The above post was sarcastic in nature and not judgemental. No offense was intended, shrew, only humor.
b.
Yeah, pretty much. But if you’ll bend over backwards and allow me to administer a swift but sturdy kick to the nards for experimentation’s sake, we can test my lame theory.
Sheesh, and I went back and posted a disclaimer and everything, just to show I wasn’t being nasty. Sure, Shrew. bring it on. I’ll even strip down to my underdrawers for you to make it easy.
Because I’m willing to back up what I say with something other than “I think this so pay attention because I must be right!”
Jesus, I can’t believe I even made a point of saying “no offense intended” and I get this.
:wally
b.
This is way TMI, but here goes: I am two weeks downstream from a surgical invasion of my genitals–I will reserve a discusion of the exact reason for a future thread.
When I emerged from surgery, my scrotum was approximately the size of a baseball–a purple, black, yellow, greenish colored baseball. Due to a history of addiction to narcotic based pain pills, I was allowed only some second rate pain killers, plus some anti-inflamatory pills. The swelling is diminished and the color is back to normal, but damnitall, I still hurt pretty near constantly.
In my wasted youth, I managed to get myself kicked in the groin a couple of times. I would say that the pain of getting kicked was about equal to the pain from the surgery, except the pain from the surgery was/is much longer lasting.
Although I haven’t experienced childbirth, obviously, I doubt the normal delivery would be significantly more painful than what I just went through. Tell you what, though—if one or more women will volunteer to impregnate me, I will publish a point-by-point comparison.
Huh. I just don’t recall any pregnant women saying “hey, gimme some pain, I’m feeling altruistic today.” The pain is an undesirable side effect of being pregnant/giving birth. In fact, a lot of women seek ways to reduce the pain of childbirth. Saying a pregnant women “chooses” to experience pain is like saying a man “chooses” to be impotent. Not under control, and the person involved would rather avoid the problem entirely.
And somewhere, a woman is saying let’s NOT make a baby.
Shrew, I’m surprised at this masochistic stance you posted
C’mon Shew - women don’t “elect” the pain of childbirth, it’s an unavoidable side effect of the process. If women “elected” to experience this pain there would be no cries of “Gimme an epidural you son of a bitch motherfucker!” in the delivery room. MOST women elect for painkiller when in pain.
And if the women don’t ask for it, the men often do. While I’m sure there are exceptions, all the men I know who have witnessed the “miracle of birth” have commented at length on pain aspect, commonly saying “I don’t think I could handle it.” Truth is, yeah, they could handle it if they had to. The pain of childbirth (like getting kicked in the nuts) is bad, but the pain alone won’t kill you.
Yes, we’ve noticed
Let me just say there isn’t anything “enobling” about suffering. Pain sucks. It’s horrible. That’s why we have asprin and morphine and epidurals and general anesthia. If there was a magic elixir that allowed a woman to go through childbirth feeling no pain whatsoever (that didn’t cause horrific side effects) women would use it.
Women aren’t superior because they endure childbirth any more than men are superior because they own prostates. This is exactly the sort of pissing contest folks need to get past in order to gain a true appreciation for both genders.
Ever watch “Jackass”?
Shrew - Have you ever given birth?
I have had three babies, one was natural childbirth (not that I planned it that way). They all hurt like a motherfucker. Felt like I was being skinned from the inside, that everything from my brains to my toes was being ripped out. Nothing has ever come close to hurting that bad.
Claiming that childbirth or crotch crunching is the worst pain imaginable is almost as stupid as arguing over which hurts, having your eyeballs carved with red hot, poison dipped cactus quills or having your toenails slowly peeled off as grain alcohol is poured on top.
I would gladly take childbirth or a kick in the balls (if I had them) over either one of them or a long list of other tortures.
I am so sorry, Billy!!! This is one of those times where tone definitely did not come across in writing. I was COMPLETELY KIDDING. Geez, I can totally see how that looked like I was being a dick. Geez. When I called my theory lame, I meant it. And when I said for you to bend over, I was playing off the idea of a guy taking a kick to the nard’s for altruism’s sake. Wow, that one sooooooooo didn’t come off the way I wanted.
ALL APOLOGIES. SERIOUSLY.
Don’t be too hard on yourself, Shrew. I, for one, have had real fun watching this thread develop. I did get a little involved in trying to chill things with humor, but then just let it happen. To be honest, I thought you were way off base with your first couple of posts, but even then, I had to admire your spunk. Plus, you scared the crap out of me! But to see you throttle back, in the Pit even, only increased my respect for you.
