Again, pain is a subjective experience. Sometimes, there is no obvious physical damage. Dr Paprika, pain is not necessarily accompanied by an inflamatory response (as in migraines for example, IIRC) - we must conclude that such physiological responses are at most components of pain, and not the whole story. We cannot measure the sensation of pain objectively; there’s simply no way to do it.
[For example, would you argue that someone in psychosomatic pain (where you can’t identify a physical cause) isn’t really in pain? That would be solipsistic on your part. Pain is a personal experience: If you think you’re in pain, you are. On the other side of the same coin, people in shock, or under the placebo efect, may have physiological responses that suppress the sensation of pain, like the bradykinins you mention. If someone’s pain receptors are all firing, but their brain doesn’t register it, are they really in pain? I would say no.]
The only thing we can do is induce a standard amount of physical damage and measure the subject’s reported response. Then we have to decide exactly what in this data represents the pain threshhold, which will inevitably be somewhat arbitrary. But we WILL be able to say that one person reports a set amount of damage as more or less severe than another, and derive from that our definition of a “pain threshhold”. Then we can look for correlations with gender. If there’s any other meaningful approach to the question, I don’t see it.
sorry for the hijack, but
Main Entry: so·lip·sism
Pronunciation: 'sO-l&p-"si-z&m, 'sä-
Function: noun
Etymology: Latin solus alone + ipse self
Date: 1874
: a theory holding that the self can know nothing but its own modifications and that the self is the only existent thing
I agree my response was simplistic. In migraine headaches, there is evidence of arterial vasodilation as an inflammatory response. In pain sensitivity syndromes, there is no evidence of inflammation as you imply, there can be differences in the kinin levels (and presumably the difference is in the receptor response). Psychosomatic pain is so different from physical pain it is hard to know how to test it. It might be easier just to take cohorts on actual painful conditions which occur in both sexes, such as kidney stones – even then I doubt you could test this well. Let me look in my Melzack and Wall book again.
If we want to discuss pain thresholds, I think we’re discussing the wrong end of the spectrum. Taken literally, the threshold of pain would be the minimum amount of stimulus that could be sensed. You’re really asking who would feel an itch first, given a minor stimulus. Considering the variables (different types of pain, scarring/condition of the skin or other tissues, possible genetic differences, etc, etc, etc…) I’m sure that any gender difference is insignificant.
I don’t think anyone has been killed by pain alone, so you might have trouble defining a maximum tolerance for pain.
And finally, I am a man and I have withstood more pain than women feel in childbirth, but that’s meaningless here, as is the example of labor.
This is not merely true, the truth of this makes the original question look rather silly.
“Whose experience of pain is more painful, men or women?”
11 out of 14 sadists surveyed said that women were more inclined to agree with the statement that “pain hurts” than men.
In a related debate between social scientists, Dr. Reilly Hertz made the bold assertion that our response to pain is socially conditioned, so that to some individuals the experience of pain is not painful; but Dr. Ophelia Payne pointed out that if it is not painful, it doesn’t constitute pain, and therefore one’s experience of it isn’t relevant when speaking of one’s experience of pain.
Determined to prove that their respective sex could tolerate more pain than the other, a pair of dedicated masochists faced off in a neutral dungeon in the south of Spain yesterday, but neither participant was able to demonstrate that they could endure enough pain to make a person cry without crying, so our judges ruled it a draw.
I grew up as a tomboy and, to this day, I don’t really cry when something physically painful happens to me (not counting when my trick knee goes out from under me…gggeeiiieeishh…!)
But I noticed that where this might be helpful when hanging out with the boys, it isn’t always fun for the boyfriends. So I’ve learned to ‘wuss out’ a little.
In my specific case…my boyfriend isn’t the biggest macho, and was near to tears when he had to have an I.V. for a case of mono.(sounds like Glenolid :P)
I’d put it in myself if I had to…and knew how. :\
Long story short, in my case, I intentionally try to be weak-ish. Being soft is a characteristic of femininity. And although I think he likes having a g/f he can wrestle with and sit on…I imagine there’s some attraction to a cuddly, vulnerable shnookums.
]
BTW, anyone care to expound on the thing about blue-eyed people? About them having a higher tolerance to pain? I’ve never heard of it…maybe I should start a new thread…?
And…anyone know for sure if anyone’s died purely from pain?