All karate books take place in the imagination of the author, in a world where their particular dick stomp makes them a warrior king. As a rule, self-defense books are too cynical about the world, too optimistic about karate chops, and you should expect at least one personality disorder. I’ve read hundreds, which is how I can turn any situation into a groin strike in less than zero steps, but I have seen nothing like the grotesque make-believe world imagined by 1990’s RAPIST BEWARE!
It’s hard to call this a “self-defense manual” since there isn’t much martial arts. It’s more like an unmoderated discussion about sex crimes with a few cock biting pep talks. This is more like minutes from a Legion of Doom meeting– a list of evil things shouted randomly by a gorilla, a scarecrow, an ocean murderer, and ten regular murderers. I worry I’m not explaining it very well. Let’s see how Joseph E. Stellato (local car dealer) described it on the book jacket:
Joseph calls it an “x-rated self defense course,” by which he means it’s an “ex-tremely different rated self defense course.” I don’t quite get it, and I’m not sure why we should trust him. His karate credentials aren’t listed because I found him online and I wasn’t kidding when I said he was a local car dealer.
The author himself, Louis D. Casamassa, is really something:
Lou is an undisclosed medal winner in the Marines, an unnamed trophy winner in Karate, and received Bethlehem P.D.’s “Rookie of the Year,” an award I don’t think exists. His bio inside the book only managed to stretch that same vague information across a page and a half, so I looked him up too. And, oh boy.
His Twitter is a minimalist art piece about the lost soul of America. After almost 14 years, he’s only retweeted a couple Donald Trump dog whistles, a Merry Christmas, and this:
INT. RUNDOWN NIGHTCLUB – NIGHT
A middle-aged, karate-necklaced man, LOU, touches a stranger in a Marilyn Monroe costume while she waits for the bathroom. Pan out to reveal it’s his own tweet and he has added only the words “Marylin Monroe double”. Pan out to reveal it has one (1) like. FADE OUT.
I call this screenplay Creep. I do appreciate how over 32 years, Lou’s bio has gone from “many various awards such as Best Cop of the Moon and such” to “JUST GOOGLE ME.”
Anyway, I did! And look at what I found!!!
Google mostly gave me his awful, deranged book (which I’ll get to), and these three pictures (which are awesome). I also learned he made a second Twitter account for his dangerously hot political takes. Well, take. This was his only tweet from his second account:
I assume he means Democratic Congressman Adam Schiff, which makes his only tweet a pun on a mistake that maybe also got stepped on by autocorrect? It’s beautiful. It’s like a smug fish crawling onto land to suffocate. And I think he forgot his password because he started a third Twitter account four years later. Or he’s being impersonated by someone who knows his every mannerism:
“just google.my name. Thank you” he says to his two followers, one of which is his main account. By now you might suspect me of stalling. And yes, I would love to stay here and make fun of this old man shouting “COMPUTER, RECORD TWEET: I’M NOT RACIST BUT…” into his television remote. Because Lou’s book, RAPIST BEWARE!, opens worse than you think. The first fifty six pages are nothing but sex crime definitions and statistics. And they’re illustrated with random reenactments he made with his karate students. In addition to these unhelpful photos, there are no solutions or prevention tips. So let me be clear: literally 33% of this self-defense book is the author explaining what he means, very specifically, when he says “rape.” He has categories, profiles, descriptions of the trauma victims will experience… it is a nightmare. Especially when you consider he went on to be a passionate Trump guy, whose views on attacking women are… I guess you’d call them “pro?” Anyway, I’m about to show you one of these first 56 pages, and when you see it you’ll realize why I spent 600 words mocking Lou’s social media skills.
That page is from one of the two(2) chapters about the different kinds of rape. It’s fucking crazy. I don’t know why he wrote any of this because you don’t use different techniques to avoid them. Knowing what to call the subcategory of your attack is of no comfort or tactical advantage, and you probably already figured this, but that photo of the man holding a gun to the woman’s head is not referenced. The author simply thought the words “often injures or damages the victim’s genitals or breasts” could use some generic crime clipart. It’s an artistic choice he makes a lot.
