The point of this exchange is that Hombre’s concern for his girlfriend Attilla is so fierce that he has to beat her to get her to understand that bathing naked is a bad idea; it could attract the kind of attention that could get her raped or killed.

In theory, this sets up the idea that she is going to get raped or killed by the end of the story. Spoiler: she doesn’t. In fact, she proves so good at defending herself that Hombre actually feels ashamed for being so over protective. Then they have sex in a cornfield.

What’s good about this sequence (and the story as a whole) is that you can read the meaning of each panel from the body language and don’t really need the words to understand what’s going on. That’s good sequential storytelling. 

(Heavy Metal issue #143, March 1993 – Page 22 Hombre: A Useless Old Man by Segura and Ortiz)