In this thread about the difference in pain tolerance between the sexes, the very first reply is:
I don’t intend to pit SmartAleq specifically, since this is something I’ve heard many times from many sources.
The arrogance and ignorance inherent in this attitude has always bugged me. I have no doubt that labor is a pretty unpleasant process, but I doubt it’s some trasncendently painful process that’s so different and so much worse from any other source of pain that men simply can’t comprehend it. It suggests that there’s no pain in the same ballpark to compare it to, that you can’t possibly experience something equivelant or worse.
Let’s ask the guy who had to get battlefield amputation with nothing but a shot of whiskey during the civil war, or the guy who was in Stalingrad for a month in 1942 who survived on 500 calories a day, 2 hours of sleep a night, constant frostbite, and daily battle, or the guy who spent 35 years doing hard manual labor in a coal mine if they think they might be able to endure a few hours of that particular form of pain.
This attitude is even insulting to people of both sexes who’ve suffered pain worse than labor. Do you think the person with daily agony from a terminal disease, whether they be male or female, is going to bow down to your obviously superior pain tolerance because you’ve suffered some rather short term pain?
Get over yourselves. Giving birth is undoubtedly painful. Many things are. It’s not some super pain that defies the comprehension.
If the situation were reversed, and a man were bragging about the superiority of male pain tolerance, he’d be denounced as a male chauvinist, but a woman says it and it’s “RAH RAH GIRL POWER!!!”.
I would like to hear from those (especially women who also beared children) who went through chemotherapy and hear what pain they would rather endure again, if given the choice.
Plus, I want to say, there are two things in there that they just are not even considering. 1., they did it voluntarily, and that is a big freakin’ deal. 2., Supposedly, after it all, you get your gorgeous baby back and have something out of it. The guy who had the battlefield amputation or hell even the woman who had kidney stones, they don’t even get anything nice out of it in exchange.
I don’t know what caused it, I’ve never seen a doctor for it, and now that I’m reaching the age where many women experience menopause, it’s gone away – but I used to get pretty hellish hot flashes. They plagued me through my late 20s and most of my 30s, sometimes on a daily basis.
A few years back, I overheard some women talking about menopause, and one of them said that she’d like to see a man endure hot flashes. They generally agreed that no man would be able to stand it.
The thing is, you endure the pain that life throws at you.
Having given birth without medication, I will say that it is a very unique pain. But let me put it into perspective by placing different things that have happened to me on a scale. Let’s call labour/birth the ultimate pain (I didn’t read the other thread, so I can only assume that was the pitted quote’s point?) and label it a 10, shall we?
Labour/birth: 10
Breaking my toe the first 5 times: 8
Breaking my toe the next 5 times: 6.5
This effing canker sore right in front of my tooth inside my lip: 4
“non-blocking” kidney stone that had me doubled-over and crying in between customer calls: 9
constipation (has only happened to me once in my life): 8
being beaten with the buckle end of a belt: 9.5
being poked in the eye by a baby: 6
needing to sneeze and not being able to and my sinuses are swollen: 5
popping a particularly deep zit: 2
gallbladder going out: 9.5 - 10
getting stuck with an IV: 1 - 8 depending on the tech
gout attack: 1000000000
As you can see, there are things that are more painful than labour/delivery.
I think the point of the argument, however, is that men (at least in my personal experience) do tend to be whinier about their pain than women. Yes, that’s a blanket statement based on my personal experiences. Is it true of all men or all women? No. But battlefield amputations are not “run-of-the-mill” happenings, especially the case mentioned in the OP, whereas L&D is pretty run-of-the-mill.
I find that is precisely the opposite of my own experiences. Frequently I have heard the exchanges
Her: Doesn’t that hurt?
Him: No.
Her: You’re just saying that.
and
Her: Ow!
Him: That didn’t hurt!
Her: Yes it did!
Now I would agree that men tend to be whinier about being ill: stuffed up, viral, feverish, achy, etc. That’s not the same thing as acute pain.
Speaking as somebody who’s had kidney stones, an amputated foot, liver transplant surgery, shockwave lithotripsy, and catheters shoved up the wang, I’m gonna say if kidney stones are on a par with childbirth, women are wimps. But heck, that’s anecdotal too.
I once lost consciousness from pain when I was struck under the nose by a 180-gram frisbee thrown at full velocity. It wasn’t from the impact. It was from the pain. I remember feeling the impact and lying there stunned, then a bloom of the most mind-shattering pain. I thought I was having a stroke. I passed out and later woke up with two black eyes, a busted nose, persistent tinnitus, and a headache that lasted for two weeks. I seriously thought I was going to die from it.
Add me to those that are annoyed by these kind of comments. I’ve been through labor and delivery twice, both times without pain killers, and while it was certainly painful it wasn’t nearly as bad as the pain I felt when I woke up after major surgery. Unless you’ve personally endured every type of pain, you’re not qualified to judge which one is the worst.
Like **tdn **said, you just deal with what’s given you. It really shouldn’t be a contest.
