Via wstryder @ Flickr.
I hope I never have reason to use this stuff. But I carry a teensy pepper spray on my keychain. In fact, I just bought a new one today because somehow, I lost my old one during a recent move. I once had my pepper spray confiscated at the airport (d’oh!), so this wasn’t the first time I’ve had to replace it and I’m sure it won’t be the last.
For the past week, sans pepper spray, I’ve been aware of its absence. Knowing it’s at my side whilst I walk my dog, or head to and from my car in the office garage, is comforting. But I get the feeling my possession of a “weapon” weirds some people out. The man who waited on me at the hardware store cocked his head when I asked whether they carried pepper spray, and asked “What do you need pepper spray for?” The answer seems… obvious? Last summer, I handed my keychain over to a cashier at the grocery store so he could scan my savings card. He, too, cocked his head and exclaimed, “Is this legal?!” followed by a barage of questions about why I’d ever need such a thing, had I ever used it, etc.
In a culture that pays lip service to the importance of women’s self-defense and preparedness, I’d think carrying pepper spray would be regarded mundane. During my freshman year of college, I carried a “rape whistle” on my keychain; I think they were passed out at orientation or something. A friend laughed when I told him what it was, and called me conceited for considering myself “rape worthy.” Our friendship didn’t last long. Is that where the shock re: my pepper spray is coming from? My mom carries pepper spray too, primarily to protect herself and her dog against animals they might encounter on their wilderness walks.
What about you: Do you carry a weapon? How do you feel about it?
I carry a straight razor for the psychological advantage it gives me. I.e. people see it and assume I’m out of my mind.
Also, it’s small, slender, it fits in my bag or a purse, or I can tuck it in my bra or the waistband of my pants or skirt.
And yes, I do know how to use it, and am perfectly willing to if I have to.
I SHOULD have pepper spray and carry it around. My the area I work in and the area I live in are both pretty safe, but I’m still in NYC. But I never think to buy it.
I carry this pepper spray/kubotan combo. If I’m ever out alone at night, I walk with the baton clearly visible in my hand, and I “surveil” the area around me constantly as I walk. I don’t give a fuck if I look paranoid.
I seriously considered buying one of those telescopic batons that police officers use. Or a stun gun. Even though I’ve never been harassed in my life.
I think I have a bit of a “I may be small, but I’ll kick your ass” complex. Too much Buffy the Vampire Slayer, perhaps…
Hilariously, Kivrin, your comment went into our spam queue.
Maybe because I included a link? Weird!
Does that magic little Kubotan just turn into a powerful weapon when it’s used to strike people? I’m intrigued.
I have been giving serious thought to getting pepper spray, although it would be tough to use it in close quarters like a subway car without potentially getting some of it on myself.
Have any of y’all ever used it?
I don’t carry a weapon, but whenever I am walking somewhere and feel unsafe, I put my keys between my fingers, ready to punch with them like little daggers, and I keep my phone out, ready to dial 9/11.
My mother used to carry a gun, after she was mugged twice and then found a suicide victim when she was jogging in the park. I don’t think she carries it anymore– it messed with her otherwise pacifist values.
Just two…
:: right fist jab::
This is “Love”.
::left fist jab::
This is “Hate”.
I know, the kubotan seems kinda ridiculous. I think it’s really only effective if used to hit someone directly on a pressure point or something? I don’t know, but it reminded me of one of those heavy steel flashlights that my grandpa used to keep next to the bed (for the dual purpose of emergency light + whacking intruders over the head). So I figured, mace + metal stick = good.
It’s threads like this that make me feel the most Canadian.
I think it’s illegal in NYC, tho maybe I’m wrong. My grandma gave me a keychain flashlight that when you pulled out a pin in its handle emitted a really shrill whistle. Unfortunately it was a POS and would break into shrieks at inopportune but perfectly safe times, so I stopped carrying it.
@Pilgrim Soul: Really? They don’t have muggers and rapists in Canada? Dude…I want to go to there.
(On a more serious note, do elaborate!)
I carry one too Sarah. But I have the opposite experience — I’ve never had anyone question me about it. In fact I am currently without one because I always end up giving them away to people who seem more at risk than me and who express desire for one. Sometimes I work in dangerous settings so I feel it is necessary. In fact if I am in a situation where I feel at risk I bring out my key chain and make it seen on purpose, casually. If I really need to for work I have an ex cop with a gun license I can call but I have so far never felt compelled to do so.