Chapter Three is called “Statistics on Rape,” but I’m making it sound too fun. It is twenty pages of disorganized crime numbers fact-checked in the ’80s by a remarkably uneducated man. He’s got the keen bullshit-detecting skills of a Trump supporter, only 32 years dumber, so it’s a dark mix of exaggeration and tragedy. And mixed right into it are the unrelated photos of him and his friends having karate fun. “Eight out of every 7 women are killed by someone black they know. Here’s me in Rudy’s Tucson backyard winning Top Karate Yell from Throwing Star magazine.”
Another strange thing about this first section is that it’s written for men. The book is clearly targeted at a female audience, but in the middle of this fear mongering he says things like, “just imagine how women must feel.” I think he figured the ladies would make their boyfriends read the numbers part of the book. And I say this only because he gets so fucking condescending when he starts talking directly to the girls:
Lou knows you, as a lady reader, are ready to surrender at even the thought of a fist fight. But have you considered how resilient you must be from all that bleeding you do? All that sad bleeding? You know who bleeds for a week and doesn’t die? Winners. Plus, women are natural maniacs. Crazy and seeping disgusting fluids are the keys to winning any conflict, and I’m not being silly. These are the fundamental aspects of Louis Casamassa’s self-defense system, and I’m so excited to share them with you. But first, more about women in general.
When Lou was a rookie cop, Rookie Cop of the Year if you believe his book jacket, he was called to a restaurant to break up a lady battle. And boy, were these dames lookers. Maybe. Some of the details don’t add up like how someone called the police, but the women waited for them to arrive before they started fighting. Or how they had a feminist objection to getting their fight broken up by a man. The point is, Lou thought he was going to die, to ladies, and remember: he was a goddamn karate cop. That’s how strong you are, women.
His anecdote continues…
The fighting women he was there to stop joined forces and kicked his ass, which is why he’s here to teach you, natural lady savages far his superior in every aspect of combat, how to protect yourself. He finally begins in Chapter Six: Grossing Out Your Assailant.
“Oh, I know where he’s going with this,” you might be thinking. You’re right. Absolutely. This is a very dumb idea by a man with a limited imagination with a 0-1 fighting record. But Lou is very proud of his very dumb idea.
So now that you know how impressed you’re going to be, let’s learn how to pee on criminals. Wait, not yet. First, let’s hear the origin story of this idea. It came to him in an arcade, and like your assailant, you’re about to be grossed out.
So if Lou, many time recipient of undisclosed awards, is to be believed, he seduced the hottest girl in town during a game of pinball. With his teenage game and below average looks, in a public place, he took her from “no thanks” to “nibbling on her neck and that kind of stuff” in the span of one hot dog. If there’s any truth to this story, and there isn’t, her side of it would probably be “that boy bit me.”
You might be thinking, “Sounds like Lou might be the assailant in this story.” Those are good instincts. It’s exactly how he knows how to stop one.
Lou, with keen judgment, mistook this stranger eating a hot dog for “ready for the big kiss.” But the moment was ruined when she burped in his face. In that moment, he suddenly realized the secret to keeping people exactly like himself away from women.
It’s fun to imagine all this being true. How in Lou’s wildest fantasy, he went for a kiss with an unsuspecting girl, got rejected by way of hot dog ghost, and leapt to his feet to curse at her. He could have made up any story, and this is what he went with. Anyway, let’s see the self-defense that event inspired:
This is it! His first self-defense tip, on page 66! Lou says to cover your face in spit and snot, which is a technique you should practice at home. And while I think this would be a fun way to cool off arcade perverts while you’re having a hot dog, I’m not sure it would have a huge effect on the criminals Lou Casamassa has been describing all book. I mean, he did several pages about madmen motivated by Satan to burn your genitals off. Blowing your nose won’t stop an attack like that, so let’s get a little more serious.
