Jeesh. Okay. I was trying to interject a little joke there. I was attempting to have a little fun with you. It was done tongue in cheek.
Did you miss the painfully cute little winky guy at the end of that?

I thought it was the appropriate one, but since I'm not all that familiar with emoticon-ese, I took a shot. I guess I picked the wrong one. :confused:

I was raised to believe that hitting a woman is wrong, and I still believe that way, to an extent.

KinkyKiwi - If a woman is strong enough to beat me until I'm black and blue, then she's strong enough to take a hit from me. I don't care if she's 5'2"(I'm 6'). I won't hit a woman first, but if she hits me hard enough, I will hit her back. At that point, the attacker's gender does NOT matter, if they can do me serious harm, then I will defend myself.

There are only two situations where I would hit a woman before she hit me, one is if she was about to attack either my mother or my girlfriend, I will punch a woman without a second thought or regret if she tries to attack them.

Second is if a woman comes at me(or anyone else) with a lethal weapon and an intention to use it, I'm not going to risk losing my life(or theirs) because the attacker is a woman. If I(or them) am killed in an attack, it doesn't matter if the attacker was a man or a woman, I(they) would still be dead. And it is VERY hard to stop someone from trying to kill you without hitting them. This is of course assuming that the attacker is not my mother or girlfriend, I would die before I hit either of them.

Outside of these situations, if a woman tries to attack me, I will do my best to stop her without hitting her, I will back away, try to leave, hold her down, put her in a joint lock, or something other than hitting her, until it becomes obvious that I cannot stop her without hitting her. If a man attacks me, he's going to get hit(hopefully), plain and simple.

Basically, if the woman does not escalate the situation to the point where hitting her becomes necessary, then she is not going to be hit by me.

I'd say she consented to being hit as soon as she hit him.

OMG How could you use that emoticon? I'm shocked and appalled :o :love: :lol: :crazy: :rolleyes:

AHHHHH! If we can't rely on smileys what can we rely on?!

Btw if you are as confused with this as I am, I am supporting you useage of the correct smiley :thumbsup:

;) or am I? Is he joking?

If only. While I do not have violence in my life, a close personal acquaintance did.

My guess is that about 75% of domestic violence is instigated by men. However, there are some real shitbag women out there, too. I've seen a few; thankfully, never been involved with any.

My "acquaintance" was involved with a woman who got mean when she drank. He'd been bitten and hit with a variety of things.

As someone pointed out earlier, it's the guy who gets arrested, no matter what. Hell, he even told me about one situation where he called the cops, and they stood on his front porch and laughed at him. I guess he needed to be bleeding profusely to get their attention.

So I don't agree with the "never hit a woman" philosophy. However, I'd consider it a temporary solution; a one-time stopgap measure of self-defense until you can get the woman out of your life.

You just reminded me of a situation I hadn't thought about for years.

Out of the blue, some woman shoved my wife out of her chair at a restaurant. (Yes, it really happened pretty much like that. The woman felt the chair belonged to her, and she apparently was used to settling disagreements non-verbally.)

I was more testosterone-charged then, and I couldn't figure out what else to do, so I punched the woman's date.

It had the desired effect (they left us alone after that).

I'd handle it differently now, with the benefit of a few more years of life.

[QUOTE=smooth]
maybe sean was able to determine the girl's broken bones from a distance, perhaps she really flew 6 feet through the air from a backhand, but he didn't stop beating the guy with a 1.5 foot flashlight until the police came to the scene. lovetaps to the head?[/QUOTE}

Ok, first of all, I'm a first responder and have my EMT license, so yes, I can tell when bones are broken, especially when you can hear them break. The girl was a friend of mine, and I visited her in the hospital, she was there overnight.

And where did I say I beat the guys head until the police came to the scene? I believe I said "a couple lovetaps to the head." A couple, that means three. I hit him until he stayed down. The guy had 4 inches and about 50 lbs on me, but theres no way I'm gonna let someone get away with that in frint of me. He had about a foot and a half, and 200 lbs on the girl, not to mention being twice her age.

