Feedback on self-defense seminar

[shesulsa]

After my mega-seminar on 11/21 in Camas, Washington, I delivered a self-defense seminar to a troop of 10 attending girls the following Monday. I always ask for feedback from anyone and everyone attending.

Well ... I got some today.

It seems a parent who arrived at the very last few minutes of the seminar (and who missed the practicum entirely) heard me tell the 10-year-old girls about not showering after an assault.

Now ... some perspective: one of the girls (there is always one) who asked, essentially, what do you do if nothing works and you get hurt and he just leaves you?

I replied that the first urge most people have is to shower or bathe and that the police don't want you to, that it's important to get to a hospital immediately, before cleaning up at all to preserve evidence.

Note that I did not instruct the girls that douching, shaving, waxing, scrubbing, taking care to clean every crevice of the vulva is not okay, nor did I state that DNA would be in them and on them in the forms of sperm, skin tags on pubic hairs and epithelial cells.

The question was asked. This fear was given voice and I count on it happening at every seminar - which it always does.

I'm not ready to string up Dad and inject doubt to condemn him as a bad father or even potential abuser, nor am I about to change my seminar over this guy's concerns. I hope to clear up with the parents (if I can) what exactly disturbed them about their daughters getting this piece of information. Could it really be that he is ignorant of this fact?

More importantly, I really posted this here to give voice to a sometimes overlooked tidbit of information vital to the hopeful capture and possible conviction of the scum who commit these crimes.

Your thoughts, please.

 

[Archangel M]

What was his concern?

 

[Chris Parker]

Hi,

Well, I am honestly not surprised at the responce there. People have a tendancy to want to deny situations and ideas that are uncomfortable or unpleasant to them and/or their sensibilities. This makes trying to give realistic information difficult, as to give it in it's undiluted form (to the masses, including many martial art students, and certainly those attending a "self defence" class, meaning a one-off or short course) is far too confronting for those who manage to avoid these ideas for the most part. So they will want to have an experience where they are taught magical techniques that always work, that they can do easily, that take no effort to learn, and somehow in the learning still avoid the nasty, messy, slippery realities of a real assault. And when that doesn't happen, and they are confronted with something more real, the instinctive responce is to oppose it (in some form).

A parent does not want to imagine their child (in this case, daughter) being attacked or assaulted, particularly sexually. By bringing it to the fore, the parents natural protective wish is to stop the daughter from even knowing about such things. To go so far as to tell them how they should look after themselves after the event makes it real, and the child needs to be protected from that. Although the best interests are there, I'm sure you can see the dangers inherrent in this approach, but unfortunately it is just the way people are wired.

So in order to present an effective class, particularly to young girls, the challenge is to stradle the line between giving them a sense of the reality of a situation, and sugar-coating it enough for it to be pallatable. Not easy!

So in short, I don't think he is really ignorant, I just think he is in denial as a protection method for his kid.

 

[Jade Tigress]

The reality is that attacks do happen, isn't that why the girls were enrolled in a self-defense seminar in the first place?

A girl asked a very realistic question and was given a truthful and very important answer. The attack doesn't even have to be sexual assault either. Showering after any attack washes away any forensic evidence that could help capture the attacker.

The parent could be in denial as Chris suggested, but denying the truth is not going to protect the child. You were not explicit, you gave a sterile, informative answer.

Is the parent ignorant? I don't know how he could be in this day and age. Heck, his own young daughter had more forethought than he did and I guarantee she, and the others, will remember the crucial advice for the rest of their lives.

Interesting that having offered this advice at previous seminars this is the first time someone has objected. Like AM said, what was his concern?

 

[tshadowchaser]

I see nothing wrong in what you said. In fact it was the correct thing to say.
Now in the past I had a female student who seemed to be enjoying class until I mentioned that we would be having a self-defense seminar for women only. I said we would go over some scenarios that might occur in the real world and that the seminar would be realistic in what they should and should not do during and after each scenario. Well her mother told me after that the thought scared the 14 year old and she would not be coming back to class.
Heck i never even said she had to go to the seminar I just stated we where going to have one so she would know about it and attend if she wanted. Seems she is home schooled and her parents have been very protective of whom she associates with up to this point.

Personaly I would rather my child or grandchild know what to do and what not to do

 

[morph4me]

You never did say exactly what his concern was, but it sounds to me like he's the kind of parent that wants to protect his kids from everything, and teaches ostrich style. If you don't knw about it it can't hurt you.

Just continue teaching your class the way you do, get the information out there, these kids need to hear it. You can't please everyone, and you'd be doing a disservice to your students if you didn't answer the question. If the parent has a problem, his daughter won't be coming to any more of yolur classes.

 

[shesulsa]

I'm sorry I wasn't clear in what the concern was. Please know I received this information from the troop leader who received the information directly from the father.