It’s tip number two and we’re already at burping, the author’s only weakness aside from women and reasoning. Since violent crimes depend on a classy, romantic setting, a burp should work on anyone. And ladies, if your digestive system is too dainty to make smells, don’t worry. The noise may still be gross enough for your assailant to call the whole thing off. Oh, you don’t think so? Fine, let’s raise the stakes.
Fart, women. Fart like your life depends on it, because it does. The smell of fart is how the Soviets held back German forces for seven months at Stalingrad. But I do want to take a moment to address how after describing all manner of horrific attackers, Lou Casamassa seems to be training his readers only in how to defeat him on a date. There is no woman alive on Earth who knows less than Lou Casamassa about defusing this kind of “assailant.” By the time a girl is 13 she has put thousands of hours of thought and practice into it. So for him to stumble in this late in the game and say, “Hey girls, I’ve solved it: FARTS,” is fucking outrageous. This is the dumbest goddamn idiot in a very competitive field, and he’s still going:
Sure, pee on yourself. Scream that you have an anus infection. “Most of the time, this should stop the attack,” says Lou, hoping you never think about how he could possibly know that. So, lady warrior, you’ve learned how to spit, burp, fart, and pee. You know what comes next?
Of course you knew. We’ve been dancing around this for four karate tips now, and at last Lou tells you to defeat your attacker by rubbing shit all over yourself. That’s the whole move, by the way. After mansplaining all manner of bodily functions, it’s only here during the pooping your pants when the author decided, “No need for more details. This is one is self explanatory.”
So Lou built up to “poop on yourself,” which is either very bad advice if you know anything, or very obvious advice if you’re a dumbass. That has to be it, the ultimate karate tip. But no, Lou has one more idea for grossing out your assailant– by grossing out their mind.
“I would never make love to a woman having a seizure,” thought the karate instructor. “Well, write what you know,” he also thought.
Those six tips represent the entirety of the first chapter on actual self-defense. They are indistinguishable from being a baby with a serious medical condition, but Lou believes it has armed you with the power of life and death. Which means it’s time for the next chapter:
Once you know farts and fake seizures are big turn offs for a nude cannibal, their life is yours to take, and no this sentence didn’t skip anything. Let’s hear Lou’s thoughts on the hardest choice all karate students must make when they look at their hands: HOW SHALL I USE THESE TERRIBLE WEAPONS?
Suspiciously, Lou is the only karate book author who says he will not personally be there when you’re being attacked. What Lou is saying is, “if you are under attack, that’s not me.” What he thinks he’s saying is that you won’t have access to his judgment while you’re standing over your assailant’s burp-deflated boner. But Lou, the women just learned what pee-pee is. They might not be ready to be the arbiters of human life. Can you break things down in a way even they, as women, can understand them?
This is perfect. If you want to un-save a life, you take the way you save a life, and then reverse it! It’s similar to a weight loss plan based around coughing up food and repackaging it as Hamburger Helper and walking backwards from the DMV where you changed your name from Steven Seagal. Hold on, I need to shut up because it’s page 71 and Lou is finally describing an actual physical attack move!!!
Oh my god, the first karate move Lou teaches is FORM YOUR HAND INTO A SHAPE LIKE THAT OF A CRAB AND TAKE THEIR FUCKING EYE.
“It will come out like a slinky,” says the eyeball plucking expert whose life was changed by seeing his first girl-on-girl fist fight a couple years ago. This book is so inconsistent. Lou is in a constant state of wonder at the majesty of woman and the potential of her snot. He knows nothing about anything. But whenever it comes to a rapist being slightly inconvenienced, he speaks about it like it’s some terrifying thing he’s seen a thousand times. Again, suspicious. He doesn’t know much, but he knows unwanted horny men hate farts, and what an eye looks like when it gets popped out by crab hands.
