Now this is an extreme hypothetical, since the situation wouldn’t come up… so don’t give me any “but you wouldn’t …” crap
What would you do to save your own life. Let’s say that you had a gun pointed at your head and they’d kill you if you didn’t do ______ but let you go and never bother you again if you didn’t.
Would you have sex with someone of the gender to which you are not attracted? With someone you hate? Would you have [insert perverse thing you would never consider otherwise here] strange sex? Would you eat poop? Cut off your leg? Poke out your eyes?
Assuming that no one else would be harmed in any way, is there anything you would not do? If so, why?
I’d probably do whatever I needed to do to survive, including such tortureous things like eating liver, etc. I’d do it because I’d probably want to live.
Yes,anything so I could live on to be with my son,who would be an orphan if I didn’t. Anything except kill my son,obviously. If he were not around,I wouldn’t do anything the person asked.I’d rather die.
It’s funny how we imagine all these horrible scenarios that we would tolerate in order to live, yet we refuse to quit smoking, wear seatbelts, etc.
I was faced with the most awful of choices and only made the right decision after many false starts and much suffering. But I am still alive, because:
>
>
>
> WARNING: Hideously frightening act!!!
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>I quit drinking.
I’m still alive because i started drinking myself, but kudos to TennHippie for his convictions and courage to face his problem and beat it thus far.
I would do a lot of things to continure living… Sex with the same gender? Beats dying… I dunno - As long as it would not hurt someone else, I’m all for self-preservation…
I don’t have a wife or kids, so if i only had myself to worry about, i wouldn’t do anything i didn’t want to do. You know, i’d make love to salma hayek if i had to.
My generic response is, “I would rather die on my feet than live on my knees.”
But then again, i might squirrel out it and do something hideous.
All this science, I don’t understand. It’s just my job 5 days a week-- Rocketman
I guess I just don’t understand the “I wouldn’t do it” mentality. I mean… 10 or 20 years down the road, is an hour of your life that was really unpleasant going to matter? Think of all the living you would miss if you had died… I’d rather live, dignity be damned.
this is not a anti-woman slam, but i think it has something to do with testosterone (sp). For instance in jail, if you’re being raped and you don’t fight back, you’re much worse off after because everyone thinks you are a ‘bitch’. the guards won’t even respect you. it’s not at the same level on the outside, but it’s there. It’s sort of a domination thing. to accept something like that would be to admit you were weaker, something many men have a problem with.
All this science, I don’t understand. It’s just my job 5 days a week-- Rocketman
I stand by my original assertion- reason?
The kinds of things you’re describing- sexual abuse, gouging out someones eyes, mental and physical torture are not the kinds of things that just go away. I would not live my life knowing I gave that person the satisfaction they wanted, and I would not want to live with the scars that would result from submitting.
Different strokes!
A friend is someone who likes you even though you’re as ugly as a hat full of assholes. Zettecity
Hmm. I guess pride isn’t that strong for me in some ways. In other ways it is (see The Game thread)… I’d just feel like a fool if I gave up my whole life to save face…
As nobody else brought it up directly, though a couple touched on it, I will cheat at answering your question by questioning back the idea of believing that going along with a dominator would be better than not. It may be unlikely that the average terrorizer would rather be faced down by someone with a spine than meet someone who meekly goes along but acceding to some scumbo’s whim certainly doesn’t guarantee your life. I’d rather get shot after spitting in a guy’s face than shot after not. I say that while sitting comfortably on my couch.
At least I could draw a split-second of comfort from knowing that I’m not helping to doom the next person the scumbo tries that on. Even idiots would never terrorize if everyone stood up to them. (I guess here I should link to one of the Hitler strings.) I have absolutely no affection for martyr complexes but I will add that I also think that your heirs would be happier to remember you standing up to a killer than folding. A lot of people seem to draw comfort from that. Having said all that, I hold victims absolutely blameless for whatever they choose to do at that moment.
As for advice for women, I read a good sounding suggestion once that, faced with a rapist, you should consider vomiting over yourself. That will make you suddenly less appealing as a tool. Do not vomit over the guy. That would simply make him madder.
I guess it would depend on who was holding the gun and where I was. If I was with an unmasked stranger in a field in East BuFu, I’d probably defy him. Chances are very great that he’s going to kill me anyway, so why give him the satisfaction of humiliation on top of it?
If he had a mask on of some sort, it means that he doesn’t want me to identify him later. Given this, I’d probably do what he wanted and hope for the best.
And, finally, if my kids were involved I’d barter everything I had, including my personal collection of Straight Dope books, to ensure their safety.
Remember, in this HYPOTHETICAL scenario, you KNOW that you will be ok with no future attacks or anything. So the issue of “well he’d probably kill me anyway” does NOT apply here. This isn’t real life, this is a hypothetical situation.
when i was 17, me and friend were about to go into a mall when four asian guys came up to us. all of the sudden, they started accusing us of calling them gooks under our breath (we’d never seen them before) and tried to pick a fight with us. They didn’t look particularly tough so at another time I might have fought them. but for some reason, i got a bad vibe from the situation so we backed down. we looked like fools in front of everyone there.
When we came out of the mall, later, all four of my tires were slashed. This means that at least one of them had a knife. If by some chance me and my friend were able to overpower them, there is no doubt in my mind they would have pulled it.
I’m glad I backed down, but every since then, i’ve had recurring dreams about it and get really nervous when trouble is a brewing.
So there are two fluctuating conclusions I draw when faced with similar circustances. sometimes I think I’ll never let anyone scare me down again (because of after effects), because I don’t think you should let bullies get away with anything. and sometimes I think, ‘I’m going home to my dog.’
All this science, I don’t understand. It’s just my job 5 days a week-- Rocketman
I would do whatever they wanted so long as it didn’t go beyond what I could live with. Killing or maiming someone or myself. At that point it’s try to take them out. I would remember them and get my revenge at whatever opportunity arose, even if they did go to jail. Someone hurts my family, they’ll get what I consider they have coming.
Metroshane is right, I think. If you felt the person got the better of you, regardless of the threat used, you would forever be going over the incident in your mind, trying to figure out what you could or should have done or said that would have made it different.
Depends on your own feelings as to whether you would want to live with that. There are worse things than death, you know.
Strangely enough, the point on OpalCat’s list of “Would you’s” that I stopped and though “No way I could do that.” was “eat poop”. Just the thought of it is making me gag here at my computer, and at the first taste I’d be puking my guts up all over the guy. In fact, I’m nearly ready to that right now, so I’m going to stop writing about it.
