To quench a fire🧯: groin slap

Groin slap effectively 'quench the fire' in
case of unwanted sexual advances 

Since I started this blog, some of you might have got the impression I only advocate for the most brutal response to any type of attack. However, Linda’s course was not only about last resort self defense. She did teach us awareness and avoidance, as well as less violent methods of deterrence. These can be used in not overly dangerous or life-threatening situations for instance if your new date is too overzealous and pushes you to something you do not want, or your horny colleague is making unwanted sexual advances. Unlike for instance kneeing the testicles, there is little risk of a serious injury. Linda called these techniques ‘fire-quenchers’. Al Marrewa in his self defense book ‘The feminine warrior’ refers to them as ‘attention-getters’. 

He tells a very interesting story demonstrating their applicability in real-life scenarios:

Elizabeth was in a crowded elevator when a man standing behind groped her between the legs. She could have responded with verbal self defense but decided to use an attention-getter instead. With his body pressed against her, she knew exactly where he was. So without turning to look at him, Elizabeth reached behind her and slapped the man’s groin. He grabbed his crotch and actually fell to his knees (he was also humiliated in front of others). The doors opened moments later, and Elizabeth calmly left the elevator. Her aggressor was still on his knees, moaning in pain. 

Al Marrewa,  The feminine warrior: a woman’s guide to verbal, psychological, and physical empowerment. (1998) page 119-120

Common reaction to a groin slap

In this case, Elizabeth used one of the simplest yet very effective attention-getters—the groin slap. It was not missing in Linda’s portfolio of techniques either. She told us why it is so useful and should be in every girl’s arsenal. The woman’s hand is always in the same level and the proximity of the groin of an approached attacker. It can be used, as Elizabeth did when he is standing behind you as well. The groin slap should be done as a non-telegraphed, surprise attack, it is then very difficult to block or evade it. Once the attacker buckles reflexly, you can follow by striking him on his neck with your elbow and pushing him forward ideally to make him slump on the floor or into the wall. 

Slapping testicles is similar to scooping water 

Linda sought to explain the principle of the defensive moves by relating them to the things and activities we were already familiar with. In this case, she said: “Do you remember when during summer you jumped into a lake or sea, and you got into a fight with someone by splashing water at each other? You firmly pressed the fingers together, so your hand formed a cup which you used in sharp and quick swinging motions to scoop as much water as possible towards your opponent? The groin slap is based on similar mechanics, but instead of water, you are scooping up the attacker’s testicles.”

For a perfect execution, it is important to remember these points: The striking area is your fingers. The palm of your hand or the heel of your hand should not be preferred for this as the whole hand cannot penetrate easily between the thighs. A larger area also dissipates the force upon the impact. On the other hand, fingers pressed together form a sturdy spear-like structure. Sudden sharp contact with a pointy striking area makes it count. It is important to note that, unlike when kicking or kneeing which rely on an upward movement, the penis does provide relatively good protection against slapping. So you should avoid striking just the front of his groin or in a downward direction. The movement of your arm should be a fast pendulum-like motion with good swift momentum, so your fingers flick sharply to the bottom of the scrotum.

Linda demonstrated the proper execution of the groin slap on our kicking dummy with fastened silicone testicles. I remember how each slap produced a thud sound and the silicone testicles bounced erratically evidencing a spot-on hit. Linda then let us practice on the kicking dummy, and once she saw we got it right we step into training in pairs with Bob and Peter. We made two girls only and two mixed pairs, but we were supposed to rotate to give every girl a chance to practice with a boy. Linda told the girl ‘attackers’ to put two balls of crumpled paper in their gym shorts to simulate the testicles. We trained the groin slap alone first and then the whole sequence ‘slap-hit with the elbow-push forward’.

Because of the relative mildness of this move, it was actually the first time we could try out a technique on our darling attackers without them wearing any protection. However, we were supposed to 'deaccelerate' our hand right before hitting the target, which is of course not fully possible due to the gained momentum of our hand.

So the poor boys were occasionally hopping in pain, groaning and clutching their manhood, while the girls with paper balls were just giggling as it rather tickled their girly parts and felt a bit weird. Sometimes the surrealism of Linda’s course was indisputable...

I again allowed anonymous comments. I am happy to discuss anything and I accept constructive criticism, but please behave.

The Nutcracker – the beauty and pain of ballet 🩰

When discussing the alarming negligence in wearing protection in many men’s sports, one commenter made a very harsh comment I should not stick my nose in men’s business but rather do something more feminine, for instance ballet. This comment just got me. Actually, I did take ballet classes when I was a teenager. Well not for long, I soon realized that neither do I possess enough talent nor the necessary endurance to continue.

Ballet means both beauty and pain

Ballet is not for weaklings. Any aspiring ballerina or danseur learns from the beginning one of the basic rules of ballet—pain means gain. Forgoing bodily comfort and embracing pain as a part of the training is essential to achieve the desired goal, in this case a flawless performance. In the comments we already touched upon the so-called ‘sympathy pain’ men feel when seeing other men being hit in the testicles. Honestly, I feel something similar when watching the party scene from the movie Titanic when Rose (played by great Kate Winslet) got en pointe just in her pantyhose.