If you saw that, and didn't step up, imho your a poor excuse for a human being.

Seaver, I think what's bothering people is the automatic assumption that violence is the best solution to this situation. How about a good old-fashioned talk? Calling the police? Taking the person to a domestic violence court, or to a battered women's shelter to observe first hand the path he's put his foot on? Why is it automatically assumed that beating the shit out of him is going to work? You say violence isn't wrong when it prevents further violence from occurring. But it's been my experience that the threat of violence is never really a great deterrent for someone who hits in the heat of anger or is defending him/herself. It just seems like a drastic and unnecessarily barbaric first line of action.

i said before if a woman is like able to kick your ass and you cant just restrain her or leave then yes self defense is okay. but i dont think its okay when your 5'1" 100 pound gf starts trying to hit you (and isnt really doing that much damage at all) and you slug her. i think that in teh average situation a man would be able to restrain a girl and MOST girls dont hit that hard..at least they dont do as much damage as if you were to hit them. if you need to resort to hitting as self defense then i think that you should use a little force as possible ...yes because its a girl. exactly as you said. if your lifes in danger and thats the only way then fine. i sai dthe same thing if shes doing damage then okay use self defense. but with me and alot/most other girls if i hit a guy he could just laugh it off and hold my wrists..lol were not known for upper arm strenth..on most points we agree..tho if someone were attacking your gf/mom couldnt you just defend her and call the police?

Because in my experience it does work. Back in highschool a really good friend of mine was going out with a shitbag, but she liked him so I minded my own business. I saw her come to school constantly with bruises, I figured it was him but because I wasnt there I did what yall suggest, talk to her, inform the school, but nothing worked.

Until one day I was walking home and I saw him slug her accross the face. 3 broken ribs, a dislocated arm, and a tooth knocked out later, he never laid a hand on her again. I wasn't arrested or charged with anything (mainly because the school had documented proof that they dropped the ball), but it DID take that beating to get that guy to stop.

So, Joe Blow at 5'8" 180lbs. over there is having a argument with his 5'4" 120lb. girlfriend and hauls off and starts punching her in the mouth. Since I'm 6' 240lbs. I should just stand there and let it happen? Or wait, I'm supposed to leave and call the cops and wait for them to show up and stop it? Well, I usually have my cell on me so I guess I could at least stay there and watch while I wait...so what if he gets to stand there and tap-dance on her lip for a good 10 minutes before they show up. I did the right thing by not getting physically involved, didn't I?

This is what I was talking about earlier, you need to stand up for those that can't stand up for themselves. In a fistfight she is going to be all but defenseless against him. The right thing to do is get involved, step right in between them, you don't have to hit him, just make sure he doesn't hit her again. Usually that is enough to get him to stop. He hits me? Oh well, I'm going to be able to take it much better than she can.

I've never started a fight but I have been in my fair share and I can tell you, once that first punch has been throw, all manner of mature conversation is over. You can talk all you want, but its going to be a little harder once your jaw gets broken. People who throw the first punch have already given up on talking things over and the ones that don't use violence as a last resort aren't going to listen to you anyway.

I realize the example I gave is the stereotype of domestic violence and things aren't always this way, so this only applies here. When the situation is different, I react differently because we're talking about a different set of principles. Since the gay couple keeps coming up, no it's not okay then either and I'm still stepping right in between them too. I'm getting involved anytime someone is clearly pushing the boundary to physical violence when they will clearly have the upper hand because that isn't right. And it is just as wrong to just sit idly by and let them do it.

We'll your guess seems to be incorrect. 50% of instances of domestic violence are instigated mutually. The other half of instigations are split evenly between the sexes.

Read the thread starters post. That isn't what happened here. An alcohol induced argument was going on where the woman started hitting the guy. That's all we know. So your example is rather pointless.