PS - If we ever meet IRL, don’t take offense if I’m covering my privates!
That’s very sweet of you, wisest novel, but honestly I’m not the kind of woman who wants to be respected for being a bitch. I’d rather be respected for being fair and rational. This thread has NOT helped me toward that goal at all. LOL.
And please don’t feel as if you have to protect the jewels. I promise I find nard-kicking barbaric and rarely appropriate. 
First of all, you made excellent points. Secondly, I do think that women choose pain. Women choose, in most cases, to breed, with which comes pain…but this is more of a hijack than this thread needs.
An excellent point certainly worth repeating.
Diane, I’ve already answered this question, but I certainly don’t mind answering it again. No, I have no children (Aha! says Diane), but I did work Labor and Delivery for two years during which I assisted with approximately 400 deliveries.
Well, let me just throw a little fuel on the fire, for kicks I guess. Two things- my sex ed teach, a mother of three, told us that a kick in the nuts is more painful than childbirth. I have no reason to doubt her. Maybe we could qualify that by say that childbirth lasts longer, so the pain is not quite as intense, it just sticks around, for hours instead of minutes. Secondly, I have heard that childbirth is more painful than it has to be for many women because they are trained to anticipate incredible pain. If everyone you know tells you that it’s going to suck, it’s going to suck. Women in other societies have a much easier time because that is the cultural norm. I’m sure it’s still no walk in the park, tho.
A few more asides- a woman’s body is designed for childbirth, while the prime directive of every sane man is to avoid any trauma to the nads. And finally, the few times I have been hit in the balls, I would have gladly taken an epidural.
Just one minor nit. If you reread my post, I think you’ll see it was your ability to “throttle back” (ie, be rational) I pointed out as something worth respect. Your ability with the napalm gun is, I would say, best described with the word “awe”.
Wow. My ability to communicate and interpret has obviously gone haywire. I read “throttle back” as “fight back”. Ya know…to “throttle” someone meaning to “hit”.
I’m going to bed now before the university revokes my language degrees.
I’m gonna give you a walk on this one. Be more careful. Notice my post above: I read it upon posting, then re-posted to make damned sure it was clear I was being humorous.
And while I’ve been kicked in the nads, you haven’t (or so you say) had a baby. So you don’t belong in the discussion anyway except as an observer, as a combatant, “witnessing” childbirth doesn’t give you credentials. I’ve “witnessed” childbirth too, it doesn’t give me the ability to judge how much pain it is.
b.
Now, there’s something I hadn’t heard of before:eek:
At what point would my opinion begin to matter? Only when I’ve had a baby? This opens a whole new can of hijacks, don’t you think? Can someone have a legitimate opinion on an experience they’ve never personally had? Can a white person comment on the “black experience”? Or vice versa? Can a man comment on the “female experience”?
No?
I thought that type of philosophy was outdated simply because the different “experiences” themselves are not homogenous enough to label under one heading.
And thank you for the walk, Billy.
Look at my post again.
Note carefully where it says “you don’t belong in the discussion except as an observer”.
This is a clear statement. If you have a decent control of the language, you understand that it means you can comment on anything you like so long as you qualify that comment by saying “this is not my personal experience but merely an observation”
All you know about childbirth is what you see.
All you know about being kicked in the jimmy is what you see.
For all you know, all the men who reel and lie on the ground after being kicked in the balls are faking pain, that it actually causes us unbearable ecstasy. For all you know the same can be said for women in childbirth. Maybe that’s why women spend so long at it. But having never experienced either event, you can only make observations based on your observations, not based on your personal experience. That kind of “evidence” is called, by definition, “Anecdotal”
Clearer now?
I’m not sure where you got the idea that I think your opinion doesn’t matter. Certainly it is not written anywhere in my post, and I must say, I tend not to pull punches- read my rants about doctors- if I mean something I come right out and say it. So don’t put words in my mouth, there are more than enough there already- and read what I write, not what you think I mean. Especially don’t comment on what you think I mean; if anything ask me to clarify if you think my meaning is unclear. As far as I am from you, jumping to that kind of conclusion in this kind of thread is probably pretty dangerous.
And girls, don’t flame me because you think I said “childbirth causes women unbearable ecstacy”, read the post futhuchrissakes.
b.
Stop being a dick. shrew was obviously kidding. If the content of her post didn’t tip you off, the fact that she concluded it with “so we can test my lame theory” should have at least made you pause in your holier-than-thou crusade to fuck up a compromise that had already been worked out, just because the conclusion that was reached disagreed with how the result that you wanted.
