Ahhh yes…beyond the cynicism, that’s a really good point you made about unpredictability! There’s nothing more dangerous than a cornered wolf, right?

Malicia in this case would probably mean knowing how to get out of the situation as quickly and safely as possible!

On a more *ahem* serious note, that’s probably exactly what your pursuing assailant is thinking. You might get more trouble than you bargain if you shout that out loud!

With regards to the cynicism, I’ve given a little thought about it. When dealing with fire, you kind of know what you’re getting into if you decide to help since it’s static in the way that it has no living intent. If you see a fire, you generally know where the danger is since it’s extremely visual. See a flame? Don’t go there! In a situation with humans however, there’s the element of unpredictability.

The danger isn’t quite so clearly defined and there aren’t the same boundaries as with an urban fire. You can see the danger (and range of threat) from a fire, yet murderous intents are harder to perceive. Perhaps this is the fear of malicia in day-to-day life?

To put a super-cynical spin on things: responding to “FIRE!” usually means thinking of number 1…responding to “HELP!” usually means the opposite…

Same with “Free food!”, sadly enough! XD

Also, if you’re ever in trouble yourself, apparently the best thing to do is to scream like a banshee, make lots of racket and yell, “Fire!” I’ve not tried this before, but I remember reading somewhere that people respond more to ‘fire’ than to ‘help’. I’ll be damned if I knew why though.

some quick thoughts…
…about the comment on the samaritan act…the just doing it without thinking, I don’t know if that’s actually smart or not; got no malicia there, to just stick your face right in, there’s been so many stories of guys getting half beaten to death, hospitalized etc by trying to help someone without thinking. There must be a better strategy (although I currently don’t know of one, and of course it’ll depend on your environment and many other factors) than putting your head into a crocodile’s mouth.

I have no doubt that you helped your neighbour. Even if it made it harder for her to get her immigration papers (especially if, as seems implied, she still got them eventually), I don’t think the hassle of getting them over could be compared to anything she’d experience from being in an abusive relationship (and such an abusive one).

Haha, that is a funny story about your fists. Good for you though for warding anything off! I’m curious to know what you meant by how you talked, though. How *did* you talk?

I haven’t actually thought that much about what I would do if I myself were attacked, beyond kick and scream and fight back and make as much commotion as possible. (Actually, there’s a slightly embarrassing story from when I went to Dublin with my friends once, and while trying to take a picture over someone’s head a complete stranger who I think is probably normally nice but was drunk (or maybe vice versa) picked me up supposedly to help me get a better shot, and without even THINKING I rammed my elbow back into him so he dropped me and it wasn’t till after I went back to my friends that I realized it hadn’t been an abduction attempt! Although, I seem to have a habit of doing that…for my birthday roda someone bought in with me twice when I was already dying, so I gave him cabecada as we au’d into the roda, and then it was only after I found out he’d bought in with me the 2nd time specifically to do volta ao mundo with me—i.e. give me a rest!)

I do know I wouldn’t attempt any capoeira—at the level my skills are now, that’d probably do more harm than good!

Cenoura (and also Mariposa continued),

YES, that was one of my main issues too. I’d forgotten to include it in the post but I went back and added it after your comment reminded me. The right thing to do, clearly, is intervene if you even think it’s happening, because what’s embarassment compared to if it were real?

But when you’re actually in the situation…all those phenomenons I’d only read about, even as I knew exactly why and how and that they were at work, their pull was so strong…and I would think by now I’d be fairly sensitive to them and to the situation in question…so when you look at it that way, it’s terrible but it almost gives you a “no wonder” kind of feeling in terms of how violence against women is so frequent and how hardly anyone ever does anything about it.

On the other hand, truly good samaritans probably don’t give any thoughts to these kinds of things at all, especially not at the moment they’re needed. They see, and then they act. There has to be a resource out there somewhere on this…the more I think about it the more important I feel it is now for us to get to the bottom of it. How can we discuss misogyny, etc., so much and then not even know what to do when we think it might be happening right in front of our eyes?