Suave

Women are not always smaller, weaker, and harmless.

__________________
"Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions." - Albert Einstein

"Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something." - Plato

kutulu

Sorry but you don't know what caused the situation to escalate to that point. The truly honorable thing to do is stop the situation. There is nothing wrong with defending yourself with reasonable force.

Mojo_PeiPei

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.

Paul also made no mention of wounds on his friends, only that the girl had a black eye. And besides what is reasonable about cracking a woman in the face when they can more often then not be over powered and restrained so as they are not a harm to you.

__________________
To win a war you must serve no master but your ambition.

smooth

guthmund, if you really think that a larger, stronger man, who "rams his fist into" his girlfriends face, or eyesocket, isn't going to result in something more noticeable than a "little bit of a black eye," then you haven't been in very many fights.

If I slap my wife in her face, she's going to have a black eye.
If I punched her in the head in anger, she would probably need to see a doctor.

It isn't presumption on my part at all to say if all those conditions are true, then more damage would have ben apparent. I've been in enough fights to know the damage a full grown man's fist can inflict on another person's face--regardless the victim's gender.

__________________
"The theory of a free press is that truth will emerge from free discussion, not that it will be presented perfectly and instantly in any one account." -- Walter Lippmann

"You measure democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists." -- Abbie Hoffman

KinkyKiwi

i said both times that i dont think its okay for anyone to hit anyone! and that some women are bigger/stronger... thats not normally the case. if shes inflicting damage ..then sometimes its okay to use self defense...but i dont think its okay to use more force then shes using or to hit her before you try to walk out or restrain her. bertha ..you would need self defense against HER..not your average girlfriend who you can probably carry around. i'm sorry i think a man who has to resort to hitting a woman is a coward and a boy. i dont think its a matter of a free card that "we" want to be dealt...if i was a smaller man in a homosexual relationship i would expect the same...even if i was the more feminine/softer/weaker partner in any relationship..and whats all this about us playing men?? i like to play football what does that make me? what makes something a "mans" field of work or play? did you guys pee on it and mark it with yoru scent so that anything with a vagina is trespassing on YOUR turf?

__________________
Some mornings, it's just not worth chewing through the leather straps.
Play with each other. Play with yourselves. Just don't play with the squirrels, they bite.

Da Munk

The woman/smaller person obviously can't show enough restraint to stop themselves from hitting someone, why should the man/larger person be expected to?

Carno

I won't hit a girl, but I'll slap a ho

guthmund

No, I haven't been in too many fights. Plenty of opportunities, I guess, it's just that hardly any of them ever escalated far enough to warrant me getting physical. (But hey, kudos for indirectly calling my manhood into question. )

Sure it's presumption. You presume, I presume, we all presume, because we aren't intimately related with the subjects of our discussion. You don't know either one, so, you presume that because he's a man and you're a man, you guys are on equal footing. You know that when you throw a punch, it's going to do some damage. How do you know that about the 'boyfriend?' Maybe he can't throw a punch. Maybe there's no power behind the punch. There was alcohol involved, I'm sure that affected his motor skills.

Not to mention all the variables on the other side of the fight. I mean, some people can take an awful lot of punishment, especially when alcohol is involved, which it was. Some people bruise easier than others. Sometimes a last minute flinch prevents damage, sometimes it enhances it, all depending on where the blow actually fell. All these factors, and countless others, mind you, can make an injury look much less or much worse than it actually is.

But that doesn't even matter, in my opinion. To me, this isn't about men hitting women, it's the strong picking on the weak. He's presumably the stronger of the two. Instead of walking away, simply fending her off, or even trying to restrain her in some manner, he punched her. He wasn't defending himself from bodily harm, he was retaliating in kind. She was wrong too, but in that situation, I believe he should have just walked away.

__________________
No signature. None. Seriously.

skier

I'm going to be frank. it sounds to me like you're getting the cake and eating it too. I feel that either you should get equal treatment in all areas of life, or get "special treatment" (pulling chairs, opening doors, etc. and not because of courtesy) and so get that special treatment in other areas that involve physical exertion and/or danger.

If i'm going to have to watch out for you and protect your frail/weak body from other guys, why would you think it would sound like a good idea to let you play football or operate heavy machinery? It's just two sides of the same coin. It's hypocritical to want equal rights then change your mind when it benefits you to do so.

__________________
"Asking a bomb squad if an old bomb is still "real" is not the best thing to do if you want to save it." - denim

Seaver

Um... if I EVER hit a girl, I'd EXPECT my friends to check me. Hell I'd want them to. It's not "acting hypermasculine", it's a friend doing one of his (in my opinion) duties as a friend. You may see things differently, but IMO hitting a girl ranks up there with stealing a car. There's no excuse for it unless it was extraordinary circumstances (I.E. life threatened).

