Gender battles

I discuss a lot of things with my male friend M. On occasion, he'll give me a beautiful demonstration of male privilege and unconscious patriarchal thinking.

Once upon a time, we were discussing fights, wrestling, strength - all that sort of thing. He, like many, many men before and since, was mocking me for lack of upper body strength and proclaiming how easy it would be to pin my arms, with his epic martial arts skillz and similar. (Which, gentlemen, is something any girl wants to hear. Tell your lady friends you can easily overpower them and render them helpless! They'll love it! Because everyone loves being powerless and at your mercy!) As usual, I rolled my eyes, and said something along the lines of, "Yes, if we're only playing with arms. But if it comes to it, knee, meet groin, and there's only one winner."

I met with disgusted horror, and was told in no uncertain terms that this was a terrible thing to say and a dreadful, unthinkable thing to do. Apparently this is cheating and is in no circumstances permitted.

My open-mouthed response was something akin to, "Dude, seriously, I was talking about a rape attack."

My friend M, who I am sure would never want me to be sexually assaulted, only got more angry at this. And proceeded to tell me five other things one should do to your potential rapist before you kick him in the balls, because that's still a lowdown dirty move. (The implications that maintaining your honour in combat is more important than preventing... shall we say the loss of other honour, for the sake of symmetry... is more than a little worrying.)

And there the conversation ended, because I was far too stunned to come up with a coherent response.

But you know what? Should a guy ever attack me and try to rape me, I will follow my friend M's advice, and gouge his eyes out.

WHILE I kick him in the nuts.