Alleee and Franc's INSOLITOLOGY Click here to go back to the main page

How to defend yourself verbally Non-Escalating Verbal Self-Defense Verbal self-defense is one area where a taxi driver can certainly have expertise. Richard Ames Hart has just that, and he can teach you how to defend yourself. That is, if you can follow the flow of his discursive and maddeningly elusive web site. There are four steps in this process : Insult [SunPorch] => Codeword [Kitchen] => Bridge [Part 9] => Response [Nursery] Here is how to proceed : 1. Detecting the insult and codewords The symptoms of verbal abuse are speechless contrition (deeply buried self-attack), neurotic codependency, hostile confrontation (identification), time-consuming preoccupation, total capitulation, and angry resentment (reaction formation). The purpose of Non-escalating Verbal Self-Defense is to replace physical and psychological symptoms with words. The "sunporch" lists a humonguous quantity of insults. The taxi1010 guide is full of very very long lists, so you will more or less relive the nostalgy of playing D&D, minus the excitement. Some insults include : * Can you take a ten-inch cock? * The author does present some challenging facts, but he does not present any alternative theory. * What did one Palestinian mother say to another when their kids graduated from terrorist school? —They blow up so fast nowadays! * We consider ourselves to be reasonably intelligent human beings, but not a single one of these supposed 'rehearsed comebacks' makes any sense whatsoever. (I think Hart got that last quote from a review, and is still bitter) Having identified the insult, you now look up what "code words" appear in it. There are almost 200 code words, so you will need either a PDA or photographic memory to go beyond this stage. On this page, the author complains that people "have no kindness, no humility, no compassion", but you should already be mumbling about his own compassion for us by making us drudge thru enormous nonsensical lists. 2. The Bridge and the Follow-Up The Bridge is the interception of the insult by a little quip of your own, and the Follow-Up is the neutralisation. Using the code words, you can find how to reply "correctly". An effective insult evolves into a torpedo, with an outer shell, or form, and an inner meaning, or bomb. An effective bridge transforms that meaning before it has a chance to explode. Simply go to the code word list and click on the word selected. Let's suppose you took as an insult our example "Can you take a ten-inch cock?", and have decided to defend yourself. As shown in the "sunporch", the main code word in this sentence is "cock". "Can", "you", "take", "a" and "ten-inch" are also code words, and I will also examine how to use multiple code words later. For now, let's click on "cock". We end up in stargate eight-four. Here, a brief explanation of stargates is necessary. The various bridges are dispersed amongst "stargates", and there are 88 of them. Each represents the stage of a person's life, a tarot card, a state of mind, and a logical fallacy. I can't understand this part for the life of me, so I'll let you try to figure it out for yourself in the site map, which is not a site map at all. Suffice it to say that our stargate 84 is associated with the Age of Significance (20-23 years old), The World card, and Interrogation. The relation of this with cocks is not clear. Very few people know how to stand up to a religious yahoo, someone who likes to pretend they're allowed to say anything, and that you're not. If you know yourself, you're just a person. If you personally know God, you're hot shit. It is then sufficient to scroll thru the list of insults to find one with the word "cock", and the sentence in this case is "Suck my cock!". You then learn that the correct Bridge is "High hopes" and the Follow-Up is "Unless you think you're God or something". Therefore, the next time someone tells you "Can you take a ten-inch cock ?", the proper answer is "High hopes. Unless you think you're God or something". I think the real desired goal here is that the attacker will be so confused that he will leave you alone. For your edification, some Follow-Ups in the "nursery" include : Well, I'm a sadomasochistic polymorphous perverse necrophiliac. I like to fuck dead senior citizens in the ear. (in reply to "Your web site is verbal diarrhea. Search engines catch this shit and spew computer screens all over the world. Please delete". Like I said, bitter) A three-dimensional granite block that says, "Business is lousy." (in reply to "What's in it for me?") All I can say is, don't ever get gonorrhea. (in reply to "There's room for improvement.") I never forget a face, but in your case I'll make an exception. (in reply to "Don't be so stubborn.") That's the only proof that there's a God. (in reply to "Your screen is open – I knocked on your door!") 3. Multiple code words - Working Backwards The highest level of skill is to be able to juggle with many code words or many follow-ups at the same time. If an attack has more than one Code Word (in red), and you feel in the mood, respond in reverse order, the way disc jockeys identify a song set. With "Can you take a ten-inch cock ?", we must also go thru the Bridges for "ten-inch", "a", "take", "you" and "can". They are, respectively, "ever hopeful", "more work !", "TOO BAD!", "who, me ?" and "big surprise". The exchange should therefore go : Q : "Can you take a ten-inch cock ?" A : "High hopes, ever hopeful, more work ! TOO BAD ! Who, me ? Big surprise. Unless you think you're God or something" The advantage of this approach is obvious. On stargate 84, we also have an example of an exchange where the second person uses verbal self-defense : "I know what those guys are up to — I've seen it before." —That's jolly. "They park there, saying they just can't hold it any longer." —Not here! "Then they go into the rest room and swap tickets with one of their buddies — That's why he's all angry." —Very important. "The guard knows all about it and won't let them back in line." —High hopes. Hopefully, this guide has helped you defend yourself verbally. But we must also say that, in light of what we have seen, writing a web site about verbal self-defense when you're still bitter is like going to the supermarket when you're hungry. review written by Franc, 07/2002.