A different sort of question for everyone who feels that a man should never ever hit a woman under any circumstance because the man is so much bigger and stronger and able to take the punishment.... Say you have a 4-6 year old child that starts hitting, kicking, and smacking the parent(mother or father). How many of you mothers and fathers have hit your child or would hit your child if you had one? There's still that same size factor where the adult(man or woman) is physically big enough and strong enough to restrain without hitting. So can someone explain what the difference is??? Huge double standards here by nearly everyone.

ARRRGGGGHHH! I'm so confused!!!!


/guthmund's head 'asplodes

As IrishSean said in his first post... tough love is where it's at sometimes.

Yes, violence is, sometimes, the ONLY solution to violence.

And how would I defend her and call the cops? I could try to hold the woman, but even a small, relatively weak woman can struggle so much that it becomes impossible to hold them, she might break free and get a run at my mom/gf, which is not something that I am willing to risk, I will take what I know to be the safest(as in most likely to work) route of stopping her, short of killing her, unless she is dead bent on killing me/my mom/gf, in which case I might just have to.

Although, for your point of a weak girl hitting a guy and him just punching her flat out, I have to agree that he shouldn't just hit her as hard as he can. But a woman should not be able to hit me with the intent of hurting me with me being unable to respond, I would not punch a woman full force if she hit me as hard as she could and it barely hurt, but I would give her a little slap to let her know that she has crossed a line.

I'm disgusted at hearing so many people defending the idea of beating someone "for a good reason" and the like.

See violence?

Try to stop it -- but don't inflame the conflict. Defend yourself and others as much as you must, but fight no more than that.

Call the police -- they have the authority to make the attacker face the consequences of his behavior.

Are you tempted to be the judge, jury, and executioner to an attacker? Want to beat the shit out of him? As soon as you do, you are just as mindless and violent as they ever were. Violence often escalates out of control. No one who has seen the serious consequences of physical violence advocates these kinds of ridiculous vigilante-type beatings. I'm old enough to know of people who have lost sight in one eye or hearing out of one ear due to a beating, often from a "friend getting out of hand" or someone "teaching him a lesson". What a stupid excuse for senseless violence! Call the police. They are professionals at making people pay for what they have done. What's more, the judicial system, imperfect as it is, is much more consistent at making people accountable for their crimes than some young buck wanting to kick somebody's teeth in. I agree that some people genuinely deserve to take the kind of suffering they give to others, but I'm not so arrogant as to assume that I was given the reponsiblity to make that unilateral decision on the part of society in general. Prison is a much greater punishment than a beating.

There are a lot of bad-ass boys and girls here advocating violence as a solution. Talk of giving people broken bones and missing teeth sounds like a script from a bad 70's cop show. Spend a few days or weeks in jail for assault for over-reacting (plus losing your job, etc., while you are in jail), and then tell me what you think of your juvenile heroism. I hope I live a long way away from anyone who believes this kind of garbage.

I'm sorry, but the last thing I'm going to do if I see a guy hit a girl in the face is pull out my cell phone and make a phone call, then sit there and watch him beat her while the cops take 5-10 minutes to show up.

I'm not a violent guy, but I take my beliefs seriously. One of them is you never, ever violently lay hands on a woman or a kid. If I have to step up and give someone something else to swing at, rather than watch them beat a girl, I'll do it everytime.

Once someone starts swinging, thats the end of rational thought for most people, the only way to get them to back down is to confront them. People who think any type of violence is wrong will disagree with me, but there is a time and a place for a violent reaction, and this is one of them. Noone is gonna get away with pulling that kind of crap in front of me. If someone smaller witnesses something like that, phone the cops, as for me, I'm a decent size guy, and I can take a lot of punishment, I'm gonna get in their face, and give them something else to swing at. If you don't do anything, or just namby-pamby around with that "I don't want to get involved" or "Maybe she likes it" crap, your a piss poor excuse for a human being in my book. I'm not pointing fingers at anyone, but anyone that can stand by and watch someone get beat up is terrible. I like people too much to let that happen.