I guess I can sort of understand questioning someone’s carrying of any weapon. I have a friend (in another country) who carries a Taser and I admit to having a reaction to that, because I know that people sometimes die after being tasered. I figure like with any weapon it is probably more a psychological comfort than anything.
Hint to the untrained — when you spray your pepper spray, WALK BACKWARDS away from the attacker. Otherwise you will walk into the spray and blind yourself. It seems obvious but it feels kind of counter intuitive at first so it’s worth practicing.
Well, I’m a pacifist too but if someone comes at me I’d rather some means to ward a person off than nothing. I can’t imagine carrying a gun, but I like the peace of mind the pepper spray gives me.
I keep telling myself I need to get pepper spray. I do like Kivrin and walk around looking all over like a crazy woman. I feel a very real fear walking alone at night, especially if there aren’t many people around.
ALSO: Conceited for thinking you could be raped!?? That’s one of the least logical things I’ve ever heard! It’s hard to understand how someone could make it to college age (or into a college for that matter) with that lack of awareness.
I carry pepper spray, I have for years. I never get any weird comments though. Although I do live in the Detroit area so…
…and like you said, JD, it is primarily a psychological comfort. I used to walk with a key between my fingers but that started to feel really insufficient. I feel like with pepper spray, you can give that visual warning to people that you’ve got something that could hurt them.
Rape is a compliment, Jersey! One of the greatest rape myths of all time.
@JerseyGrrrl: Only sexy girls get raped, dontcha know? Gah. I’m afraid they often graduate from college without being disabused of that b.s.
@JDRegent: I don’t understand people’s questioning why a woman would carry a weapon. If they don’t see the obvious answer, they’re truly clueless.
I used to when I first moved to the city I live in now. I lived in a much more criminally active part of town, and when I’d walk home from class or really anywhere at night I’d have it out in my hand. I never had to use it, but I definitely made it known more than once that I had it. I don’t carry it anymore, and don’t feel that I need to, really. That statement may bite me in the ass, though.
When I was in college, my sorority had a self-defense class where the instructor sold little keychain pepper sprays afterward. That evening, the sorority house had to be evacuated because someone sat (or something) on her pepper spray, causing it to discharge, and the spray permeated most of the upstairs. Good times, good times.
I used to carry pepper spray, but had it confiscated recently at a museum in DC. I really needed it a few years ago, when my alcoholic neighbor would regularly get wasted and pick the lock to my front door. I never had to actually use it, because as soon as he saw it, he was gone every time. (If you’re wondering, the cops were unwilling to help, and my landlord wouldn’t allow me to get a better lock, which I did myself anyway. This is because the neighbor in questions had lived in my small town forever, and everyone knew him. Of course. But I’m not bitter or anything.)
Kivrin, while there are people in Canada who do carry means of self-protection… they are not, by and large, young women who identify as feminist.
You are still being obscure, PSoul.
I’m afraid of the usual “Canada is full of rapists! I’ve met Canadian rapists!” response I get, SarahMC.
Becky, I agree that it’s kind of unfathomable why someone would question WHY you carry a weapon, I can understand why someone would think it was a potentially dangerous thing to do, both to yourself and others. If you don’t know how to handle a weapon you often end up on the wrong side of one. Even if you do know how to handle it.
Pepper spray strikes me as fairly innocuous though. That’s why I carry it. If I didn’t have pepper spray I’d just buy hairspray and aim for the eyes. Anything to buy myself enough time to run.
@PSoul, do you think carrying pepper spray on your keychain is the same form of self-protection as carrying a concealed handgun? (Not trying to start anything, just curious…)
I’ve always been told that if you carry pepper spray then the best thing to do is say loudly ‘I HAVE PEPPER SPRAY’ if someone is threatening you.
Keys aren’t a great weapon because you have to be very close to your attacker before they are effective. If you’re that close and unarmed the best thing to do is to pinch the inner arm flesh between their elbow and their armpit really hard. It’s very, very painful…
I don’t get it. Are you criticizing me? American men? What?
I don’t, Kivrin, but let’s put it this way: the whole “security culture” of the States – locking your door when you’re in your apartment, selling pepper spray everywhere, expensive security systems – is not universally shared.
