Scary Stories: Is there a way to love others in the midst of violence?

This post continues where my previous one left off. To review: I've studied martial arts in reaction to being scared of people. The situation I am writing with in mind is sexual assaults on women. However, how ethical is studying ways to hurt people (to put it bluntly)? What about self-defense? The first place to for this ethical dilemma was Scripture. It has examples of both violence and restraint. Out of all this, however, there is a demand to love others. How on earth can I do that when we are talking about sexual assault? In this entry, I will look at the second source that informs my actions - stories and statistics.

 For me, the most compelling arguments for self-defense is the stories and statistics of rape and attempted rape (this can also be extended to other violent situations!).  I live with fear and wariness every day.  Every time I go for a walk I am constantly aware of my situation, who is near me, and whether I have a good grip on my pepper spray. I am careful when I load my groceries in the car. I don't answer my door. The fear and cautiousness that many women are forced to handle daily is a significant portion of their lived experience.  I think a lot of people don’t realize this aspect of violence – the dread and exhaustion of always being cautious is something I carry heavily on my shoulders in a way that many people don’t quite understand. (I totally know that men are also victims of sexual abuse, but I am just trying to share my experience as a woman.)

  I have only been caught in an extremely compromising situation once and it scared me to death.  I left my friend’s apartment around midnight and started to walk to my own apartment by myself – just a few hundred feet away.  A man appeared out of the dark parking lot, and started coming directly towards me, carrying a motorcycle helmet (a potential weapon), making threats about what he was going to do with me since he had me all to himself. (It was really vulgar, so I will not repeat it. However, those words often echo in my mind when a stranger comes too closely into my personal space).  In a split second, I realized what a stupid situation I was in. I was all by myself, I didn't have keys, a phone, my pepper spray, or anything to use as a weapon except myself. So, I screamed. And then started to threatened him in turn.  I told him what I was going to do to him if he did not walk away.  The most shocked expression appeared on his face and he turned and ran. He didn't know what to do with a woman ready to fight back. However, I never lifted a finger.  This was a bold move and I have no idea how it happened. I didn't even think, I just started talking. Call it Providence, God, or whatever you want, but the night before this occurrence, my Aikido instructor gave me a book that suggested one way of getting out of dangerous places is by taking control of the situation and startling the attacker before it turned physical.  I read a chapter that very morning and I did exactly what the author suggested – and it worked! (Don't take this as what everyone should do in every situation. It was one way that happened to work to get out of a dangerous situation.)

 It is not only the stories of terror that propel women like myself to take self-defense measures – it is also statistics that show it is a common occurrence. Every two minutes, someone in the U.S. is sexually assaulted.  Over 90 percent of the victims are female and 1 out of every 6 American women will be the victim of an attempted or completed rape in her lifetime (that is just ridiculous!).  Females 12 to 34 are at the highest risk, with 80 percent of rapes happening to women under age 30.   These statistics scare me to death.  In reference to the self-defense question (What do I prepare myself for?), the vast majority (87%) of assaults are done through physical force alone (that is, with no weapon at all).  Putting all these numbers and percentages together, we can tell that it is most likely that a young woman will be the target and the assault will be made by using physical force alone as a weapon. And she will most likely not report the incident to authorities or tell anyone (but more on that later).

 The initial reaction of most people is to do anything necessary to stop the assault.  For many women, the reason they learn self-defense is  fear of assault and the desire to learn how to respond effectively in a compromising situation (this is me). But what does an assault look like? How are women assaulted by strangers? Years ago, reporter Ann Landers at the LA Times received this letter from an anonymous rapist, who wanted to warn women about his tactics:

 "I'm a rapist.  I do it because I like it.  It's like hunting, only easier.  Mostly because [women] travel by themselves, work by themselves and are so dumb about taking care of themselves… I pick my women because of their situations, which I've studied before I move.  Looks don't mean a lot to me, but she's always alone in a place where nobody else will come, or I get her to go to one.  You'd be amazed how easy that is.  About self-defense for women: Don't make me laugh.  I don't go after a woman who looks like she'd be able to whip me in a fight.  The best protection from me your working women have is company or a locked door you're smart enough not to open when I ask.  More than that, the best protection from me is for you to remember that there are lots of guys like me out there who are looking for you." 

Yep, this is my definition of terrifying and what it is that I am afraid of.

 Now I have to take what I wrote about in my previous post about the biblical ethics of violence and weigh it with this second kind of information that informs my decision on what to do. If I only consider my fear, then I am simply reacting to a situation. I would like to go a step further and create an ethical framework that includes more than just data and terrifying stories. I have wrestled with experience, the frightening statistics, and biblical texts for a long time.  For me, a response emerges where I must balance experience with the biblical ethic of caring for my neighbor and enemy. I spoke in my previous post about the somewhat nebulous biblical passages about violence and love. One thing stands out to me – there is some type of command that demands that I consider others. What this looks like is really difficult to discern. Is some violence acceptable and other kinds not? Do I need to think about how lethal my response is? If I also care for self (which is equally important), I will not allow the violation to occur without fighting it, but where do I draw the line? I feel like my ethical framework must balance care for self and care for others. It is an extremely difficult position to hold these two values in tension with one another. For my next post, I will start to flush this idea out further.