I love how people automatically assume it's an effort to show one's masculinity, or due to a small mind that one would resort to violence. I'm NOT a violent man, the incident in my last post was when I was 14... I'm 22 now and have not been in a SINGLE fight since. Being one who tries to avoid violence, however, does not mean he doesnt stop it when it occurs or using it as a tool if he has to.

As I said, it's EASY to say call the cops. However you are a coward if you sit idlely by if and wait (hoping) for them to come.

It's not some "bad 70's cop show", it's part of being what a man should be, standing up for those that cant stand up for themselves. As I stated there is NO way they'd arrest me because those little tidbits of info spouted out (go to the cops, call authorities)... dont work a lot of the time, and in my case they didnt.

"Not always, but the vast majority of the time they are. Also the majority of the time even when they are bigger, they are still weaker; and I didn't say harmless, I said they are less likely to inflict serious harm, which is true."

_____________________________________________________________

Women to make up for their smaller size use the element of surprise, (attack a sleeping spouse) a weapon or (frying pan, baseball bat) in some cases boiling water. Men make up 35% of REPORTED domsetic violence incidents in America.

http://www.glennsacks.com/domestic_violence_series.htm

http://www.glennsacks.com/plaintiff_in_suit.htm

http://www.ifeminists.net/introducti...13roberts.html

http://www.csulb.edu/~mfiebert/assault.htm ->>> my favorite

http://www.ifeminists.net/introducti...09schuett.html


IT IS NEVER RIGHT TO HIT A SPOUSE/BOYFRIEND/GIRLFRIEND/PARTNER

If you dish it out you should expect the person on the receiving end to respond in some way.

My story has a point, it's just not relevant to the initial post or your post, I didn't get that far before I hit submit. Congratulations you caught me. It is however relevant to lurkette's post, so please don't just write it off as pointless.

This fits here too along with all the questions about anyone hitting anyone. The difference is in the intent of the hit. Yes I'm an ends may justify the means person. Back to the original post, at this point you feel your friend did something terribly wrong by hitting his girlfriend and want to right this wrong. It was immediately suggested the best way to get through to him is to take him out back and beat him senseless. The huge discussion going on is whether or not this is a good reaction or should I be able to hit so and so under such and such circumstances.

The answer to that boils down to how you view violence as a means. Personally I firmly believe violence or the threat of violence works in most cases to get your point across. Whether or not your intent justifies the use of violence is entirely based on your own morals which are in turn entirely subjective, carved from your life experience. So it's at the individuals call based on the situation. I gave an original example of when I thought it may be ok for a man to hit a woman, later an example of when it would not be ok for a man to hit a woman(and what I feel is not an inappropriate response). I attempted to explain my reasoning for both(but I often do not articulate well so the reasoning may be lost) to the ends of showing intent.

If the intent is to cause harm with violence then there is a problem, if the intent is education then it depends on the situation (at least for me). So, finally in your latest question, if the parent is just trying to hurt the kid in retaliation then no it's not ok. If the kid gets his butt smacked with a good talking to about why its wrong to hit your parents then that would be ok. You(not you as in sixate, but you as in any person at all) dare disagree and say hitting your kids is always wrong, what I know is I believe it worked for me(I think I turned out ok)

When my girlfriend smacks me, i smack her back just as hard. i dont expect to take her shit just as she shouldent expect to take mine

you get what you give

Studies have shown that we hit harder that we get ie. What you think as the force she hits you with is actually less on a factor of two or three times. When you smack her back "just as hard" you're actually hitting her harder than she hit you.

We seem to have a chasm filled with false dilemmas and misunderstandings here.

1. Very few people fault anyone for stopping a guy from smacking a girl around in a parking lot. In fact, I'll call that admirable. That's assault. It's happening you can stop it. But if the only reason you stop it is because it's a girl, well you're a dick. No one is fond of getting beaten.

