# Do female athletes wear a cup? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 25, 2011, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-female-athletes-wear-a-cup/604051 "2011-11-25T16:14:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Laggard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/9de053/32.png) [@Laggard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Laggard)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2011, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-female-athletes-wear-a-cup/604051/21 "2011-11-25T19:29:51Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > That doesn’t make it a contact sport, which are those where contact between the competitors is continuous or almost so. > . Using you definition I have a hard time thinking of any contact sports besides boxing. Football would no be a contact sport as they spend more time standing around than hitting each other. Anyway, I’ve seen more blood on a soccer pitch than I ever have on a football field. Players routinely collide in situations where no foul has been commited. ---
**Author:** ![SanVito](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sanvito/32/2805_2.png) [@SanVito](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SanVito)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2011, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-female-athletes-wear-a-cup/604051/22 "2011-11-25T19:31:01Z")
> [@EinsteinsHund](#): > > That wasn’t my point, I don’t even know the exact definition of the term “contact sport”. My point was that it’s ridiculous to state that every contact in soccer is punished with a yellow or red card. As I said before, there are many, many contacts in each game that are not even ordinary fouls. If **constanze** ’s assumption was true, soccer would be a very different sport to the one it actually is. I believe that a ‘contact sport’ is one where contact is a specific element of the game, like rugby or American football. Football (soccer) is not strictly a contact sport, although obviously contact occurs frequently in tackling - but it’s a by-product of a tackle, as the tackler explicitly has to touch the ball, not just the player. ---
**Author:** ![Darth\_Sensitive](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/58956e/32.png) [@Darth\_Sensitive](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darth_Sensitive)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2011, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-female-athletes-wear-a-cup/604051/23 "2011-11-25T19:32:48Z")
> [@constanze](#): > > Soccer is not a contact sport, any more than basketball is. Any contact is forbidden and will be punished with a yellow or red card. Unless the jurors are asleep. Soccer and basketball are both contact sports. Football and hockey are _collision_ sports. Also, I think that some sets of compression undershorts are designed to hold cups these days. ---
**Author:** ![Norse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a9adbd/32.png) [@Norse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Norse)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2011, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-female-athletes-wear-a-cup/604051/24 "2011-11-25T19:36:52Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > Never really knew how tender the area was for girls. For a vivid illustration of the difference between men and women in that respect, try judo wrestling with a female judoka roughly the same size as yourself. Man, those gals are _evil_! :eek: And unlike wrestling with male opponents, you can’t even retaliate by giving them the same treatment. It just doesn’t have _any_ effect! :mad: ---
**Author:** ![rhubarbarin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/eb9ed0/32.png) [@rhubarbarin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rhubarbarin)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2011, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-female-athletes-wear-a-cup/604051/25 "2011-11-25T19:46:16Z")
Not always, because it’s harder to injure a woman there. But it’s possible, and intensely painful when it does happen. > [@Stinky\_Pete](#): > > Getting hit there is equivalent to getting hit in the calf, thigh, buttocks, etc. Whereas a man getting hit in the privates is equivalent to getting hit in the knee, eye, or throat. Hell no. Female crotch injuries may be more rare, but they feel NOTHING like being hit in a fleshy area with many less nerve endings. A couple times I’ve had solid contact with the area of my crotch where the delicate pubic bones join; it was some of the worst traumatic pain I’ve experienced. The female pubic bone is two separate pieces, held together with ligaments (which have to stretch during pregnancy and childbirth), and serious injury involving tearing of these ligaments and separation of the pubic bone, or pubic bone fractures, is quite possible and very painful. There is also a chronic form of this injury which happens to some women during pregnancy, and is intensely painful. [Pubic symphysis diastasis - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diastasis_symphysis_pubis) I’ve never been, like, punched in the labia, but one time I fell on the edge of a cardboard box and did some damage. Burning pain, and soreness for days… ---
**Author:** ![Laggard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/9de053/32.png) [@Laggard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Laggard)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2011, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-female-athletes-wear-a-cup/604051/26 "2011-11-25T20:07:24Z")
> [@constanze](#): > > Soccer is not a contact sport, any more than basketball is. Any contact is forbidden and will be punished with a yellow or red card. Unless the jurors are asleep. That is simply incorrect. ---
**Author:** ![OpalCat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/8edcca/32.png) [@OpalCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OpalCat)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2011, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-female-athletes-wear-a-cup/604051/27 "2011-11-25T21:00:41Z")
I can’t imagine a common sports injury to the pubis that would be common enough or potentially painful enough to require the use of a “cup” type of protection. That said, when I was in grade school I used to have a lunchtime activity… the monkey bars at my school had three parallel bars about three feet off the ground that extended about 12 feet out to the side of the main monkey bar “complex” as it were. These bars were probably 4" in diameter. Myself and some friends of mine practiced walking along them, tightrope style, until we could walk the length of the bar, turn around, and walk all the way back. It was quite the feat of balance. One day, I was doing this at lunch when my feet slid off the bar–one to either side. I landed with the full weight of my body on the bones between my legs. It hurt bad enough that I could hardly breathe and I was unable to speak or anything for probably 10-15 minutes or so. That said, I doubt any kind of protective “cup” would have protected me from the injury, because it came from directly below, not from the front at all. The chance of getting hit in the clitoris seems pretty slim to me, and the kind of injury I described would not tend to happen in a person-on-person clash… So I guess I’m of the opinion that a “cup” would be mostly useless and be more in the way than be any help the vast majority of the time. ---
