Do they change or are they deterred? (90)

The British Crime survey (2008) also says that 33% of violence against women is domestic violence, compared to 4% of violence against men.

Gender violence is a fact that is acknowledged across the board by Government, academic researchers, charities, police. I really don't think it is an arguable point.

But here I am arguing it!

'Pervert'? She can't even spell it!

They can grow out of it in the loony bin. Guys fight, that's a given, and generally if two combatants can walk away after any given tussle the law won't get involved anyway. But the guys who do real damage to people, the ones who'll stomp a guy when he's down, who'll gang up for a good solid kicking, of course they are deranged. How can it possibly be considered sane to brutalise another human being, usually a complete stranger, in that way?

Anybody who says truth is stranger than fiction has never seen tentacle porn.

See that's some pretty devious use of stats right there. Of course there is comparatively less violence against men in a domestic setting, because there is a lot more violence against men outside it. If women got the shit beat out of them as often as men do when they are out and about then their stats would look more similar. Not saying your argument is wrong, but I don't think you need to resort to the statistical chicanery.

Anybody who says truth is stranger than fiction has never seen tentacle porn.

Interesting use of stats.

To put them a bit more into context, Men (especially aged 18-25) are much more likely to be victims of some sort of violence than women, and those stats are showing the overall amount of violence, rather than comparing like for like.

That, and, those stats are of reported offences. It takes on average 17 acts of domestic violence against a woman before she rings the police. For a man in the same situation it'll take 3 times that before he makes the call.

Obviously I'm not saying the stats are wrong, there's just more to them than first appears.

"Bottom line: it's couples who are truly right for each other wade through the same crap as everybody else, but the big difference is they don't let it take them down. One of those two people will stand up and fight for that relationship every time."

That just says that men are frquently the victims of violence in other contexts. I don't think anyone is seriously suggesting that there isn't a major gender imbalance in DV. But given that some men are also victims of DV, the government should be protecting people from violence, irrespective of their gender.

And all men kill the thing they love, By all let this be heard, Some do it with a bitter look, Some with a flattering word, The coward does it with a kiss, The brave man with a sword!

Anybody who says truth is stranger than fiction has never seen tentacle porn.

Doghouse_Reilly wrote: Seriously people, stop saying the same this as I did right after I said it, just makes y'all look slooooow

Damn it!

I was typing when you posted!

"Bottom line: it's couples who are truly right for each other wade through the same crap as everybody else, but the big difference is they don't let it take them down. One of those two people will stand up and fight for that relationship every time."

Doghouse_Reilly wrote: Seriously people, stop saying the same this as I did right after I said it, just makes y'all look slooooow

Seriously people, stop saying the same this as I did right after I said it, just makes y'all look slooooow

darn.

And all men kill the thing they love, By all let this be heard, Some do it with a bitter look, Some with a flattering word, The coward does it with a kiss, The brave man with a sword!

I'm hardly qualified to answer that, but it may help to consider the M'Naghten Rules:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%27Naghten_Rules

We need a London venue to do adult school events; if you know of one, please tell me.

Edited 14 Feb 09, 6:18 PM by Ishmael

The problem with the "they must be sick in the head" argument is that it in effect absolves the perpetrator of responsibility.

We don't want to beleive that an otherwise "sane" person who looks like us, talks like us and posts on websites like us is capable of brutal murder. But murders *are* committed by sane people. For some people violence is instrumental - it gives them power over others, in some social groups it gives them status as well. That doesn't mean that they are mentally ill. It means they are capable of being brutal and dangerous.

A big assumption seems to be being made here that Appleton was a psychopath - from the coverage I have read there isn't any mention of him having any kind of mental health problem or personality disorder (although obviously I may have missed something). Could it be that he took some pleasure from abusing women? Could he have *chosen* to do what he did?