But hitting someone in the face is not an act of self-defense, it is an escalation. If someone hits you and you can't get away, hitting them back is justified. But if they grope you, hitting them back is not legally justified, because a groping is not the same thing as an attack.

Just because the groper deserves to get his ass kicked doesn't mean that doing so is legal.

>No. If you assault me, guess what's happening? I'm going to hit you in the fucking face

Have fun explaining that to the cops (and the jury).

"After I touched her inappropriately she slapped me, so fearing for my life, I punched her in the face, breaking her nose"

Hell, if you do that you're likely to get punched in the face by a random passerby.

The slapped puncher is not going to say that. He’s going to say something like “I was in a crowded bar and some crazy bitch hauled off and slapped me, and I don’t know about you, but when someone up and hits me, my first impulse is to hit them back. Now she says I ’touched her inappropriately’ before she slapped me. I don’t know what she’s talking about. Maybe my hand brushed against her accidentally or something, but really, if she’s so hypersensitive she should keep the hell out of crowded bars.”

When the cops show up, and there's a crying women with a broken bloody nose or a black eye next to a guy with a faded pink hand print on his cheek, who do you think is going to jail?

There is a concept of escalation in most states' self defense statutes.

If a 110 pound woman slaps you in the face and you react with a force that could cause death or serious injury, you'd be hard pressed to make anyone believe that you reasonably feared for your life (or serious injury).

Um. What?

"Somebody began physically assaulting me so I responded by defending myself."

Find me a jury that will convict somebody for that.

Yes, because slapping someone in the face is exactly equivalent to giving them a brutal beating resulting in lasting physical harm.

WHY does this topic come up so much in hacker/geek culture? Seriously, I'm starting to believe there are guys walking around who WANT to be slapped, just so they can finally live out their "equal rights mean equal lefts" fantasy.

Regardless, I don't like the idea of slapping someone. I think we can come up with a better idea, like the cards.

"Defending myself" implies the need to be defended. If she slaps you across the cheek due to you groping her, hitting her would not be justified. She wasn't continuously attacking you; she was responding to your assault.

My post was confusing. It was meant to say that my female friends' reaction was that if somebody assaulted them, they're not going to give them a red card, they're going to physically defend themselves.

Ah, understood.

I would like to see some sort of experiment between using these cards and slapping someone— although, slapping is pretty rare. What happens most of the time is the woman feels incredibly unsafe and awkward while she tries to understand the reason all those people are just watching her get assaulted.

So really, if you see this behavior, please step in. Tell the asshole he needs to get out. Make it known his behavior isn't appropriate.

If the "somebody" is a woman and the "I" is a man? Rrright.

assault is harmful or offensive contact. The assault happened with the first inappropriate touch.

Devil's advocate: Prove a grope occurred. It's a light, soft-tissue touch. A slap is a violent strike with an open palm, and a punch is a violent strike with a closed fist.

>A slap is a violent strike with an open palm, and a punch is a violent strike with a closed fist.

A slap from a 110 pound woman (just a hypothetical weight) is not equal to a punch from a 160 pound man.

A punch from the man can easily cause lasting harm--broken nose, broken jaw--an open-handed slap across the cheek from the woman cannot (barring some crazy edge case).

>Prove a grope occurred.

She's not going to have to. The cop who arrests you is going to believe the crying bleeding woman over the man with barley a scratch on him--and eventually the prosecutor and the jury will too.

It's best just not to punch someone much physically weaker than you are unless you actually fear for your safety, e.g., she's holding a knife.

If you haven't thought up any of the many good reasons why that might be dangerous/impossible, you haven't put much effort into it.

- Toucher is an 800-pound gorilla.

- Toucher is your boss.

- Toucher is more important to the venue than you are.

- Toucher is going to be believed, and you are going to be disbelieved.

- Toucher is going to be supported, and you're going to be shamed for "making a fuss".

- Toucher is someone you have to live with.

And so forth.