2. The violence that is being decried is pre-meditated. For example, girl shows up to school with a black eye, says her boyfriend did it. Posse rounded up and boyfriend is beaten up. This creates two problems. The first being vigilante justice. We have a court system and cops to take care of this sort of thing.

The second problem is that the posse is uninformed and highly biased. What if she did hit first? Pulled a knife? She won't tell you that if she wants his ass kicked. You just play right into her estrogen laden tentacles. It won't stop any situation in this case. It might just escalate it.

That's what I'd do. Of course, more often than not, simple take-downs will suffice, unless the guy is way bigger than me, and requires little to no physical harm- just being detained or put on the ground. If there needs to be an ass-kicking, I will hand one out.

And for those who preach anti-violence to me, I say this: Shame on you for being the type to stand there and watch while the helpless are beaten further, or while the assailant gets away. Shame on you for being too much of a pussy to do something or, if you're incapable, too much of a complete peace-loving retard for telling me i'm a "violent person" because I'll step up for the safety and security of another human being.

Irishsean, I applaud you.

On-topic: Doesn't seem like he really "hit" her. If he had, he'd likely not have been so candid about it. However, if it were the case, i'd have given him a good beating and then seen about getting him help for his violence against his girl.

Would you 'hand out an ass-kicking' if a woman is beating a 6 foot plus man with a crowbar while he is lying on the ground?

good point, about the mom/gf/you thing...i guess is a woman attacked me i would want my SO to stop her in anyway..and if he couldnt restrain her then i would want him to do whatever he had to.

my whole point was just that...he didnt have anymarks..and and she had a black eye...thats wrong to me..why didnt he restrain her, leave or just liek push her away? just personally i think that men shouldnt hit women ..besides the fact that i was raised to think that thats wrong ..guy ARE more likely to hit harder..and girls are more likely to have real damage done. we tend to be more fragile. a slap probably isnt going to be that hard ... and i've never had a bruise from being slapped.

and just to clarify i dont think domestic abuse should happen on EITHER end of the gender spectrum.

i really do think sometimes violence works (as either intervention or to knock some sense into someone) and i applaud you irishsean,analog,hektore,xepherys and seaver

This seems to have become a debate over the size of men and women and how hard we hit, and administering beatings on people for doing it...

Please understand that, at the age of 24 i'd like to believe that i've grown out of the violence phase that I had when i was at school... sure I hit a few people when i was younger, and took a few beating myself - I look at it as a life experience, and it taught me that if i need to stick up for myself, I know what to do, and also know my limitations...

However, I would NEVER try to beat up a friend who i've know since i was 7 yrs old even in this situation, and added to that the fact that he could probably lay me out (i'm 6' 2" but not built like a brick shit house)- I don't want the pain and bruising afterwards and have to explain it to my work colleagues.

It seems that some people here are just trying to show their machismo which no-one actually gives a damn about

Some have already said.....

with the execption of VERY VERY few circumstances... ie(she is attempting to kill you, or you feel your life is truly in danger) there is absolutly NO REASON WHATSOEVER to strike a woman. If my woman were to come after me... I might give her a nice bear hug to restrain her, but never strike her back..( I can't tell you I havent wanted to though)

Violance or not.. I would stand up for any women being wrongly abused. I watched my mother being physically abused by her ex-boyfriend. This stuff definetly doesent sit well with me. If a man came up to my girl, or I whitnessed a man striking a woman, I would stand up for her in a heart beat.

If a girl were to attack me in public, I would simply have my SO take care of it, and I'm sure I would not have to get to the point of having to ask.

It's been posted MANY times, almost everyone will intervene on behalf of the man when the woman has a weapon.

And you just said intervene, while in the reverse situation half the posters are talking about ass kickings.

If she's using the crow bar do you simply disarm her? Or do you "teach her a lesson" as seems to be a popular response?


/Half playing devil's advocate

This is exactly my point. There seems to be a mind-set here that a man beating a woman is doing so wrongfully and must be taught a lesson, whereas a woman beating a man must just be restrained before she goes too far.

