To combat rape and increase your fighting chances, arm yourself with these essential strategies:
1. Recognize when you are being "tested" or "interviewed" and break away immediately. Predators often test a woman's boundaries to gain proximity and size up her defenses. They test you to see how close they can get and then how much closer. Do not enable this progression. Take control and put an end to this as quickly as you can. In some cases, that may mean yelling and running away from an attacker. In other cases, it may mean establishing reasonable behavior from a coworker or another man you already know.
2. Good womens self defense dictates that you take the first opening you get when faced with an attacker. You may not get a second chance. Rape can abruptly escalate to a more violent, life-threatening attack. The instant your attacker fumbles with clothing, changes positions or shifts his weight, puts down a weapon, places his hands on your torso, or prepares to strike or use a weapon attack. Some rapists initially establish dominance or force women into harrowing positions. Instead of ineffectually struggling against brute strength, relaxing the body can help create explosive opportunity. Going limp often makes it easier to spring.
3. Attack vulnerable regions. To commit a rape, an offender's face or groin will likely be in your strike zone at some point. Viciously attack whatever he sticks out. Womens self defense means you can use dirty tactics: bite, gouge, seize-and-squeeze, slam, pound and pummel. Use your hips and legs to get your attacker off of you. A woman's legs are her strongest natural weapons but you may have to free them first. If an attacker is lying on or straddling your hips, plant a foot and heave or buck him off, or trap his lower leg and roll (to aid such displacement, simultaneously attack the face). Remember: your goal is to facilitate escape, not force him into submission.
4. Never allow yourself to be tied up or taken to a secondary crime scene such as forced into a vehicle or dragged behind a building. The statistics are grim. At a second, more isolated location, an assailant will have far more control over you.
5. Womens self defense experts say never give up. Another opening or stroke of luck may present itself. The body is more resilient than we think. Plenty of women have been cut or shot but live to tell the story.
