Pee is not a Weapon

A few weeks ago, I was attending a heavily male dominated pistol course. I found myself surprised at a sort of sarcastic conversation I overheard between two men who are pretty well versed in the world of self-defense. I don’t know what actually started the topic, but the gist was poking fun and finding a rather raw humor in a “concept” (I am using that word incredibly loosely) that I have heard a number of times in the Women’s Self-Defense world; just pee on him.

I was honestly glad to hear them using it as the brunt of a joke because when you really break this down it is a laughable idea at best. These two who were making fun of it are the stereotype of the guy I have typically heard this, “advice” from, so I found it refreshing. I mean they eventually took the humor a bit too far for my taste and I blocked the rest of the banter out, but I was happy they found it as silly as I did.

If we boil this up to two parts, we can start with just the ability of it in the first place. Likely urinating on an attacker is an adrenal response, not something you can necessarily control. There is a reason for the term, “scared $h*tless.” Your body can react to fear by a bowel or bladder loosening, but with statistics showing upwards of 70 percent of women freezing during an attack (Crist, 2017, Reuters Health), I don’t see being able to pull off voluntarily peeing on the bad guy. This idea of turning on or turning off the downstairs waterworks is slimmer than the chances of your tibia surviving a UFC match in 2021. And yet this is the advice I have heard in many women’s self-defense workshops; punch this mitt a couple times, here is a choke position where I hold you as gently as an infant so you can succeed thus the false feeling that you can kick a$$, and then pee on them.

I have been in countless force-on-force drills and one of the main takeaways is that you aren’t thinking of all the millions of moves you have learned; those only come because you have drilled them constantly and they flow, no pun intended. What is first and foremost on your mind is surviving the weight and sheer will of the opposing person. To be frank my brain is definitely not going to implement peeing on somebody unless practiced and…ew. The reality of you being calm enough to think through and loosen your body to actually urinate on said bad guy is pretty much nil, and if you have that calmness, I wouldn’t be wasting brain waves on attempting to release your bladder. If it happens, cool, no big deal; but I want my energy focused on striking and their physical dismemberment.

This second part is going to be a harsh reality to some. They aren’t getting off on your looks during a rape, they are getting off on the power, their control, and your helplessness. You peeing on them is probably not even going to phase them. They have made the decision beforehand to violate you in a horrific manner; your body’s reaction to fear by pissing yourself will likely not even cause a hesitation. Honestly, probably the opposite.

This is going to be a bad correlation and I hate even putting violent attacks and family in the same paragraph, but if you have children, you have likely changed diapers. Getting urine on your person is old hat; you will get peed on. If you have animals, you have cleaned up after them. You don’t stop halfway through, deciding meh, I am not going to finish my objective because pee touched my hands. No, you power through the job, wash them afterwards, and move on. It’s the same with vomit, I mean I am not wiping it up with my bare hands, but accidentally touching puke is a mild irritation in the grand scheme of cleaning chunks. A person committed to assaulting you via rape will not care unless they are that really really rare NCIS case Gibbs arrests that turn out to be a germaphobe on chronic levels.

Remember Larry Nassar? I wrote this article on grooming here, https://www.facebook.com/107895177634806/photos/a.126236149134042/221938696230453/?type=3 He was a doctor that sexually assaulted hundreds of girls. Do you think he cared about getting urine on him? In fact, “An Atlanta Journal- Constitution investigation in 2016 identified more that 2,400 cases of doctors across the country who had sexually assaulted their patients.” (Saadi, 2018, STAT). A little bit of pee is not going to deter someone, especially in the medical profession.

So here is my humble opinion on this concept, no, just no. Relying on the ability to do this under stress is a terrible plan and even if plausible outside of your normal adrenal responses, repping this for training purposes is just…. It’s kinda not something you can muscle memory into you outside of the relaxation of your good ol fashioned john. Don’t waste mind matter on urination during an assault, practice fighting back, with your hands and your feet, or your teeth, or a weapon, or a piece of glass, or a screwdriver, anything, just not your pee.

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