Middle school memories are a largely faded now that I’m in mid-life. Or post mid-life. But 6th grade girls’ PE was memorable. Self-defense course was the highlight building up to the last week of “real-live clinic” where 6th grade boys must raid our course (cross the black line at the middle of the gym) and “attack” us from behind.
Self defense
I mean use our carefully researched list of self-defense measures that we’d learned the previous 6 weeks. If a woman was able to get away before the stopwatch ticked 60 minutes, then she got an A on the final. Pinching, scratching, head-butting, elbowing, wrestling, kicking, catching were fair game. It was very frustrating for the women to watch and acknowledge that although many people were taller than the boys, they were starting to outmatch us at pure power.
Fast forward to June 2014. America’s attention is turned into football – and Luis Suarez is now a household name, but not for noble reasons. Hi BIT another player in frustration as it looked like his nation may not make it into the next phase. This was his 3rd biting crime on the pitch and he tried to deny it saying,”I lost balance, falling in my opponent with my mouth.” Right. Yet this proves he knows he did something out what is socially acceptable.
Let’s see…
Even for football, an extreme contact sport where elbows, cleats, fingers, knees can and often are used as casual weapons. But not TEETH. Suarez understands this; hence the lame explanation. Kindergartners know this. Millions of them watching in their own home exclaimed, “What?! He bit him?” Something visceral and nauseating awakens in our minds once we envision one individual being biting another.
Is this possibly the reason I don’t remember my P.E. And certainly not one of the women in our group tried this method – though a few of the braver ones did knock the wind out of the perpetrators with a fast jab in tenders. But biting? No matter how often I say that (5 times up to now in this article) I still feel a little nauseated at the notion of placing my teeth in contact with some stranger’s flesh, breaking skin, then maybe having to spit blood out until
Final note
I run like the wind to security. Ironically though, biting is one of the only things that a female could do this equalizes the playing area. Without being anti-feminist I think all of us agree that on average females can not punch, kick, poke, catch, control with the same force as their ordinary male counterparts. But, the strength of the human jaw? It’s a tiny secret that girls can snack 10% harder than guys! Return and re-read the previous sentence. Suarez will be leaving Brazil and won’t be permitted on any pitch for another 4 months. He was also fined $100K. Presumably to be certain no soccer-loving child would ever contemplate using this trick against an opponent. We all know how those children model everything they see on TV.