard. I stood there a while watching him writhe around on the ground, then I left. Either I killed him, or we just never ran into each other ever again.
I’m not a fighter. If forced into the situation I could see being so offended that nothing would be off the table. Rocks, bludgeons, teeth, whatever will be applied liberally to all exposed sensitive areas as opportunities present. I’ll be dead within a minute, but I won’t soon be forgotten.
I was once attacked and scared for my life. The assailant had his hands around my neck and was throttling me while banging my head against the floor. I went for the eye gouge. I got my fingers into his eye socket and pushed…but not very hard. Even in the circumstances, it was just such a horrific thing I couldn’t make myself do it.
Maybe if it had been my only option I could have found the intestinal fortitude, but fortunately someone came to my aid and it was not tested.
The rabbits were together for months without any issue for months until one night we heard squealing. Doody (the smaller of the two) had his testicles hanging out. We rushed him to the vet and brought him home, but the died a few hours later.
Edit: TMI, they castrated him and sutured him up. Really odd to go from seeing his testicles hanging out, then nothing there.
Actually, the eyes are a relatively small target. It can be useful to do an open hand eyeflick - even if you miss the eyeball, scratching anything close can be distracting and make the eyes water. And when we used to work headbutts, knees, and elbows you might as well stick your thumbs in the opponent’s eyes as you cradle his head to slam it into your knee.
But no, I’ve never heard of any style of fighting that advocated starting off eith an eye gouge.
And maybe Iron Mike was just practicing kinomutay! VERY good idea if grappling. We used to work on the proper targets to bite, and even spend a memorable training session biting chunks out of round steak.
Good clean fun.
Hell, if I were really in a fight for my life, there are no limits to what I’d do. Use any weapon, inflict the most damage possible. But if it isn’t “for your life”, then there really is little reason to be fighting. Instead, use your Nike-do.
My son has been doing krav maga for a couple months now, and holy crap is he now the wrong kid to mess with! But he will appreciate “Nike-do”. That’s awesome.
VERY good idea if grappling. We used to work on the proper targets to bite, and even spend a memorable training session biting chunks out of round steak.