His concern was that I told the girls that DNA evidence from an attacker would likely be somewhere on a victim's body and that it's very important to not shower or clean up in any way, rather

That was just about all that man heard/saw of the event and he felt it was too mature for his 10-year-old to hear.

I've offered to come talk to the parents alone and answer their direct questions about the seminar and what I told/showed their girls. I don't expect it to happen. I may write a letter instead, but I need to think about it some more.

 

[jks9199]

Sources of DNA evidence following an attack where self defense "didn't work" aren't limited to sperm. Saliva, hair follicles, even skin transfer can occur, especially if the victim defended herself. There's also other trace evidence that could be lost by showering.

A SANE exam (or the equivalent under another name) is very invasive, though skilled and compassionate medical staff can make this a less traumatic experience. It begins, ideally, with undressing while standing on a sheet of butcher's paper or some similar material to allow all trace evidence that falls as the victim undresses to be collected.

You gave the right advice, in a reasonably discrete manner. It's not necessarily pleasant information... but it is important to know. Unfortunately, some people don't want to accept the truth that bad things do happen...

 

[celtic_crippler]

I'm sorry I wasn't clear in what the concern was. Please know I received this information from the troop leader who received the information directly from the father.

His concern was that I told the girls that DNA evidence from an attacker would likely be somewhere on a victim's body and that it's very important to not shower or clean up in any way, rather

That was just about all that man heard/saw of the event and he felt it was too mature for his 10-year-old to hear.

I've offered to come talk to the parents alone and answer their direct questions about the seminar and what I told/showed their girls. I don't expect it to happen. I may write a letter instead, but I need to think about it some more.

Let's hope for the 10 year old's sake that he doesn't ever have to find out just how ignorant he really is.

 

[KELLYG]

I think that any information that you can give a child/woman on how to protect themselves and what to do when all else fails is an excellent thing to do. There is a fine line between good information and too much information. By the way I do not think that you crossed it but maybe Pops did> From a parents point of view maybe he thought she was too young to have to think along those lines or maybe it just hit a raw nerve.

 

[Archangel M]

DNA evidence is "too mature" of a subject at a SELF DEFENSE seminar???

That's kind of like... "hey there's no fighting in the war room!!"

Teach my child that she may be attacked and teach her how to employ physical violence in her defense but don't talk about DNA evidence???

You were not out of line in the least.

 

[shesulsa]

I think what a lot of parents don't realize is that if that moment ever comes for that girl, she will have some small measure of power in that moment, knowing she is doing something to find the perpetrator. She will have some measure of power in that someone told her this is the right thing to do. She might find courage in knowing that someone else has been through this and survived.

Without that knowledge, she may destroy the chance of ever finding the person.

This type of knowledge imparted upon a person is much like teaching geography: you may never have seen the English country side, the Eiffel Tower or the Taj Majal ... but that doesn't mean they don't exist or that you never will.

 

[Tez3]

I think it sounds like a case of crossed wires rather than the father being deliberately obtuse. Coming in late he obviously thought you'd given them more information than you had, which as the child is only ten would have been not such a good thing. I think that once he understands exactly what was said, that you hadn't gone into too much gynaelogical/sexual detail (which I'm betting is what he thinks) he'll come around.

 

[Flea]

I don't have too much else to add beyond what's already been said here; just compassion for the father who may have confronted for the first time the realistic 25% chance of his baby living that horror. He knows it's impossible to protect her completely (even Rapunzel made contact with the outside world eventually,) so it was a desperate gesture. In his fearful state, any protective gesture was probably better than none at all.

Shesulsa, I applaud you for teaching self-defense to young girls. It's never a comfortable topic, but I have no doubt you may have saved a life by doing so.

 

[Tez3]

I think people are putting far too much on what the father might be thinking when he's probably done what many of us do coming in at the end of a conversation, he's jumped to conclusions and thought the talk was far more explicit than it was.
He must have faced the possiblity of his daughter being attacked or else he wouldn't have let her go to a self defence seminar in the first place. All fathers do think of that you know as do mothers, if he was wrapping up in cotton wool she wouldn't have been there in the first place. I'm pretty sure all he was thinking when DNA and stuff was mentioned that it was a far more explicit talk than he wanted a 10 year old to have. If he didn't know Shesulsa and wasn't there for the whole thing, just the last few words, I'm betting he thinks the girls were told exactly in graphic and technical details what a rape was and where the DNA would be found and taken from. He made assumptions but not that his daughter would never be attacked or anything else you were all thinking.
We know Shesulsa and we know she would keep it age appropriate, he obviously didn't.
Any of you would go mad if you thought your 10 year old daughter had been given explicit information about rape and sexual assault too.
As I said once he realises his daughter was given age appropriate information he'll calm down. He will also realise if he'd been able to stay to see and hear everything he would have had nothing to worry about.
I wouldn't change the seminars but perhaps a leaflet or transcript which shows it's age appropriate might solve the problem?