What would of been the proper reaction?

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Today I was helping some friends clean up stuff from a major club activity and one of my guy friends suddenly said something about my being asexual (I can't recall exactly what he said but it was something that I think meant he wished I wasn't asexual.) Than he said stuff about my being helpful (We were moving wooden planks, tupperware boxes of stuff, and sets, etc. at the time and pretty much like last year, I was probably the only girl who was willing to try and help with the heavy lifting (large wooden sets, etc.)) and hot (I was able to determine it was a sexual comment, not something to do with the temperature outside). I immediately screamed at him to never to call me hot and I hit him in the back (I was also jumping off a truck at the time). A couple of my other guy friends who remembered I tend to freak out if complimented (especially sexually) calmed me down. I have slowly been learning how to recognize certain comments (due to the people I hang out with, mostly if its sexual or not). The problem is I have no idea how to immediately react to these kind of unexpected comments (I only realized about half a minute later that the friend wasn't trying to freak me out and just forgot some of my quirks) since my immediate emotions are anger/fear since I can't read people (expressions, serious vs. sarcastic comment, comments purpose, etc.) and guilt (b/c I don't want anyone to find me attractive). Any suggestions to prevent future repeats?

I suggest you do not hit people unless you are in need of physically defending yourself or another person.

If someone compliments you in a respectful way, say "Thank you", if someone makes a comment of the likes which was made, and it makes you feel uncomfortable, ignore it.

I used to tell girls not to call me "handsome" or other words of that nature, and when they did, I'd get angry and tell them to f*ck off. Though I didn't hit another girl physically, I can relate to your experience.

I don't have a response, but I applaud your use of nested parenthesis.

There are better potential fixes, particularly with friends.

So your friend is likely to remember the strike in the back, but if that person's reasonably able to pay attention you can just take that person aside a bit afterwards and explain that the comment made you feel uncomfortable, that you are pretty sure they didn't want to make you uncomfortable and wouldn't have done it had they realized.