# Neanderthal wife beaters deserve... **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [May 13, 2009, 6:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neanderthal-wife-beaters-deserve/496261 "2009-05-13T06:21:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2009, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neanderthal-wife-beaters-deserve/496261/41 "2009-05-13T19:29:59Z")
> [@Swallowed\_My\_Cellphone](#): > > Endless possibilities. > > Personally, I think chances are in the OP’s circumstance, his gut instincts are probably accurate. IMHO, you get a different vibe from someone who is just having a shitty day and someone who is in trouble. Yeah, that seems to sum up my take on it as well. > [@tdn](#): > > I find the “Do you sometimes feel unsafe at home?” question to be really misleading. I once lived with someone who could honestly answer yes to that question. The thing was, she felt unsafe when I wasn’t there. She didn’t deal well with being alone. It freaked her out. I feel super unsafe in the bathroom ever since the cockroach incident. I shower ready to leap from the tub at a moment’s notice and rush to the Raid. No, there’s no real vermin problem–I just had one but I’m insanely phobic. ---
**Author:** ![supergoose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@supergoose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/supergoose)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2009, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neanderthal-wife-beaters-deserve/496261/42 "2009-05-13T19:39:35Z")
(Look, I understand the anger and that everyone’s being hyperbolic, but I have to say, to threaten violence against the perpetrator of domestic violence is pretty hypocritical. Isn’t the point supposed to be that no one deserves to be physically hurt, not that some people deserve it sometimes depending on what they’ve done? Because if you go by that line of reasoning, you wind up justifying the domestic abuser using violence in the first place. After all, “deserving” is a matter of opinion.) ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2009, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neanderthal-wife-beaters-deserve/496261/43 "2009-05-13T19:40:38Z")
Neanderthal wife beaters should be studied in a lab. It would be an incredible boon to science. Homo Sapiens wife beaters, OTOH,… ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2009, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neanderthal-wife-beaters-deserve/496261/44 "2009-05-13T19:44:15Z")
> [@supergoose](#): > > (Look, I understand the anger and that everyone’s being hyperbolic, but I have to say, to threaten violence against the perpetrator of domestic violence is pretty hypocritical. Isn’t the point supposed to be that no one deserves to be physically hurt, not that some people deserve it sometimes depending on what they’ve done? Because if you go by that line of reasoning, you wind up justifying the domestic abuser using violence in the first place. After all, “deserving” is a matter of opinion.) I guess I’m a hypocrite or something then, because I really don’t feel much sympathy IF some abuser just happens to get a taste of his own medicine. ---
**Author:** ![Malleus\_Incus\_Stapes](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/malleus_incus_stapes/32/3293_2.png) [@Malleus\_Incus\_Stapes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malleus_Incus_Stapes)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2009, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neanderthal-wife-beaters-deserve/496261/45 "2009-05-13T19:45:54Z")
> [@Harriet\_the\_Spry](#): > > And… **tdn** , vermin? What size are those vermin that they’re giving this lady a black eye? [\*Unusual \*size](http://scienceblogs.com/retrospectacle/rous.bmp). ---
**Author:** ![Jimmy\_Joe\_Meager](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/bb73d2/32.png) [@Jimmy\_Joe\_Meager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jimmy_Joe_Meager)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2009, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neanderthal-wife-beaters-deserve/496261/46 "2009-05-13T19:55:18Z")
> [@Lacunae\_Matata](#): > > I posted about it out of sheer frustration. Understood. My reply wasn’t entirely directed at you, and upon re-read I did come off a bit jerky. I’m sorry. The conclusion you reached was entirely plausible, IMHO, and there may’ve been other cues (clues?) you picked up on that didn’t quite translate into the OP. My reply was more to the point of “tiny lady + black eye + upset teenager = THE ONLY ABUSERS ARE MEN AND THEY ARE SCUM AND THUS DESERVE VIOLENCE DIRECTED AGAINST THEM BASED ON NOTHING MORE THAN UNSUBSTANTIATED ACCUSATIONS!!” I’m not saying you, **Lacunae Matata** , did that, but a couple of posters here sure did. ---