Otherwise there's PLENTY of ways to avoid it. Holding a womans wrist is one of the easiest, even pushing her down if she's biting or kicking.

That being said, anyone who stays with a girl who throws those stupid tantrems is as dumb as the girl he's with.

smooth

guthmund, the only way you could interpret what I wrote as questioning your manhood is if you linked fighting abilities (or how many fights you've been in) with manhood.
but that's pretty much what I suspect is underpinning a lot of responses here.

kinkykiwi seems to like the thought of friends taking their friends out back and beating the shit out of them as a "duty" to check someone. that's great if she wants more men like that. she should probably be told by the more experienced women in here that those are the men who are most likely to haul off and hit her when they're angry and/or intoxicated.

people like seaver, if he acts like he posts, are more likely to hit a woman in a momentary lapse of control, or as a threat to his perceived root of masculinity as attached to violence, are more likely to become violent than someone who says, you know, maybe you should not go around punching people to prove points.

now, I used to think like that when I was a kid in high school. but that's a long time ago.
and while I still can hold my own, and have no problem with defending someone who isn't at fault but is still in jeopardy at a reasonable level, friendship, to me, is about respect and not proving things to one another.

__________________
"The theory of a free press is that truth will emerge from free discussion, not that it will be presented perfectly and instantly in any one account." -- Walter Lippmann

"You measure democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists." -- Abbie Hoffman

Mojo_PeiPei

Wow Smooth, it must be hard to take notice of people like you have with them being so far below your line of sight.

__________________
To win a war you must serve no master but your ambition.

KinkyKiwi

*shakes head* if i play football with my male friends i expect them to take into account that i'm a girl.. i supose i phrased it wrong..i didnt just mean physical jobs/games someone referred to women trying to be men in mens jobs...what i mean is that what makes a particular "field" a mans field? and the 2 people who i said that there should be more of were both talking about situations with strangers where without any real reason hit women. then you betcha i think that they deserve to be beaten up. i would expect a friend to talk to his friend first then then if it ever happend again do exactly what he had done to teh girl maybe a few times worse. also..its like women can be differnt when its "bertha" whos in question...but yes some women are able to beat the living shit outta men and demand to be treated like men..okay thats fine..women liek me on on the other end of that spectrum..i know i'm a "girly girl" i cling to my bfs arm and i expect him to be the one wearing a watch, picking me up, taking me where were going, and if a situation ever (god forbid) came up i would expect him to protect me with yes even violence.

maybe i am old fashioned and crazy but i really do think that men shouldnt hit women. if you have NO OTHER CHOICE thats differnt..the friend in this case wasnt exactly bleeding out his ears from what i gather and shes probably not a bertha type..gentlemen are supposed to treat every woman/girl as ladies...hitting a woman is the equivelent of beating up your mother.

__________________
Some mornings, it's just not worth chewing through the leather straps.
Play with each other. Play with yourselves. Just don't play with the squirrels, they bite.

smooth

well, kinkykiwi, what they said was that they would break someone's jaw and things of that nature if they witnessed something in public. one even bragged about hospitalizing someone for slapping a girl.

EDIT:
Irishsean:
smells like hyperbole: 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?

Seaver:
Hopefully you never deserve to be slapped, kinkykiwi. And hopefully someone you love who grabs you or slaps you in anger doesn't get killed by someone like this. I have to admit, you are the first woman I have ever met who supported this kind of behavior. All other women I've ever been with and known would be scared shitless to date a person who acted and thought like these two posts indicate. My wife wouldn't be cool seeing me beat the "shit" out of someone, for any reason, or speaking about beating someone unconscious with a maglight as "lovetaps."
/END EDIT

I know what you were talking about. That's why I suggested you talk to some people who are more experienced with violent persons and/or other females who have been abused. Both will tell you that the person who thinks it's fine to prove a point with violence, especially if that person sees masculinity linked to violence, will be more likely to physically abuse a woman in anger. there is a line, and you will one day inadvertadly cross it. that line becomes increasingly easier to cross if the parties are intoxicated.

the rule you are referring to, grew up with, or whatever, that men don't hit women, is an artifact of an addage from paternalistic times: young men grow up thinking their ability to fight, to defend the "weaker sex", to prove points with violence--those are the things that prove their manhood to themselves and to others. unfortunately, many of the men who told their children and nephews this phrase, they were the ones who beat their women when they got home from work, nothing like a man's castle. this is in the research over and over and over again.

none of the people in here who said these posters were acting too violently, myself included, said it was ok to hit women. we just don't carve them out a special niche, preferring instead to urge someone to walk away, restrain someone, or contact law enforement if you feel so compelled to get involved in something after the fact when both parties are calm and apparently came to terms with what occurred. You're blowing sixate's statement way out of context. When he said that a woman acting like a man, he isn't talking about playing football. he was referring to balling up your fists and thowing haymakers like you're in a bar fight. that's what that phrase refers to. then it got twisted on its way down the discussion chain and morphed into sexist statements about working behavior and recreation activities.