And then she apologized to you (in bold!) for your own stupidity, and you come back with this hostile crap? Just because you may be incapable of effective communication doesn’t mean that everyone else should have to put themselves out to meet your ridiculous standard.
And by the way, who do you think you are to try to exclude someone’s opinion? Telling shrew she doesn’t ‘belong’ in the discussion because she doesn’t have ‘credentials’? Please. You’re lucky she didn’t rip you a new one after some bullshit like that. You’re lucky she has the class that you lack.
On Preview.
Good Lord. Now you have the nerve to spout some crap about ‘read what I write.’ Have you forgotten (so soon!) that all your crying is only happening in the first place because YOU misinterpeted a post?
Your statement is NOT clear. It is grammatically incorrect. “So you don’t belong in the discussion anyway except as an observer, as a combatant, “witnessing” childbirth doesn’t give you credentials.” is not a complete sentence. The repetition of ‘as an observer, as a combatant’ renders your meaning quite confusing. The only thing that IS clear is your statement ‘you do not belong in this discussion,’ for which you owe an apology, regardless of how you carelessly qualified it. Considering that the only person having trouble interpreting posts in this discussion is you, the burden of clarity is on you.
Second of all, if we take the statement ‘you don’t belong in the discussion except as an observer,’ which YOU tell us is your main point, the idea there is clear too – that shrew’s role in this discussion is to read and not post. Someone whose only role is as an observer is obvioously not a participant. So even if you cut out the parts of your post that don’t make sense, the part that does make sense (and the part that you advocate as a clear expression of your point) is still an attempt to silence shrew’s voice. She got that idea, as did I, from the words that you wrote. Buddy, if you don’t mean it, don’t say it.
Your explanation of anecdotal evidence is one of the dumbest things I’ve heard in a while. Not to mention that the only point it can logically make is the one you’re trying to get out of – that there’s no feasible way to compare the unique types of pain that only men or women can experience. By your logic, the only people that are deemed fit to judge what is more painful is someone who has felt that kind of pain. Since no one person can experience the pain of being kicked in the fully male genitalia AND that of giving birth, the discussion is obviously moot. And yet you keep wanting to prove that you’re right, and that a nuts-strike hurts more.
Or maybe you don’t want to prove that. Maybe you actually agree with the words that you are writing. In that case, what the fuck are you complaining about? Just trying to pick a fight?
Sadly, I don’t expect a coherent response. I expect you’ll come back with some more whininess about people not reading what you write, and about how your prose is a perfect model of clarity, and how my reading comprehension skills are badly in need of remedial work. I’m sure you’ll make some condescending remarks on the order of ‘read my post carefully and maybe you’ll begin to realize that even though what it says is x, what it obviously means is y. Maybe you can get an adult to help you.’
So I’m just gonna trump that bullshit now and tell you again, stop being a dick. Get over yourself.
Oh, and by the way, the above post was what I meant to say and I stand by it. You really are acting like an asshole, Billy Rubin.
:rolleyes:
Well the guy was standing bent over with his, uh, wang and sack behind his legs, so the scrotum was kinda under pressure when he got kicked there.
Back to your regularly scheduled hijack…
Please use the copy/paste feature to show where I told Shrew she could not join in this discussion. Oh, you can’t? Then shut the fuck up.
My point is that Shrew by virtue of her “experience” “Watching” other women give birth feels somehow that she has credentials to discuss what it “feels” like. She does not. She can talk all she wants about what she sees, but she doesn’t have the ability to talk about how it feels, hence my comment “in this discussion” you can only offer “anecdotal” evidence. I did not in any way seek or intend to prevent her from offering that anecdotal or observed “evidence”, only to point out exactly what it was.
Had I said “you don’t deserve to be a part of this discussion” that would be a different thing. I did clearly not, you are reading what you think I’m saying rather than what I’m saying. If my grammar isn’t perfect, so be it. I’m more than adequately skilled at getting my point across. I never claimed to be a grammatician, if there is such a word. Hence, as you completely missed the point as one might suspect, I had no intention of excluding anyone from the discussion, I merely pointed out, correctly, that her points in the discussion were observational and anecdotal rather than relating to real experience.
And I don’t have crusades, holier than thou or otherwise, thank you very much. As you don’t know bubkhis about me, you couldn’t possibly know what I’m thinking, whether I’m holier than thou, or not. I suspect not, I tend to be an evil bastard, so if anyone is holier than anyone, you are holier than me, deal with it.
You can accuse me of being a dick all you want. Thanks!!
b.