No, SarahMC, though it’s that kind of reaction that makes me be obscure about this kind of thing. But rugged individualism, assuming you will always have to fend for yourself, etc etc, all of that plays into it.
@afteriris: I wonder if that might not be the wrong way to go. Surprise is your best defense. If someone comes at you, yelling “I have pepper spray!” lets them know what your defense is and think of how they’re going to take that pepper spray away from you. Better to just whip it out and use it.
P.Soul, it totally has to do with the crime rate here. What countries even have a higher crime rate than us? Central American ones? South Africa? Colombia? Who else? In all the other countries I have been to with high crime rates (see: above) the security culture is as intense as ours or much much more intense.
Wow. I am at a loss for words!
@PSoul: I think it’s pretty simple, really. The US has a much higher crime rate per capita than Canada. Hence, people are much more preoccupied with self-protection.
Yep, and all I said was: this makes me feel more Canadian. And as usual, anything which suggests there is another way seemed to provoke some awful defensive reactions.
Also there is a chicken-and-egg issue there.
YOU’LL PRY MY PEPPER SPRAY OUT OF MY COLD DEAD HANDS.
I realize that our culture is not universal, but that knowledge doesn’t protect me from the violence in this country. I’m curious as to what you’d suggest women do in America?
And do you really not lock your apartment door? I sure as hell do. Just because I’d like to be safe from external threats doesn’t mean I will be safe if I pretend I am. Keep in mind we’re talking about carrying a mini pepper spray on a keychain, not an arsenal of guns.
I’m sorry, I should have let your comment go — but since you went out of your way to make the comment, I thought you were perhaps inviting a discussion!
But before I shut up, re: the chicken-and-the-egg thing — really? Me locking my front door is what inspires people to try and rob my apartment? Surely that’s not what you mean…
@Becky: I do not think that is the whole of it, no, but clearly that is not an avenue open for discussion.
But what is the point of reminding us of your Canadianness, with no elaboration, if not to elevate yourself?
I own a firearm, which I primarily use as a wilderness companion gun as I do a lot of hiking in regions that are fairly deserted and whatever happens, I am on my own. I don’t carry it around when I’m at home in the city.
Re: the firearm issue – I’m curious how people feel about them? This topic came up recently on Jezebel and I admit I was a bit surprised that so many people felt no private citizens should be able to own one.
My view has always been that I have a slight build and my odds of physically fighting off a man who really wants to hurt me are poor. I don’t ascribe any symbolic value to guns (i.e. I don’t see it as a part of my identity in the NRA-sense, or a symbol of freedom, or a protection against tyranny or whatever), but I do see them as tools that I can use to protect myself.
Kivrin, your response was fine. But having tussled with this crowd daily for most of the last few months, I know that whenever I bring up that the “culture” in Canada is different it opens a can of worms. Hence my hesitance.
It has not been my experience that I appear to be suffering from a greater degree of “unsafeness” here than in Canada, Sarah, so no, I never lock my apartment door if I’m in the apartment.
@SarahMC: Again, just because I say “this is culture shock to me” it is not automatically elevation.
ETA: JD I laughed out loud at your Heston impersonation.
K, I think living in a rural area gives you a totally different relationship with guns.
And I’m gonna add, the very fact that any experience other than the American one is met with such defensiveness is what shuts down that conversation. And it surprises me when it happens with supposedly liberal Americans.
So, P. Soul…I gather that you like (or at least understand) the Canadian “way” more than the American way? Do you think you could ever come around to understanding why some of us Americans (like me) maybe installed security systems after having our apartments robbed? Or do you think your own feelings might change if (heaven forbid) you were ever attacked? Or is the idea of self-protection just completely antithetical to your nature, regardless of the situation?
But making a brief comment like that without elaboration comes across as really condescending. We KNOW you think Canada is superior to the US, so acting like Americans are this oddity who are over-defensive when they are “objectively” criticized is disingenuous.
(And yes, I probably am reacting with some defensiveness, born out of not understanding…which is why I’ve asked you to elaborate, so that I can understand. Mentioning that the Canadian experience is so different without telling me why or how…doesn’t really help me to appreciate that other experience, y’know?)
@ Becky – it seems counter intuitive, but the logic behind it is that the more noise you make the more ‘trouble’ you’re seen to be which acts as a deterrent. Apparently this is based on research where they basically analysed a whole load of convicted rapists MOs.