re: #359 Decatur Deb

Huh, hadn’t heard of that wrestling story. Looks like everyone involved comported themselves pretty well.

sports.espn.go.com

Everyone respecting each other’s positions and choices and stuff— what’s up with that?

As an ex-boxer and boxing instructor, I think aggression inside the ring is entirely different from aggression outside it. I haven’t gotten into a brawl-type fight in more than twelve years, but if I weren’t concerned about concussions, I’d still be sparring and boxing.

I think in order to do true intergender fights, you need to take the muscle/fat ratio into account, but other than that, I’m all for it. This would mean, of course, that there weren’t any women at the heavyweight level, since women just aren’t really capable of packing on muscle like that— bodybuilders aside, who are, obviously, pathetic at fighting.

Anyway: I think any aggression, whatever the gender, outside the realm of sanctioned stuff like boxing, wrestling, etc., is wrong. I don’t really think it’s worse to be aggressive towards a woman except that, in general, it’s going to be an unfair matchup with a more physically powerful man dominating the woman, and the man more comfortable with physical violence and aggression.

When teaching women how to fight, I noticed that the first thing that always had to be overcome was a hesitation, a flinch, something like that, when punching, kicking, etc. They started off, always, unsure that it was okay to hit, and that was made manifest down at the reflexive level.