Is it possible to protect oneself from a male mammalian predator, by "kicking it in the "?

For guys who had felt it, either by accident or for reasons we don't want to know, you know about it's debilitating pain. So do other male mammals also get really hurt from blunt trauma to that region? If we can protect ourselves from male bears, lions, pandas who are also bears...etc, its seems pretty stupid that people had died or gotten really hurt by those creatures. Please offer serious answers, because I'm about to try it on my neighbor's cat...never really like that fur-ball anyways.