**Author:** ![Anne\_Neville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Anne\_Neville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anne_Neville)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2009, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neanderthal-wife-beaters-deserve/496261/47 "2009-05-13T20:21:21Z")
> [@Pleonast](#): > > I think anyone who tries to beat his Neanderthal wife is in for a surprise whooping himself. > [@Boyo Jim](#): > > Neanderthal wife beaters should be studied in a lab. It would be an incredible boon to science. Could either of those happen, though? I’m sure if we found or cloned some Neanderthals, there would have to be court cases to decide whether or not they could legally get married. If they couldn’t, then a Neanderthal couldn’t be a wife beater or a victim of a wife beater, by definition. ---
**Author:** ![Jimmy\_Joe\_Meager](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/bb73d2/32.png) [@Jimmy\_Joe\_Meager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jimmy_Joe_Meager)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2009, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neanderthal-wife-beaters-deserve/496261/48 "2009-05-13T20:33:36Z")
Wife beating… so easy a caveman can do it !! ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2009, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neanderthal-wife-beaters-deserve/496261/49 "2009-05-13T20:56:37Z")
Yeah, I remember the heartwarming tale a Liverpudlian co-worker once told me admiringly about half a dozen of his mates who’d given some guy a good sorting-out for raising his hand to his wife. The LCW did admit that she’d been going after hubby with the bread-knife at the time, but seemed to think this a minor consideration. Domestic violence is a funny (as in peculiar) business and right and wrong is not always easily determined just by seeing who is smaller and who has the black eye when you happen to be looking. Still, what the heck, let’s wish third-degree burns on some random stranger. It makes a change from a prison ass-raping. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Anne\_Neville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Anne\_Neville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anne_Neville)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2009, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neanderthal-wife-beaters-deserve/496261/50 "2009-05-13T21:08:34Z")
> [@Jimmy\_Joe\_Meager](#): > > Wife beating… so easy a caveman can do it !! Save me a seat near the front in the bus to hell, OK? ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2009, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neanderthal-wife-beaters-deserve/496261/51 "2009-05-13T21:23:14Z")
> [@supergoose](#): > > Look, I understand the anger and that everyone’s being hyperbolic, but I have to say, to threaten violence against the perpetrator of domestic violence is pretty hypocritical. Isn’t the point supposed to be that no one deserves to be physically hurt, not that some people deserve it sometimes depending on what they’ve done? It’s the latter. Some people deserve it. Wife beaters, for example. I certainly don’t hold to a position that no one ever deserves physical punishment. I don’t know anyone who does think that. That’s kind of a straw characterization. > [@](#): > > Because if you go by that line of reasoning, you wind up justifying the domestic abuser using violence in the first place. After all, “deserving” is a matter of opinion. Where did you get the idea that all opinions have equal merit or deserve equal respect? By your logic, society could never punish anyone for anything at all. Osama bin Laden was of the opinion that 3000 people should be killed in a terrorist attack. Does that mean no one can have the opinion that he should be killed for it? I fail to see your point. Wife beaters are scum. By all rights they should be publicly flogged, forced to surrender all material property to their victims, and prohibited from having any contact with their victims or with their children ever again. I don’t want to hear any lawyering about “proof.” The question is not about what wife beaters deserve, not what those who are _accused_ deserve. And it’s almost always men abusing women. It’s a load of crap that women do it to men in anything close to the same numbers. Even if they do, it just means the man either likes it or is just a pussy who deserves it for being a pussy. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2009, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neanderthal-wife-beaters-deserve/496261/52 "2009-05-13T21:26:27Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > It’s a load of crap that women do it to men in anything close to the same numbers. Even if they do, it just means the man either likes it or is just a pussy who deserves it for being a pussy. I predict: this will end well. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2009, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neanderthal-wife-beaters-deserve/496261/53 "2009-05-13T21:33:54Z")