The random displays of internet machismo that we've seen on this thread don't particularly impress me. By 'handing out an ass-kicking' to anyone you are effectively judging and sentencing someone for something that you have absolutely no prior knowledge of whatsoever, which (to quote my parents) is neither big nor clever.

Look I'm finished with this. I've said my side, and I'm sick of being accused of being a violent person, or of waving my penis around in hopes of being seen as a manly man. That's not true, I'm sick of the veiled attacks. I'm done.

to quote Chris Rock:

"I would never hit a woman. I would never, ever EVER hit a woman."





"But I'll shake the shit outta her.........what's the matter with you girl, are you crazy? You crazy girl!?"

I've been in a couple relationships with women who made things violent, and as much as I might've wanted to knock 'em out, all I ever did was restrain them - if they're throwing punches or just going cuckoo, give 'em a bear hug, take 'em down to the floor until they chill the fuck out, then get the hell outta there.

^ see he gets it :)

Damn straight.... no excuse for it.

As I said, I have knowledge of an occasion in which the cops laughed at the guy for calling them.

Wasn't it Willravel, who said in another thread, that his wife (a cop) reported that cops wait until people quit fighting to do anything?

If I knew of a person who had hit a girl, I personally wouldnt try and jump him and give him a punishment beating... Im not a violent person. But if I was to witness a girl getting hit by a guy, as it actually happened, I would have no real problem with kicking the shit out of him, and it wouldnt necessarily have to be a fair fight... he might be bigger than me, in which case I'd just have to cheap shot and make sure the first shot was hard enough that he wont be fighting back.

real men dont hit girls. If a girl hits you, you dont hit back. if she attacks you very aggresively, you are allowed to use as much force as you need to get away, and no more. And maybe Im a sexist for saying this, but Ive never really felt threatened by a woman, in terms of physical violence, and I really couldnt imagine any situation where I would.

As far as Im concerned, any guy prepared to tee off on a girl is fair game, and will be treated accordingly

Holy excellent question Batman!

Time for another moral gut check I guess. For me against most women, I would probably just disarm her, but I would go to town on the guy...Why? Basically for me it boils down to this(Call it machismo if you want, it isn't): Of all the guys I am friends with I hit them 5 or 6 times as hard as I can various places, they lay there for a while, get up dust themselves off, hurt for a few days, maybe bleed a bit but aren't that much worse off for it. I do the same thing to about any of the girls I am friends with; I send them to the hospital for a day or two, possibly longer.

So yeah, I am more willing to hit a guy than a girl, but I consider myself on more equal footing with guys in a fistfight. I think that is where the difference lies. In a fight I try to teach the guy a lesson he is more likely to be able to defend himself. Just because I start a fight with a guy getting physical with a girl doesn't mean I'm going to win that fight, even if it is the right thing to do. It's not the same with a girl, I have yet to meet a girl that could possibly beat up both her boyfriend and myself. That is why I say I would only disarm her. Once the crowbar is gone, it's(to me) no longer a fair fight. *shrug* Maybe I have some growing up to do, but this is what I think is right, at least for now.

Anyone with a weapon is going to mess you up, male or female, if your focus is disarmament.

Disarm, bear hug, etc. I expect a man to respect my own being and I will grant him the same respect for his. If I were to ever hit a man, I would expect the worst in return just to prepare for my own safety. I'm a woman who doesn't believe in men hitting women, but I also don't believe in women hitting men. Violence as a last resort such as when your life is in question.

Why give him a hug??

I have beat the shit out of people I though where friends for hitting there GF....but I don;t hug them I leave them laying there to think about wat they have done!

If hes a friend, you've seen some type of worth in them as a person. 1 mistake can be dealt with, counseling, and what not. If it happens again, thats when you leave them lying in the street.

Exactly.................

When I was in grade school, that's when the dinaosaurs ruled the earth for some of you, a girl at school beat me up almost daily. I didn't defend myself because "you don't hit women".