People who feel the need to prove points with violence, even if they build up some chivalrous mythology around its use, are people who are capable of justifying violence as long as the cause is something they agree with. The rule against hitting a woman is something they made up as a good enough reason not to do it, hopefully they don't have other reasons that might override it.

__________________
"The theory of a free press is that truth will emerge from free discussion, not that it will be presented perfectly and instantly in any one account." -- Walter Lippmann

"You measure democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists." -- Abbie Hoffman

Suave

I don't condone aggressive violence against other people either, but I'm talking purely in the form of self-defense, in that gender should not have to play a factor; it should be the other person's relative frailty. I'm as caught up as anyone else though; I don't think I can bring myself to hit a girl no matter how large she may be. Logically however, I can see why someone might have to do it as a form of self defense.

I have no idea who you're replying to with the bottom portion, but football fields do get peed on all the time by guys.

__________________
"Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions." - Albert Einstein

"Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something." - Plato

stingc

I grew up watching my mother constantly abuse my father (and me to a lesser extent). She punched and kicked him, threw things at him, and even came at him with knives and rolling pins (although she never did serious damage with them). He never hit her back because "it wouldn't have been right." And I completely disagreed with him.

She knew that she could get away with anything, and never realized the consequences of her actions on anybody else until I eventually started hitting her back every once in a while. This made my dad hit me, but I didn't care. An occasional bruise made her try to remember what happened after she calmed down, which she otherwise repressed. And it worked. She started to realize that what she was doing was wrong, and it became less and less common. Simply talking about things afterwords had never gotten anywhere.

As for just restraining her until she calmed down, that wouldn't have worked. It would have only made her more mad (and it took her a couple days to calm down no matter what). She also physically prevented my dad from leaving. If he pushed her out of the way to get out of the house, she'd start destroying his things or even chase after his car with her own (so he learned not to do that). On a longer timescale, my parents did not want to separate, presumably because of me (although they're still together). Also, my mom wasn't always crazy. Her mood swings tended to happen at about the same time every month... Luckily, she's now relatively normal.

This thread isn't exactly about cases of habitual abuse, but I think that this story does have some relevance. Violence should certainly be avoided, but it is sometimes justified. There are a significant number of women who like to take advantage of their "frailty," which I have no patience for. It doesn't matter that women are smaller. They can still hurt a man without too much effort, and are smart enough to know that a man could hurt them back with even less effort.

KinkyKiwi

i've said it before and i'll say it again. if a man hits a woman without a true reason he deserves to have his head mashed in. and please don't assume that i havent met or been friends with other abused women. i was in several severely abusive relationships when i was younger and thankfully i got out of the habit of picking men like that when i was 14. men defending women from other men with violence is totally okay in my book as is it in many older more experienced women that i know. my best friends are guys and while they never get into fights on their own will step in on ANY womans behalf if they see her getting mistreated. they have never hit women and i highly doubt they ever will since most of them say that they would rather be beaten up then hit a girl.

if i misunderstood sixate then i apologize to him

i highly doubt that the 2 people who i complemented for their actions are wife beaters and yes i do consider that sort of behavior to be just.

this is what my friend mike said on teh subject (reading over my shoulder) -"i'm sorry but i think of women as these amazing, inteligent, beautiful, talented creatures. i came from a woman and simply because she spent 22 hours in labor with me i have a certain life long devotion to women. i admire what they can do...i love how soft and delicate they are. i would defend any woman with my life. i love holding my gf in my arms and that feeling of never letting anyone or anything hurt her. shes soft and sweet and even when we fight i still respect her body and her beauty and i could never taint that. oneday i know that she will carry my babies and i know what an amazing mother she will be. i'm going to treat my children to love and admire women as much as i do. my father is the same way. my grandpa is the same way. you should never hurt a woman..its like hurting a part of yourself."

thats how i was taught good men thought and acted
(and omg i need to clone that boy!)

__________________
Some mornings, it's just not worth chewing through the leather straps.
Play with each other. Play with yourselves. Just don't play with the squirrels, they bite.

smooth

kinkykiwi, you're a trip.

I don't see how Mike would agree with seaver's position over mine.

I never said a woman deserves to be slapped whereas seaver said he would "allow" it in the right circumstances. then he clarified that by stating a slap is in the force--not the execution. bravo.

I didn't make any assumptions about you. I just said to ask other people who have more experience with violent people and abusive relationships.

