postal scrotum: Charles on gaydar, fights, and "Minority Report"

Charles, now in ultra-efficient mode, writes:

I think it's going to take me a little while to get used to the idea of commenting on your site again. So until that happens, a few brief comments on recent entries:

1) Gaydar: My gaydar sucks as well, just like everyone else's. In my experience, even gay people have crappy gaydar. I have no idea how to tell if someone is gay, other than asking them.

Maven's suggestion (that the "friend" had used the "sorry. I'm gay" excuse as a way to let her down easy) did cross my mind, but I just as quickly crossed it out again. While something like that might fly in the West, I can't imagine it working here. I think there are probably a hundred different excuses a Korean guy would use before resorting to that.

2) Pitt/Bana: As a former martial artist myself, I can tell you that it's harder to avoid hurting someone on defense than it is on offense. At times during our karate classes I would be paired up with a girl for kumite. She would wear all the protection (including what we affectionately referred to as "the titty shield"), but that meant very little. My style (Kyokushin) is a very aggressive style, and blocking is considered a form of attacking. So you don't just slap someone's fist away when they try to punch you--you swing your arm in and really nail them. When I had to fight guys lower in rank (and thus experience) than myself, I would often beat them without ever throwing a punch, simply by blocking really hard (I didn't do this to intentionally humiliate them--when fighting someone lower in rank we were often told to stay on the defensive). You bruise someone enough, eventually they lose the will to fight. It was a different story when I had to fight girls, though. I hated that. My sensei would say, "only defense," and that was pretty much my cue to start running around the dojo with this girl chasing me and trying to kick me in the balls. There's just no way you can avoid hurting them unless you avoid them entirely. One time I was a bit slow and one of the girls did manage to graze my nuts (I was wearing a cup, but still). I did eventually get up and the fight continued, and my sensei didn't say anything when I threw a punch as hard as I could and hit her right in the titty shield, knocking her flat on her back. Only time I ever hit a girl in anger (you know, as opposed to during kinky sex).

In the case of Pitt/Bana, yeah they were stunt fighting and not trying to hit each other, but that's a lot harder to do than one might think--it's harder to get a punch close without connecting than it is to connect. And since it is only natural to defend yourself, I find it pretty impressive that Bana didn't have to pay Pitt a dime.

3) Minority Report is a great movie--have you seen it? We have it on DVD. I was a bit disappointed that the article described it as being directed by Steven Spielberg. I mean, it was directed by Spielberg, of course, but the important thing is that it was based on a story by P.K. Dick, no?

-C

"Only time I ever hit a girl in anger (you know, as opposed to during kinky sex)."

I think my commenter's going to come back and accuse you of thinking that hitting girls is funny.

Yes, I've seen "Minority Report." I don't think Tom Cruise hit any women, which is probably why that movie sucked.

No, seriously, I enjoyed the movie despite the lack of abuse.


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