Any male human being will testify to the reality of mind-numbing testicle pain when they are hit, abused, or squeezed too hard. My question is, how about ovary pain? Is it comparable to testicular pain, or are ovaries fundamentally different? Will a swift kick to the ovaries disable a female attacker?
Mine hurt once a month when I ovulate. I’m one of the “lucky” women who can feel it when the egg breaks loose.
IANAD but as for a quick kick in the janes, looks like you’re either kicking through the ribs or the gut, both of which would put me down for the count.
I don’t know how you could kick them, but sometimes (rarely) during extremely vigorous sex, mine have been hit. It is pretty painful, and I would imagine it would be pretty much excruciating if they were intentionally struck hard. I don’t have testes, so I can’t say if the pain is similar or what, but yes, they can be hurt. At least, mine can.
I know that when doing artificial insemination, they always tell the vet students that ovaries are just as sensitive as testicles and not to squeeze them any harder than they would their own (for the guys anyway).
I have been told by that knocking an ovary which can happen in several ways is supposed to be comparable to a testicular strike. Maybe a true hermaphrodite will be along shortly to confirm.
I suspect that’s your cervix getting hit, unless your ovaries are in a really weird spot. (Or you’re into some really unusual sex practices.) The ovaries are well within the body, protected by the pelvic bones to the back and sides, and a good deal of intestine, muscle, skin and fat in front, and a good four inches of muscular uterus from underneath. It would be extremely difficult to come near one during intercourse.
The cervix, however, is easy to bang into, and it can cause horrible cramping and sharp pains if that happens.
I’m another one who feels ovulation, and it’s pretty wretched. Of course, I have no idea how getting hit in the testicles feels, so I can’t really compare the two.
You may be right, but I’m pretty sure you’re not. I’ve been hit in my cervix quite often (big boyfriend; aren’t I a lucky girl) and this is a different feeling. But, I really can’t be sure, I suppose. It’s only happened a couple times, but it was rather unusual circumstances. I don’t know, though.
Well, I will never argue will Cecil, so I withdraw my personal observations. I’m still fairly certain it wasn’t my cervix though. However, I quit getting myself into goofy positions like that (because it hurts sometimes) so I guess I’ll never know. I’m damned certain I couldn’t twist myself up like that in an MRI tube anyway! 
Go ahead, argue with Cecil. I’m willing to, here.
While it’s rare, it’s not unheard of to hit the ovary during intercourse. Not that it’ll get bruised, not anymore than a bumped testicle might. But it’ll hurt if bumped. And if the ovary has an abnormally low lie, it is within reach of a penis.
Ignore the standard anatomic diagrams which show the ovaries in the classic position medial to the ends of the tubes and above the top of the uterus, ie here: http://www.umm.edu/women/images/pelvic.gif This in no way represents what’s going on in the typical woman, standing, bending, moving around, with all the anatomy squooshed in there. Here you see laparoscopically just how complex the configurations can be: http://www.advancedfertility.com/normpelv.htm
I assert this on having done tons of pelvics in my private practice days. A vigorous bimanual exam on a relatively thin woman can usually allow the examiner to palpate the ovaries between the fingers of the two hands, one pushing down on the outside of the abdomen, the other pushing up from within the vagina. One can assess symmetry and size (very approximately), and the ladies are just as tender during this procedure as the guys are on the 'nads check.
That’s my experience, anyway. Mine and also the reported experience of a number of OB/Gyn friends of mine. No ovarian bruising, but an occasional bumping, with associated deep enteric pain a la testicular pain.
During routine pelvic exams, a gynocologist will often poke around for the ovaries. They are very, very well protected, in contrast to men’s goodies. However, it does kind of not feel very good at all if the doctor is not gentle. I would imagine that if somehow a person managed to give the ovaries an assault similar to a guy’s being licked in the nuts it would fell pretty much the same.
And of course I meant “kicked.”
Funny, I expected this question to be about blue balls. What a missed opportunity. :smack:
I can’t speak for women, but nothin’ hurts like being hit in the goonies. I worked in a group home for mentally handicapped teenagers for awhile and one of them kicked me in the balls so hard I woke uo in the ER. Thankfully no permanent damage was done, but I walked funny for a few days… :eek:
I have, many times in my life (I’m sorry to say) experienced ruptured ovarian cysts. The first one made me black out. The subsequent ones have ‘merely’ made me drift away for about an hour into a haze of pain wherever I happen to be; this has happened at work. Sometimes, I get cysts that grow quite large - 2" or more. They are painful when changing positions (standing from sitting, etc) and during exercise, sex included.
Admittedly, this is not a ‘normal’ situation, but it describes the ennervation of the area, to wit: damn, they sure can hurt. And Quagdop is, of course, correct: ovaries don’t stay in one spot. They move around inside the lower abdominal cavity, to the extent their attachments permit. I have seen pictures from a laparoscopy done on myself, of my left ovary twisted around, down, and ‘behind’ my uterus. This would not in itself make it vulnerable to getting bumped during sex, BUT if it is already sore (from a cyst or other cause), it can be too tender to permit any such activity.
I can also anecdotally report being hit in the ovaries during sex. I’m not sure, but I’ve always assumed that what really happens is the penis shoves the uterus hard enough that the uterus hits the ovary - anatomicaly that would be fairly easy.
I’ve also had the pleasure of an ovarian torsion - where the ovary gets twisted around and torques the nerves leading to it. This resulted in me going from being perfectly fine to lying on the floor vomiting in pain within the course of about ten minutes. The level of pain I experienced was fully comperable to that described by men with testicular torsion, which also happens.
mischievous
Any woman who says men have no sense of empathy has obviously never watched a baseball game during which the batter takes a fastball to the nads. Every man in the stadium, every man watching it on TV, and even a few of the male parking lot attendants who have no idea what is happening will all simultaenously double up in shared agony.
When I was in high school, one of my elder sisters used to think that a quick knee to the groin was the most effective means of solving any serious disagreement between her and myself. A few years later, after she had endured the agony of ovarian cysts, she offered me a sudden and unprovoked apology for a) having put me through so much pain, and b) having ever thought there was anything funny about gonadal trauma.
Is this a good drawing? According to Our Bodies, Ourselves the ovaries are only the size of shelled almonds. That’s never represented in the drawings, if they don’t happen to be off their gords about the size…
No, actually, it’s a pretty decent drawing. Hey, ovaries vary a little in size. I don’t often find one that has NO cysts. If I do, it’s usually in a postmenopausal woman. In older women they shrivel a bit, and that’s when they approach the size of a shelled almond, but they’re still a bit larger. Although they are their own funny shape and not round, I’d put them at between a US quarter and half dollar in size. Never as big as a half dollar, never as small as a quarter. Cysts push them significantly closer to the half dollar.
Some of the cysts contain clear fluid, but some contain old blood. Because doctors have a sick sense of humor, the latter are called “chocolate” cysts. Cuz old blood is brown.
Tiny babies have cysts in their ovaries. This is usually explained as leftover estrogen effect from being exposed to the mother’s estrogen levels in the womb. It persists to three months of age at least. So if you poke your baby girl in the belly, and she cries, you might have poked an ovarian cyst. Baby girl cysts are usually pretty tiny tho.
I don’t know at what age cysts go away. Autopsies on children over a year are mercifully quite rare.