At what point is it acceptable (or encouraged) for a guy to hit a girl?

I'll probably be drawing the wrath from feminists and general girl/woman readers with this, but this is my blog and damned if I'm not gonna post what I think, how I think it. :P

I just read a report from seattlepi.com, and it made me think about certain things. In addition to my usual commentary and reactions to what it described, I also embarked on a sort of moral-slash-philosophical debate, described below.

Of course, one of the greatest "moral rules" of being a guy in our society, is that no boy or man can ever – EVER – hit a girl or woman. Ever. As in, she'd be burning your house down, eating your kitten, killing your family and stealing your horse all the while trying to kill you, and you still couldn't hit her. (Extreme hyperbole, yes, but you get the idea.)

I'm not trying to sound cavalier about this; rather, I'm trying to express how I feel about the custom that guys can never hit girls (unless perhaps in certain cases of self-defense), no matter how very badly said girls can deserve it at times. But then, that would just raise a whole bunch of other rhetorical and ethical questions: "where do you draw the line?" "When is it acceptable to hit a girl?" "And if so, how much are you 'allowed' to do so before it passes from acceptable to mere malice?" and etc. I'm trying to take this on from an intellectual, logical standpoint rather than an emotional or instinctual one.

For example: say a group of fancy rich girls start to gang around and harass an innocent, unpopular girl. Say they start to bully that girl for a long time, driving the victim positively miserable, and so forth.

Would it be okay, then, to walk up, grab them by the hair, yank them away, and yell at them to fuck off lest something horrible happen to them?

Or, another example. Say a 16-year-old girl sets her pitbull loose on a group made of a mother and her children, with no apparent motive other than she can, or that she's just a bitch who enjoys hurting folks. Say she even screams at you, and actually starts to beat you over the head and shoulders, chasing you around, etc.

Shouldn't you be "allowed" to give her one very good punch to the face and show her she'd better go the fuck away if she knew what was good for her?

'Cause that's what I would've done in this case, and I sure as hell wouldn't have felt the slightest moral wrongness about it.

A 16-year-old girl was charged Monday with two counts of third-degree assault for attacking two women in SeaTac last month. Deputies say her pit bull also joined the attacks.

But deputies who have been searching for her since last week can't find her, and an arrest warrant has been issued. The girl also was charged with one count of being a minor in possession of liquor.

More in-depth details on the full affair below:

On the evening of June 21, a woman stopped at a Burien gas station, where she said she saw a pit bull being abused by the girl and three other juvenile boys, according to court documents.

When the woman told her not to kick the dog, the girl allegedly swore at her and said, "I can do what I want." Deputies say she got in the face of the woman's husband and swore at him as well.

Later that evening in the 13300 block of Des Moines Memorial Drive South in SeaTac, another woman stopped and asked the group if they were OK. She later told police that she also saw the children kicking the pit bull.

"The young black female in the group went up to (the woman) and said 'Get out of here bitch this is none of your business,'" according to court documents.

When the woman said she could call the police and grabbed her cell phone, prosecutors say the girl yanked open the passenger door of the woman's car and started beating her about the head with her own phone.

The woman ran from her car, but the teen ran after her, "beating her all over the head, neck shoulders and back" -- even pulling out her hair, according to court documents.

A man ran up and announced he'd called police, who were on their way.

"Bitch it's my dog and I can kill it if I want, I can do what I want to," the teen responded, according to court documents.

Deputies say the pit bull then attacked the woman who was beaten.

Another woman who was driving by with her daughter reported seeing the incident and advised the teen girl to wait and explain what happened to police.

"The female then attacked (the woman), getting her on the ground and punching her in the face and head," according to a probable cause document. There was a second attack on the woman moments later and deputies say the teen girl again got the woman on the ground before the dog attacked her on both arms.

Both women who were beaten at the SeaTac scene were hospitalized at Harborview Medical Center.

The woman attacked with the cell phone had bruises on both eye sockets and lacerations on her left arm where deputies could see tissue and bone.

The teen girl was treated at Highline Medical Center. Deputies believe she was injured from beating the woman.

Another fine example of our wonderful youth. Always so good to feel so reassured about the future of this species.

As it stands, if the girl is convicted, her sentence could be as harsh as 90 days in detention and with up to 450 hours of community service, along with three years of probation.

Harsh sentence for a harsh crime, and rightfully so.

In this case, and this is just me: I very much would've hit that girl, and not just when she would've chased me around and beat me with my own cellphone until bone was visible through my flesh (for fuck's sake). Pretty much as soon as she had set her dog against that mother and her kids, I would've grabbed her. And if she tried to hit me, I can shamelessly say I would've felt no hesitation in hitting her back, if only to restrain her and show her who's boss. (Not to sound like an Internet Tough Guy; I just don't take bullshit, especially from stupid youths.)

And so, I herein invite anyone bored or pissed enough to still be reading this far to enter the comments and tell me: is it ever right to hit a girl? If not, why? And if so, why, or when/how? Come on, a blog is nothing without some reader participation. I wanna pick those brains!