One day my dad took me aside and added a little to that. He told me that you don't hit a lady, as soon as a women hits you she is no longer a lady and you do what you need to do. Ended my problem and gave me a wider view of how life worked.

Personally I couldn't have a friend that would hit a woman or a child just because he could get a way with it. Those kind of people are bottom of the gene pool.

As a teacher my rule was "Nobody hits."

Anyone hit someone else - they got severely punished.

As an adult - My brother (19 yr old) was punching my husband. I (the woman) intervened. My neighbor's boyfriend was beating her up. I did what I could. It doesn't matter to me who does what. Violence must needs be stopped with all the force necessary. As for ass kicking. I've never gone beyond the necessary steps to halt the violence until authorities arrived. That may partly because I'm not a big woman and taking things any farther then necessary is not wise on my part but it should be the MO for anyone.

Though it's deplorable the state of our justice system I don't think it wise to take justice into my own hands in most cases.

edit: And don't say I stopped my brother because I believed as a woman I wouldn't get hit. I have been hit on more than one occasion.

My wife isn't a cop, but she knows martial arts. I don't think I said it, but thanks for mentioning me!

I just wanna jump in here and say that this is exactly the reason that I would never date a guy that is bigger than me. Women and men fight different - they both fight - they both are dangerous in their own right but they fight DIFFERENT. Men will punch/kick ect. while women are more likely to throw things, slap ect. And in an adrendiline induced fight size really does not matter that much. Never underestimate the power of adrendiline.

Speaking as a fairly built guy, I take a lot of offense at this.

So, because I have muscles, and like boxing and judo, I am 'undatable' because you can't beat me up? I mean, if that's your preference, whatever floats your boat, but don't think that every guy bigger than a twig is some murdering psychopath who is going to beat you senseless at the drop of a hat. In fact, my being the combative sort has saved at least one of my girlfriends from being raped by a drunk fratboy who thought he was a better fighter than I am.

Personally, I don't like abuse. On either side of the equation. Play-fighting is one thing, but actually beating up your partner is something else completely. And, to be completely frank, while I'm honestly not a violent person, when required I will defend myself with all necessary force against an aggressor, regardless of gender.

[QUOTE=Matadon]Speaking as a fairly built guy, I take a lot of offense at this.

So, because I have muscles, and like boxing and judo, I am 'undatable' because you can't beat me up? I mean, if that's your preference, whatever floats your boat, but don't think that every guy bigger than a twig is some murdering psychopath who is going to beat you senseless at the drop of a hat. QUOTE]

True. Size is not what matters in the least. As a girl I'm pleased to have learned self defense and size doesn't intimidate me as much. What matters in any relationship is how people respect each other. If the guy doesn't respect you, get out. If the girl doesn't respect you, get out. A lack of respect is where the violence begins. People don't need to resort to violence when they respect others and are willing to restrain themselves and talk things out or walk away until they've cooled down. Respect matters, size doesn't.

Short answer = yes.
long answer = It has to at least be a fair fight. But also note that there are not a lot of guys that are bigger than me. I am 5'9 and 170 ish pounds. I can hold my own fairly decently. I would just rather not put myself in those sorts of situations. Situations being places in which I can not defend myself.

I sometimes wonder why it is okay for a woman to hit a man but not the other way around. Women are not weak. Most of them can handle themselves. I have never laid a hand on a woman in my life, but then again it is very rare that I lay a hand on anyone in a manner in which is hurtful. If a girl were to hit me that would be the end of it. She would stop or I would never see her again. A girlfriend of mine once slapped me. I simply looked at her and said, "Do not do that again. EVER." and for the remaining year or so of our relationship she never once hit me again. Violence is never the answer to an arguement. I love a good friendly fight with a friend, but I never would fight out of rage. All conficts can and should be worked out through calm, mature conversations.

I would suggest you tell your friend to get out of the relationship right now.