This is really interesting and so true. I was mugged back in the day, not a million miles from where Sarah disappeared actually, and because I was young and feisty in those days my instinct was to fight. I vividly remember shouting '*advertiser censored** Off' twice at my mugger (which in fairness is pretty much my stock response to anything unexpected) and trying to get my bag away from him. But then suddenly it occurred to me he might have a knife and that fighting wasn't a very smart thing to do, and in that moment everything became like a slow motion sequence. I've never heard of 'Flop' but this is literally what happened next. Having made a conscious decision not to resist anymore, my arm went completely slack and I remember him pulling my bag strap along the whole length of it while I just stared at it in disbelief like it was a disembodied limb. I've always felt that was a really weird way to behave, and even caught myself thinking that he must have thought I was a complete nitwit (which tells you something about the mountain of social conditioning teaching women to fret endlessly about what people think of them ffs). Good to know it's a completely normal variation on Fight vs Flight, and I'm not a weirdo nitwit!
