About a week ago, we were practicing for a stop point tournament, which didn't require chest protectors. As we were getting our gear on, my instructor yells out, "You don't need your chest protectors!" which was followed up by this tiny voice from the boys changing room

"Do we need private protectors?"

Laura

I just had a vision of two sunglassed-security guys in tuxedos peeping out from his trousers!

What I hate is how entitled women on male backed power trips and the pussified men who support them will laugh about sexual assaults against men.

It is not all too uncommon to hear a female smugly describe an experience of cowardly assaulting a man's privates without any redeeming value. Or to have a submissive male to describe a similar situation,with the implication being that it is a cool thing,especially if there was some kind of bullying involved,which hardly called for any cheap shots.

Another thing is a lot of people will do what they can to mock and overplay the sensitivity of the testicles,and act as if all offenders are males,and they will make no reference to sensitivity of the vulva. I cannot imagine what this will be doing to the self-esteem of boys internationally,but it is a subject that I think of everyday and it [censored] me off. Can you imagine people celebrating a boy who kicked a girl in the vulva over some trivial reason?

I really don't understand this last reply. It so serious about a topic that is just apart of martial art training. Learning to defend against this attack should just be a part of training. Some jest about it because its just a subject of training incidents that happens. True different people react differently to it but you do get a reaction.

On the serious side women are the victim of vicious violent attacks more so then men (except for Black men but this is usually a Blk on Blk crimes & another sad topic). So any method of defense should be discussed and hashed out even laughed about because it just a part of training. I don't think this will tear down the self esteem of boys or men, it may just make them more aware to block this target. No more then the talking about the times we got our hat handed to us, its just part of training.

As for women being kicked in that area, its more like being kicked in the stomach or lower abdomen it hurts but they don't have to jump on their heels to get the testicle to drop down. Not that you can't drop them hit them there its just not as paralyzing. If its open its a good target on either gender but there is nothing to grab and twist on a woman that twisting away won't escape from and it will just pi$$ her off, now she aiming at throat, eyes and knees!!!

I'm surprised by those who would get mad if their groin was the target during sparring. Ya think it may be a target during a REAL fight? Learn to deal with it.

Kicking a woman in the groin will hurt 'em, too. Testicles aren't the real target; it's the pubic bones which form the floor of the abdominal cavity. Break them, and the legs aren't in synch like they used to be, and half your internal organs want to drop past the break.

Despite the clear training benefits of allowing the groin as a target zone I personally don't agree with it. I guess it comes down to various values, how important your training is to you and the like, but particularly for males (though also for females) I am of the opinion that any impact to the groin should be avoided by any means necessary.

The testes are an extreme weak point in male animals. Similarly to the eyes, the testes have little ability to recover from impact, coupled with practically no protection from impact. Whereas hitting someone in the head may produce a knock out, or the ribs may produce broken ribs, the brain turns back on and the ribs reform over time, the testes do not do this, they tend to break and stay broken. Ontop of this they break exceptionally easily, mild impact to the testes can cause any number of ill-effects. It's been said that impact to the testes causes such issues as interference with, or complete prevention of testorone production, infertility, birth defects in the offspring, hernia, cancer.

There are various downsides relating to impact to the groin for females as well, but certainly not to the extent as males, women should certainly avoid it, but men should treat it as the plague.

Please note that I do not have empirical evidence of any of this, so take it with a grain of salt, it's entirely possible that impact to the testicles is infact healthy, I just base my opinion on evidence of various studies I've seen here and there. Personally I believe that the groin of males and females should be a no-go zone during sparring, because I'm convinced of extreme negative health impacts, if I were to learn otherwise though, I'd be all for it for the sake of training.

It's a good point vorhees.

Plus, they'll probably be urinating blood for a week.

There's a lot of damage that can be caused aside from just painful slaps on the genitals, that's just the tip of the iceburg.

When I was a blue belt (about 1994 or so), I was competing in a tournament. I had a short break and decided to use the restroom while I had the chance. There was a little boy in there about 4 (a little young to compete and be in MA IMO) who just had his cup put on. Just as I walk in, he's knocking on his cup saying, "HELLOOOOOO? Anybody in there? HELLOOOOOOO?"

Casey