Even if consensual, these drills can trigger flashbacks. Worse, they can blur the lines between marital intimacy and combat. Several documented cases exist where a stepmother, after weeks of aggressive defense training, perceived her husband’s spontaneous hug from behind as a sexual assault attempt and responded with a backward elbow to his face, breaking his nose.
As it turns out, plenty.
Let’s look at a real-world anecdote shared anonymously on a popular parenting subreddit (edited for clarity): when+teaching+stepmom+self+defense+goes+wrong
Unless you are a certified, active self-defense instructor, you are likely passing down a diluted version of what you learned. Teaching is a completely different skill than executing. Even if consensual, these drills can trigger flashbacks
Every self-defense video starts with the same advice: "Kick them in the groin and run." It is sound advice for a street fight. It is horrific advice for a living room drill. As it turns out, plenty
, it often introduces a sexual or power dynamic that was not there before. The stepmom begins to see the stepson as a potential predator (even if he isn't one), because she is literally training to fight him off. Conversely, the stepson may internalize the idea that it is acceptable to grab women without consent as long as it is called "practice."
A 2019 study in the Journal of Family Psychology found that physical dominance displays within a marriage—even consensual ones—correlate with a 40% higher rate of verbal conflict in the following weeks. The researchers hypothesized that the body does not distinguish between “play fighting” and “real fighting” in the emotional centers of the brain.