Occasionally, in movies, you will see a weak, sniveling-type enemy lose bladder control when faced with a scary situation. Is this based on reality? Has it been observed in real-life scary situations (e.g. war, plane crashes, etc.)?
stoli
Well, blessed is just about everyone with a vested interest in the status quo,
as far as I can tell.
Yes.
Can we have a cite for that?
Well, when I was in high school, I was driving somewhere with my best friend in the car, and I nearly ran a stop sign and got us in a wreck.
My friend punched my arm and yelled “You made me wet my pants!”, so I’m figuring it’s possible.
When the FBI barged in on the Simbionese Liberation Army and captured Patty Hearst, she wet her pants and asked that she be allowed to change (with a female policeman) before being taken to jail. I only remember reading this in one source, so it may have been an urban legend or the other news magazines chose to ignore it.
Yes, that is true.
In moments of extreme fear, the muscles that control the bladder(and the sphincter) release. Perhaps this was at one time a means of rendering one’s self less appetizing to a predator, (certain other animals utilize this strategy) or perhaps it is simply an unfortunate biological coincidence.
Or perhaps they were laughing so hard looking at their opponent, that they just peed.
Yes. It happened to me when I was mugged.
::Blushes deeply and leaves this thread, never to return::
I’ve also heard that it’s the body getting rid of excess weight (however minimal) in preparation for flight.
Also, getting rid of toxic matter (urine & feces) will reduce the risk of peritonitis should the abdomen be injured.
Yeah, SingleDad, that’s a big factor. I knew a girl once who used to pee before going anywhere in the car because she said the most common injury in a car accident is a burst bladder. I don’t know if that is statistically correct but if so, then our rough and tumble prehistoric ancestors would have evolved to void their wastes when confronted with a violent situation.
When I was sixteen I was walking on a country road with three other kids. A very tough looking vicious man confronted us and pushed us around and tried to provoke a fight. When he turned his attention to me I had an overwhelming desire to urinate but managed to clamp up.
Remember a few years ago when that passenger plane pancaked into the ocean off Zanzibar? Some tourists on the beach captured it on video. I read an interview with two British women who survived and they said the stink of shit on the plane was terrible as it went down to hit the sea because most of the passengers were voiding their bowels in fear.
I’m sure this is on a related note. When I was a kid, and used to play “Hide and Seek” with my friends, as soon as I would find myself a perfect hiding place, I had to piss.
I remember climbing a tree as a kid, getting up around 20 ft high and falling. I only fell about 1 foot, I’m guessing, before my leg caught onto a lower branch and slowed me down sufficiently to grab another branch with my hands. I climbed down the tree with wet pants.
Actually peeing your pants feels good-especially in cold weather; Until you are done peeing, of course…
so that’s the origin of the expression “to scare the sh*t out of someone”
Spanish has a similar expression
Uh, Felinecare I think you have a classic misunderstanding there. Urination with fear is part of the body’s so-called “flight or fight response”. Basically fright causes the body to fire off an instinctive series of hormonal/neuronal signals which prepare the body for flight (actually meaning running away in this instance) or fight. Adrenaline release is part of this, and it so happens that the body’s sphincters are controlled by the sympathetic nervous system which responds to adrenaline release so with sufficiently large stimulus, overiding inhibition of urination by higher centres is unable to prevent release of urine. It also causes pupil dilation, increased heart rate, increased resp rate, glucose production etc. This is a response hardwired into us over millenia by evolution.
I should point out that the most common flying animals, ie birds, don’t actually urinate, as they excrete waste nitrogen in the form of uric acid rather than urea. This means that those little blobs they produce are extremely concentrated and they don’t store large amounts of water within their bodies.
I only know two things;
I know what I need to know
And
I know what I want to know
Mangeorge, 2000
Okay, this sort of has to do with this discussion. My family’s dog is scared to death of any kind of loud noise (thunder, fireworks, etc.) So one night, there was a terrible thunderstorm. She was on her way from one hiding place to another when there was a loud clap of thunder. She immediately, and without even squatting, dumped a huge, um, gift on the kitchen floor. My grandma looked at me and said, “What do you know? That actually did scare the shit out of her.”
It was really funny. Maybe you’d have to be there.