Well, I have to re-iterate that it was a “non-blocking” kidney stone – one that I “shouldn’t even have been able to feel” – and yet to me, it was a pain on par with birth.
I’ll bet men get squared in the nuts, by accident or violence, on average more often in their lives than women go through labour. I’ve certainly been hit good and hard more than 4 times in my life … and while lots of women have never given birth, few lucky men have escaped without being hit in the nuts at one time or another.
Now those two pains no-one on earth is in a position to compare. Though I’ll say this, I personally do not think it is the same - kicked hard in the nuts is (probably) somewhat more acute, but it doesn’t last for hours like labour and it isn’t life-threatening (though you may want to die).
I hear getting punched in the breast is pretty painful as well. Girls seem to like to compare that to getting kicked in the nuts. I’m not really sure girls punch each other in the breast as “gags” or to be otherwise comical as much as guys “ball tap” each other for the same ensuing hilarity.
Nope, but I did have my foot slip off the pedal of the bike while I was climbing a hill, resulting in a resounding WHANG on the bar AND my foot getting run over by the chain and the tire. That sucked. I had to sit on an ice pack and walking and peeing were quite the funtime for about a week.
The thing about labor that sets it apart from other pain is that it can go on for a LONG time (my mom was in hard labor with me for 26 hours and we both almost died,) gets progressively worse, nothing will stop it but an epidural (and if it’s too late in the labor process the epidural can’t be done) and it’s a whole-body experience–there’s no way to localize and isolate the pain because it’s EVERYWHERE and there is no refuge. For me personally, it’s a more terrifying prospect to go through labor than anything else I’ve ever experienced, and I say that as someone who had a dislocated hip requiring a month in traction followed by almost a year of rehabilitation, multiple herniated discs, abcessed teeth that required root canals but which had to just run their course because I didn’t have insurance or the money to get them fixed, multiple Bartholin gland cysts, abdominal surgery and several pretty comprehensive beatings.
Mileage can and does vary, but I stand behind my statement–labor is pretty damned crazy intense and unless you’ve done it you won’t know why it’s a gold standard of pain.
If women had a higher pain tolerance than men, wouldn’t they be the ones giving each other friendly slugs on the arm all the time? “Hey there, Jessica, what’s up! >PUNCH<”
And as someone, I think it was Eddie Murphy, once said, “Getting hit in the nuts is way worse, because you don’t even have to hit nuts. You can just graze nuts, and it hurts.”
This is actually a statement that can seem true because you’re a woman. As a guy, if I’m surrounded by guys doing something like sports, my finger could be smashed, bent in all different directions, and bleeding profusely, and the response would inevitably be “Nah, doesn’t hurt that bad.” However, if I’m with a girl and I get a paper cut “Ouch! That hurts!” at least if I’m interested in getting some attention.
As far as the “men can’t deal with labor pain” or whatever. I’ve also always found it offensive and sexist. Beside the fact that I’ve heard that (and read in this thread too even) that kidney stones are generally at least as painful, and both sexes can have them, it really doesn’t matter. To mirror what someone else said, men can’t feel labor pains, women can’t feel what it’s like to get kicked in the balls.
Either way, I strongly suspect there is little correlation between pain threshold and sex, and that it is more on an individual basis. I remember when I was playing high school football, and I played at various times with a tendonitis in both shoulders (unbelievably pain when I’m hitting someone every 30s for 2 hours), with a broken wrist, on a dislocated hip, you name it. I also remember someone on my team sitting out for a weak because he had a zit (admittedly, it was quite large and disgusting to look at) on his forehead and it was too uncomfortable to wear his helmet.
Really, what kind of messed up world do we live in when the battle of the sexes comes down to whether women are better because they can endure the pain of having their genitals stretched and tore for a few hours, or if men are better because they can endure the pain of have their genitals crushed between a fast moving boot and their pelvis? What happened to the good old days of “women have better language skills” and “men have better spacial relationship skills”?
FTR, being kicked in the nuts is not terribly unlike how you’re describing labor pains. I’ve never been directly kicked there, but I have had a few grazes (like an accidental elbow or whatever). It is absolutely a full body experience that completely paralyzes the body, makes me feel nauseous, and even makes my head hurt. Beyond that, it’s a completely different kind of pain, than like, say, a broken bone, a migraine, or whatever.
The real differences, of course, are that being kicked in the balls doesn’t last for hours, but unlike giving birth, it can happen at any time, it is never expected or planned (unless, maybe you’re on Jackass) so you can’t brace yourself or be mentally prepared, and there’s absolutely no way to avoid it.
My GF was in labor for 70 hours with her first child. As well, she got pretty much torn to shreds “down there”, and her obstetrician’s response to it was “Oh, just get over it” and sewed her up with a rusty needle and twine.
That’s a sort of pain I won’t sign up for anytime soon.
FWIW, the obstetrician was a woman who has since transferred to plastic surgery.
Though I’ll say this, I personally do not think it is the same - kicked hard in the nuts is (probably) somewhat more acute, but it doesn’t last for hours like labour and it isn’t life-threatening (though you may want to die).