I have no criticism here. This is the perfect way to work your eyeball-popping muscles.
And if there’s a better technique for training to chop a penis in half, I have yet to see it. This next move, however…
Louis Casamassa’s eyes burst open. “Get me my notebook!” he shouts to his wife, a scarecrow made of restraining orders and chicken wire. “I just thought of a way to stop sucking a dick!” You know, biting an uninvited penis might be the least necessary advice Lou has given. And it’s not only the biting part, it’s the childlike explanation of what happens when penises get bitten. Who is this for? If a confused mermaid grew legs and walked out of the ocean, she would be more advanced than this by the second human man she met. And oh fuck, these situations are getting darker:
At the start of the self-defense section, Lou was complimenting women on their affinity for raw, primal violence. But all of his actual moves involve extremely risky timing. Here he tells the reader to wait until their attacker is all but done with the crime before unleashing a tiger palm. I think that’s my problem with his whole system. He can’t even destroy a dick without making it gross and weird. And I hate to come at you with more bad news, but this isn’t the only time he gives this exact advice:
So to recap, if you are attacked, release every fluid. Turn your body into a volcano of liquids and gasses. This will certainly work. Oh, it didn’t work. Okay then wait. Waaait. Now! Palm strike from a disadvantaged position! This will certainly work. “Well, it worked on me!” says the author’s subtext.
I am very worried these are Lou’s own sexual memoirs, but there are a few moments of pure dojo stupidity. I present to you… The Tiger Look!
The Tiger Look is when you make a mean face! Like a, raahrrr, tiger!!!
Holy shit, Lou had a karate teacher that had him spend 20 minutes of every class making faces in the mirror! Then Lou added diarrhea and here we are!!!
Another awesome karate thing Lou does is this:
Lou has created a martial arts technique where you drive away if someone is getting into your car and he gave it two(2!) ancient kung fu names. You can call it “the tail of the dragon!” or “the dragon sweeps the snake!” Just don’t call it late for dinner! Help I’M LOSING MY MIND! PEE ON ME!
After explaining how your changing body works and making sure all your penis attacks are as dramatic as possible, Lou ends his self-defense section with some paranoid survival tips. He tells you things like never using an initial on your mailbox because woman hunters will clock you instantly by the curve of your G. Most of his tips are like this– not exactly “unsafe,” but incapable of making any kind of difference. When your karate teacher is telling you to hide the letters of your name to foil the Random Mailbox Lady Murderer, maybe check to see if the rest of his advice was about poop. Oh, it was? I guess that explains why this is all dumb as fuck, huh?
So that’s Lou’s entire book– his entire martial philosophy. I’m only leaving one thing out, and it’s probably crazier than everything leading up to this point. RAPIST BEWARE! ends with 11 pages of karate poems.
James Kerr, if you believe Lou’s story which no one would, was a boy who was hit by a car and crippled both physically and mentally. Oh shit, I should have added quotes. Those are Lou’s exact words about his dear disabled friend who wanted nothing more than to learn the deadly techniques of Louis Casamassa, which again, are bad karate with a touch of incontinence and dick biting. Anyway, ladies, Lou knows this has been a traumatic book for you. So please enjoy this first of many unassociated karate poems:
This is a poem about having a nice time in karate class and I can’t think of a more appropriate place for it than right after 122 pages of unspeakable sex crimes. There are 19 more of these.
We’re not going to read them all, but I need you to know these never go anywhere. I need you to know Lou Casamassa wrote the most disgusting and ineffective self-defense book that will ever be, and finished it with twenty wheelchair karate poems. If I died being the only person who knew that, it is all my ghost would ever talk about. Okay, let’s do one more:
I knew Lou was a piece of shit from earlier, but I still wasn’t ready to find out he and his karate students named the guy who couldn’t walk “Snake” because he was always on the ground. Sorry, but my ghost would have never shut up about that either.