Well, I get sick of people always trying to derail or dilute the discussions about the very real, very serious, historically pandemic problem of male abuse of women by chirping up with bullshit attempts at equivalency by women. There is no equivalency. Period. Ask the women in Afghanistan for who it is a crime to turn down their husbands for sex. There has never been an equivalently repressive culture of men by women. ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2009, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neanderthal-wife-beaters-deserve/496261/54 "2009-05-13T21:35:53Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > I predict: this will end well. 😃 Let the games begin! I’m of the opinion that some people are just bullies. Force, or the threat of violence (punishment) is the only thing the understand or respect. There are people “out there” that are real bad asses, tough as nails, mean as a snake etc only so long as there isn’t is someone bigger and meaner holding them in check. ---
**Author:** ![ivan\_astikov](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/58f4c7/32.png) [@ivan\_astikov](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivan_astikov)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2009, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neanderthal-wife-beaters-deserve/496261/55 "2009-05-13T21:36:50Z")
But is it never okay to hit a woman? It can’t be denied that there are women who are as coarse and vicious as any men, so if it is okay to go to war when reason fails, why can’t we give someone a hefty smack? ---
**Author:** ![cjepson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a9adbd/32.png) [@cjepson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cjepson)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2009, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neanderthal-wife-beaters-deserve/496261/56 "2009-05-13T21:38:20Z")
> [@Malacandra](#): > > Domestic violence is a funny (as in peculiar) business and right and wrong is not always easily determined just by seeing who is smaller and who has the black eye when you happen to be looking. True. The only actual example of domestic violence that I’ve been witness to was a pair of crack addicts who lived downstairs from me years ago… she was in the habit of screaming the most abusive things she could think of at him for extended periods of time; apparently he’d sit there passively for the most part, but every once in a while, take a swing at her. They were quite a piece of work all in all. Not saying this is typical, obviously, but there is quite a spectrum out there. ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2009, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neanderthal-wife-beaters-deserve/496261/57 "2009-05-13T21:39:16Z")
> [@ivan\_astikov](#): > > But is it never okay to hit a woman? It can’t be denied that there are women who are as coarse and vicious as any men, so if it is okay to go to war when reason fails, why can’t we give someone a hefty smack? Becaue if she’s that vicious she might kill you? :eek: ---
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2009, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neanderthal-wife-beaters-deserve/496261/58 "2009-05-13T21:39:56Z")
> [@Lacunae\_Matata](#): > > A police officer friend of mine dropped by to chat just minutes after I checked this lady in, and I can’t even legally tell him the guest’s name/room number. Is that a law for you as a hotel employee? As a private citizen could you report suspected abuse? ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2009, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neanderthal-wife-beaters-deserve/496261/59 "2009-05-13T21:41:54Z")
> [@ivan astikov](#): > > But is it never okay to hit a woman? It can’t be denied that there are women who are as coarse and vicious as any men, so if it is okay to go to war when reason fails, why can’t we give someone a hefty smack? I never would except in a case of extreme self-defense. There is no way I’d ever hit my wife, that’s for sure. ---
**Author:** ![FoieGrasIsEvil](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foiegrasisevil/32/16638_2.png) [@FoieGrasIsEvil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FoieGrasIsEvil)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2009, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neanderthal-wife-beaters-deserve/496261/60 "2009-05-13T21:46:52Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > And it’s almost always men abusing women. It’s a load of crap that women do it to men in anything close to the same numbers. Even if they do, it just means the **man either likes it or is just a pussy who deserves it for being a pussy**. Hah. I want to live through the night after a verbal altercation without being shanked in my sleep. You’re damn right I don’t hit her. Anymore. 😃 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neanderthal-wife-beaters-deserve/496261.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neanderthal-wife-beaters-deserve/496261.md?page=4)