There are ways to ensure women aren't being hurt, a concept I share with Mike. which I actually agree with. I think that beating people with maglights is not fine, but that's an extra level I don't expect everyone to agree with.

before you advocate mashing people's head in, or mike wants to step up and brulize someone, you both would do well to ponder the unintended condequences of those actions: when the 6' 6 man got home, hopefully he didn't abuse the girl again because she "caused" his being mashed by irishsean.

I didn't say that anyone here is a wife beater. What I said was that people who believe violence is fine for reasons they construct in their head will inadvertadely run into a point in their lives where they will resort to violence despite the rules they make.

seaver said as much, it hinges on the force of the "slap" and whether the woman "deserves" it.


But I've got a feeling that many of the people in this thread have reached an impasse.
I'll sum up what I believe for anyone who comes across my post:

Beating up friends isn't about friendship, it seems like behavior intended to prove to each other and oneself the importance of protecting women.
Protecting someone who can't protect him or herself from an aggressor is admirable behavior.
taking it to a different level to prove one's toughness or masculinity isn't.
Abusers link masculinity to violence.
Proving points with violence isn't going to lead to positive results.

__________________
"The theory of a free press is that truth will emerge from free discussion, not that it will be presented perfectly and instantly in any one account." -- Walter Lippmann

"You measure democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists." -- Abbie Hoffman

sixate

I can't understand why it's OK for a woman to hit a man and not expect to get hit back.... Why? Because of size? Or is it because of gender? Obviously, the answer is gender. Because certain women here bitch that the man is bigger and he shouldn't hit a woman, but lets go find the biggest dudes possible to now kick the man's ass who just hit the woman. Well, there's a size factor again, yet you don't have a problem with that.... Unbelievable. Anyone, man or woman, who lets someone hit then and doesn't defend themselves deserves to get hit again for being a spineless pussy, and I'm no spineless pussy that'll take a shot from any man or woman just because I'm more than likely bigger. That's just stupid, and I wasn't raised that way. I would never stay with a woman who hit me. The relationship would be over the second I got hit because I wouldn't hit someone that I love, and I expect the same in return.

Seaver

Smooth I'm taking your last two posts as direct attacks on me. You are calling me a wife beater based on the fact that I DO believe that violence does solve things.

I'm never going to prevent people from defending their own safety. It's MUCH different then "allowing" it. If she has a knife and is trying to stab him I'm not going to prevent him from giving her a backhand.

What I dont understand is how you see someone who believes so strongly that hitting women is wrong that he would hit his best friend... and draw the line that he himself would do it. Violence isn't wrong when it prevents further violence from occuring (especially against someone who cant defend him/herself). When it comes to a woman being hit, not doing anything is the greater evil then your friend icing his face for a couple days.

Sure you can use your "call the authorities" excuse and non-violence card all you want. My current gf has been trying for 6months to put a restraining order on her ex. He has broken into her account and stolen $9k, hacked her ebay account and purchaced $5k worth of stuff, and to this day makes threatening phone calls. She has documented ALL of this, and has yet to have the police put through the paperwork on the computer. The authorities arent always reliable.

So what do you see as the danger? That because some of us have our head in reality that we KNOW violence does solve things that we can turn into the monster we're fighting? That's a personal battle, which is why I'd expect my friends to check me in return. I could NEVER see myself hitting a woman, even if she has a knife. So who are you to suddenly call me a wife beater?

guthmund

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.

__________________
No signature. None. Seriously.

MageB420666

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.

__________________
Apathy: The best outlook this side of I don't give a damn.

mokle

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

__________________
Mokle
"Your hands can't hit what your eyes can't see" -Ali

Zeraph

OMG How could you use that emoticon? I'm shocked and appalled

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

or am I? Is he joking?

F-18_Driver

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.

F-18_Driver

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.

Irishsean

[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.

__________________
There are no absolute rules of conduct, either in peace or war. Everything depends on circumstances.
Leon Trotsky

lurkette

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.

__________________
"If ten million people believe a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing."

- Anatole France

KinkyKiwi

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?

__________________
Some mornings, it's just not worth chewing through the leather straps.
Play with each other. Play with yourselves. Just don't play with the squirrels, they bite.

Seaver

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.

Lebell

__________________
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." – C. S. Lewis

The ONLY sponsors we have are YOU!

Please Donate!

Hektore

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.

__________________
The advantage law is the best law in rugby, because it lets you ignore all the others for the good of the game.

CandleInTheDark

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.

__________________
Where there is doubt there is freedom.

sixate

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.

guthmund

ARRRGGGGHHH! I'm so confused!!!!


/guthmund's head 'asplodes

__________________
No signature. None. Seriously.

xepherys

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

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

MageB420666

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.

__________________
Apathy: The best outlook this side of I don't give a damn.

meembo

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.

__________________
less I say, smarter I am

Irishsean

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.

__________________
There are no absolute rules of conduct, either in peace or war. Everything depends on circumstances.
Leon Trotsky

Seaver

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.