I got a backlash from some of the commenters when I wrote that Peter and Bob offered their bodies, often without any protection to us girls for achieving realism in our self defense training and some argued that the pain they inevitably experienced (including the testicular pain) was not justified. Here I ask the question why an artistic performance is worth the pain more than the ability of young women to defend themselves in a life-threating situation.

I quitted ballet soon after I started, but my dear friend Amalie continued in her endeavor to become a professional ballerina. She studied an academy of performing arts and now has a contract in a ballet company. When we meet from time to time for a chat, she tells me a plenty of interesting stories, so I got a quite some insight from the professional ballet world. I wanted to see her in The Nutcracker so badly just before Christmas, but it was cancelled due to another covid wave. It is so sad how this pandemic took a toll on some professions.

Dance belt prevents testicular
injuries and hides the genitals

But to the point of this post. If you haven’t noticed yet, male ballet dancers do protect their testicles. Not only from the injury but also from the sight of spectators. They wear a special garment called the dance belt. In a way it is similar to the jock strap I already talked about before, but in a form of a thong. It has multiple functions both protective and aesthetic. When wore correctly, it lifts the male genitals up and onto the body and holds the testicles in the front and the penis pointed upwards.

Amalie explained me it is not a very comfortable piece to wear. Her dancing partner and her boyfriend is always relieved when he can take it off. Although not very convenient, without it any routine would be difficult or maybe not possible at all. Why to keep the male organs in such an awkward position? Well surprisingly the worse enemy for a danseur’s testicles is his limbs. Hanging loose, the testes would be frequently crushed between the thighs. And a danseur should fully focus on the dance not on his aching balls.

When Tom learned that I attended the ballet classes in the past, he started to brag in front of his friends he dates a ballerina. This is of course bullshit; I hardly remember the basic positions. Last time he demanded I show him some steps. I promised to do so only if he tries to do a changement completely naked for me in return. Well, not that easy move for a beginner but even more difficult with a swinging tender scrotum between the legs 😊.  As I expected, he ended up upset on our sofa ‘manspread’, giving his baby makers a bit of rest, and angrily commented “What a stupid activity, this should be done by women only.” I just laughed, patted him on his head and told him “My dear Tom, I told you, pain means gain, and not only the pain here.”  I pointed with my index on my toes.

Frequent compression of testicles between thighs might be quite uncomfortable, however, some of the most dangerous situations for the testicles happen during pas de deux, the dancing in pairs. For instance, when a ballerina does a pirouette and her knee spins around in a great speed very closely to the danseur bulged-out testicles. Look at the GIF how the danseur is focused when performing this routine. At this point a sudden loss of balance or misestimation of the distance can result in a horrible injury.

Another risky move are lifts. In this case a ballerina’s leg travels up and down inconveniently close to the man’s most sensitive parts. Any momentary hesitation or loosing the firm hold and her leg instead off the ground meets the danseur’s bulge. In the GIF below you can see such an accident. Luckily, this time the ballerina’s foot missed the partners groin by just a couple of centimeters. 

Amalie told me in her ballet company they have a nickname for such an accident, they called it the nutcracker 😊. So now you know The Nutcracker is not only the famous ballet piece I miss so badly because of the pandemics. Amalie also mentioned that these mishaps rarely happen during the actual performances but are quite common when rehearsing. The more inexperience the dancers are, the higher likelihood and frequency of such fails.

She admitted that once she accidentally kicked her ballet master in the groin when she was practicing the grand battement at barre. It is a move involving quick swings of the straight leg forward, sidewise and backwards. Unknowingly she is about to practice this move, he approached her to ask something when she suddenly thrusted her leg backwards and in her words “My heel just lifted him up off the ground by his balls. It was so funny as he was trying to keep composure and pretending like nothing serious happened, but it was obvious he was in great pain. I felt so sorry for him; he lost all his previous cockiness but luckily no ball. He avoided to talk to me for days.”  

She noted that some of these ‘accidents’ are not accidents at all, there is a lot of rivalry and competition between the dancers. Dirty tricks are often used to freeze out adversaries to gain opportunities etc. Outside the theatre stage, ballet is not such magical and glamorous world as many people believe. 

Some ballet steps resemble
self defense moves 

Amalie was very interested in the Linda’s self defense course. As all ballerinas she is beautiful with a perfect body, so she receives a lot of unwanted attention. She was thinking some of the techniques are similar to the ballet steps and it would not be difficult to learn them at all. She also added, “Well, I don’t need to be taught about the sensitivity of the testicles this I know already.” We started to laugh so loudly that the all the café guests’ eyes were on us.

Back to the topic of this post. It is important to note that the question of wearing a dance belt is not solely the danseur choice, it follows the visual preferences of the audience and enables to wear tights. The light padding smoothens the outline of the male organs, so they become less noticeable. Also, ballet involves vigorous movements and flopping and bouncing balls and penis would be quite distracting and embarrassing. It can even hide (at least to some extent :) any spontaneous boner. This also happens believe me, Amalie told me quite some hilarious stories. 

In conclusion, do I have the right to speak about the necessity of protective cups during sports? Yes, I think so. Do I support wearing a protection of male genitals during any sport or artistic performances? Yes, I do and not only for safeguarding the most sensitive and precious male parts.