It's rare that a dating question riles me up, but today someone posted a question in the dating forums has me steamed.

I don't normally hit my girlfriend but when she starts bitching at me but I just can't stand it anymore. The woman just deserves a smack when I don't want to deal with her. How do I make my girlfriend stop nagging me?

I answered his question already with a standard "break up and get help" reply , but I think there is a greater issue and debate at stake here. Yes, the poster could just be a schmuck looking to rile me and the other dating forum members up, and it is unlikely that he actually smacks his girlfriend around when she annoys him. But - what if he does? Just the possibility will keep me up tonight.

And its entirely possible that he's serious. If I look at recent studies, dating violence is still a silent yet rampant destructive force in many dating relationships. One U.S. Department of Justice report stated that 20 out of every 1,000 women between the ages of 16-24 have experienced dating violence. Another posted in the Journal of Contemporary Justice showed 34% of all college students have experienced dating violence in a previous relationship, and the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence contends that 71% of rape or sexual assault victims knew their offenders.

These statistics all hit close to home for me personally, as I too have also experienced dating violence first hand. Approximately five years ago, a man I met from a dating site followed me Home unawares and forced himself on me. Luckily one of my upstairs roommates heard my cries for help and intervened before anything serious happened. My first serious relationship was also a physically abusive one, which pains me to this day since I'd always thought of myself as too smart to endure any dating violence whatsoever. By the time I realized I was in danger however I was trapped. I was able to extricate myself when several coworkers noticed my sudden behavioral change and called the police.

Because of my own personal experiences, I have to wonder how many victims of dating violence are suffering in silence. I know that anytime I've answered polls on this subject, I forget that I was once a victim myself, thereby underreporting and skewing the final results somewhat. How many others - men and women - have done the same? I can only imagine there are more men who are underreporting than women, considering the added shame involved.

So with this in mind, I will do everything in my power to determine if the dating forum poster is just pulling my chain or if he is actually a violent man who thinks "occasionally" hitting his girlfriend is okay when she nags him too much. But you tell me. What would you do?