Young Writers Society

I'm currently writing a crime thriller, and I could use a woman's opinion on an abduction scene between an adult female and an 18 year old boy. In your humble opinion, do you think in general that a woman's hand would be big enough to cover an average 18 year old boy's mouth and nose if she had to keep him quiet? Assume in this case that strength is not a factor. Typically women have very small hands; thus, I wanted to see if in your mind her hand would be feasibly big enough to muffle him. Thank you so much and happy writing!

Adam

I wouldn't think so. An average woman's hand (which would be small) would not be big enough. (Uhgh. Repetitive...)

I suppose if her hand is fairly big, (which is possible) then yeah, she could cover the mouth of an 18 year old boy.

Depends on her individual characteristics, I suppose. If you want to make her hands big, then do it. It's completely natural and could help you erase confusion.

Short answer: Absolutely.

Long answer: I have small hands for a girl (ring size is a 3.5) and when I put my hand over my nose and mouth, I have quite a bit of extra space under my lip (if I barely cover my nose). My palm is a little under 3 inches without my thumb; my thumb brings it to 3.5 inches. Considering my hand/fingers are small, you could very easily assume this is a possible feat, especially if the woman used the heel of her thumb to add a bit more pressure to the nose.

You can also spread your thumb away a little bit and put pressure on the tip of the nose, which hurts quite a lot, or under the nose. This would simply involve having your hand in the right spot to lift your thumb up in such away you're blocking both nostrils.

I'm also going to assume that the guy won't try to rip her hand away. You can hit certain pressure points/joint locks that are painful and don't take a lot of strength to pull off. Self defence tends to specialize in getting you away with as little effort as possible.

.... I have large hands. I do.

Dude....uh....

*ahem...despite the fact that I'm not a girl...I'm answering this?

Yeah it should be big enough. I think it would depend more on the size of the guy's face. Sure, there's gals w/ slender hands out there, but in general humans are made at about the same aspect/size ration so...
Unless this 18 year old in question has an abnormally large shnozz or something, you should be good. xD

*I'm not even going to ask why you have adult women clapping hands over 18-year-old's mouths O.O...heh heh heh

Maybe this has nothing to do with it, but I think it would depend on the face structure of the boy. Some people have a long face, some have a "scrunched" face. How big is his nose? How wide are his lips? And probably the most important question, how big are these woman's hands? :/

Normally I would say 'when in doubt, try it out!' but that might get you arrested in this circumstance.

Um... I agree with most people... I'm a lady myself at age sixteen, and I can muffle my 22 year old dude friend. Not that I've tried... >.>
People are forever telling me that I have such little hands, so yeah. I mean, of course it all depends on your woman, and boy.

I don't think so. Not only are women's hands small, they are also thin. And an eighteen-year -old boy can already be as big as a grown woman

I would say, while technically feasible, the man is PROBABLY going to be a lot stronger than the woman and can rip her hand away fairly easily, unless there is something else going on.

Not only does it depend on how big the woman's hand is, but also how wide or large the man's jaw and nostrils are.

I'd say that, in general, unless there are special circumstances involved, a woman's could be big enough to cover the mouth and nose of a man.
As for strength, not so sure about that.