**Author:** ![FlyByNight512](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/82dd89/32.png) [@FlyByNight512](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlyByNight512)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2011, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-female-athletes-wear-a-cup/604051/28 "2011-11-25T21:13:12Z")
It’s hard to hit the female genitals. A soccer ball hitting the crotch from the front will leave a man writhing in pain, but for women it’s mostly caught by the hip bones, thighs, and lower stomach. It might hit the pubic mons, but that doesn’t hurt any worse than the rest of it. A shot up between the legs with something narrow enough to hit the genitals can hurt, yeah. (The given examples of a bicycle crossbar or cardboard box make painful sense. There’s just no real padding there, and lots of nerve endings and bone.) An attempt to hit that same spot with the knee isn’t going to do much of anything, it’s too blunt and will mostly be caught by the thighs. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2011, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-female-athletes-wear-a-cup/604051/29 "2011-11-25T21:24:14Z")
> [@constanze](#): > > Soccer is not a contact sport, any more than basketball is. Any contact is forbidden and will be punished with a yellow or red card. Unless the jurors are asleep. uh, what? Are you serious? slide tackles were a mainstay of any soccer game I played in. ---
**Author:** ![R.P.McMurphy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/7993a0/32.png) [@R.P.McMurphy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/R.P.McMurphy)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2011, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-female-athletes-wear-a-cup/604051/30 "2011-11-25T21:25:38Z")
Most American pro football players don’t wear a cup. They find it to restrictive when running. Hockey players do wear one just because of the chance of taking a direct hit to the gonads from a shot puck. Baseball catchers will wear one but other position players don’t. ---
**Author:** ![mnemosyne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c4cdca/32.png) [@mnemosyne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mnemosyne)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2011, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-female-athletes-wear-a-cup/604051/31 "2011-11-25T21:43:08Z")
Not just the puck, but a stick can hurt a ton too - lots of stuff flying around in a hockey game that can hurt a fair bit. ---
**Author:** ![Inigo\_Montoya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inigo_montoya/32/124_2.png) [@Inigo\_Montoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inigo_Montoya)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2011, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-female-athletes-wear-a-cup/604051/32 "2011-11-25T21:53:59Z")
> [@R.P.McMurphy](#): > > Most American pro football players don’t wear a cup. They find it to restrictive when running. Seconded (high school). ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2011, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-female-athletes-wear-a-cup/604051/33 "2011-11-26T00:33:36Z")
About breasts, I believe female fencers wear extra padding on one side of their jackets. Doesn’t seem to make much sense to me, though. ---
**Author:** ![AaronX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/7bcc69/32.png) [@AaronX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AaronX)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2011, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-female-athletes-wear-a-cup/604051/34 "2011-11-26T02:54:30Z")
Would they wear one to protect the hymen? ---
**Author:** ![OpalCat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/8edcca/32.png) [@OpalCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OpalCat)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2011, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-female-athletes-wear-a-cup/604051/35 "2011-11-26T02:57:02Z")
> [@AaronX](#): > > Would they wear one to protect the hymen? Seriously? Why would they? ---
**Author:** ![AaronX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/7bcc69/32.png) [@AaronX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AaronX)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2011, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-female-athletes-wear-a-cup/604051/36 "2011-11-26T03:09:41Z")
> [@OpalCat](#): > > Seriously? Why would they? I’m thinking in some cultures it’s very important, and it won’t “heal” like the other structures in that region. Maybe in those cultures women don’t play sport. ---
**Author:** ![OpalCat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/8edcca/32.png) [@OpalCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OpalCat)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2011, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-female-athletes-wear-a-cup/604051/37 "2011-11-26T03:14:13Z")
But the only way I can envision it breaking is if something entered the vaginal canal. Which I can’t see happening with sports. ---
**Author:** ![AaronX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/7bcc69/32.png) [@AaronX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AaronX)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2011, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-female-athletes-wear-a-cup/604051/38 "2011-11-26T03:22:28Z")
I’m pretty sure it can also break with a hit from below, or even while riding a bike. Maybe even a hit by a football from the front? ---
**Author:** ![Lynn\_Bodoni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e47c2d/32.png) [@Lynn\_Bodoni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lynn_Bodoni)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2011, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-female-athletes-wear-a-cup/604051/39 "2011-11-26T03:36:11Z")
I’ve also landed, hard, on a bicycle’s cross bar. I was definitely experiencing quite a bit of pain. As for hymens, supposedly riding astride a horse could break one, or open one, which is why good girls rode sidesaddle. ---
**Author:** ![OpalCat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/8edcca/32.png) [@OpalCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OpalCat)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2011, 3:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-female-athletes-wear-a-cup/604051/40 "2011-11-26T03:53:09Z")
Yeah but things like riding a horse I think are damage that occurs because of a repeated activity, over time. Not the kind of one-off injury that a cup would prevent. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-female-athletes-wear-a-cup/604051.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-female-athletes-wear-a-cup/604051.md?page=3)