I looked after my very pregnant sister for about a week during the day while my brother-in-law was unable to get time off from his job (and the MUCH needed paycheck). Watching her suffer through discomfort and pains, dragging about my nephew in her belly, day in and day out, then go into contractions for almost 48 hours until she was born (almost as long as I took MY mother!)… :eek:
Then I start reading this thread, and seeing how the women posting therein describe various related bodily functions and how it pains them so…
I hope this doesn’t offend the fairer sex reading this, but all of this made me thank GOD I was born a guy. At the same time, it made me wonder just how the hell y’all handle it. It’s just amazing to me. I salute you all for surviving these things with such general grace and dignity! Maybe the stereotype of women being more peaceable comes from the fact that they KNOW what real pain and discomfort can be, and are thus more hesitant about applying it to others… Hmmmm.
Anyway, to women everywhere, salud!
(If I made offense, I apologize; please take this post in the spirit in which it was intended!)
Yeah, well, keep this in mind next time you are irritated with your mom, sister, girlfriend, or wife when you are irritated with them for PMSing, or spending too much on cute shoes, or taking too long to get ready. It’s all part and parcel of womanhood. Of which I am proud and glad to be a member of, and would go through birth 10 more times if I had to, and be happy about it. I love being a woman and wouldn’t be a man for nothin’.
Actually, I have no idea how we do it. Surely there must be SOME dastardly physical drawback to being a guy that will even out the aggravation of approximately 30 years of monthly periods and all the associated mess and yuck.
Make me happy, gents. Tell me you get your junk caught in your zipper once a month.
Remember, they don’t have multiple orgasms. And then, often, age isn’t very kind to Mr. Happy. Not that I’m pleased about it, but the boys do have some problems, too.
Oh piffle. You only have to shave your face, and you don’t actually HAVE to, you could grow a beard. You don’t have to shave your underarms, legs, bikini line and anywhere else on your body hair grows inconveniently. (And no, I don’t really HAVE to either, but the social consequences of not doing so are far greater than your hirsute face would incur.)
You shave your chin, upper lip, jaw, and maybe some of your neck.
I shave my armpits, my ankles, calves, shins, knees, thighs and tend to hair in miscellaneous other places ON TOP OF the assorted monthly blood related crap.
That shaving thing isn’t a drawback to being male. That’s a shared irritation. Granted, I probably have to tend to the body hair less often than you have to tend to your chin, but 5-15 minutes of shaving a day isn’t quite the same as constant pain, gushing blood, uncontrolable mood swings, cravings, gushing blood, upset stomach, gushing blood, cramps, headaches and gushing blood.
SURELY there’s some other serious drawback to being a male. I know there must be one.
Yes it is. Sex is optional too, btw. And it’s not like there’s plenty of precautions, and even actions that can be taken in the unlikely event said precautions fail.
About a five year shorter life span and nineteen out of twenty deaths on the job, for a start.
Personally I think we’re owed some kudos in that this is largely down to what we do, and perhaps could choose not to do if we were more self-interested, rather than to being born with a reproductive system that is occasionally recalcitrant and achieving the heroic feat of actually living through it.
When I was first learning about men and puberty, I thought myself so bloody lucky that I had a period once a month but I never ever had to worry about having an erection in front of the class.
There’s a lot of crap that goes along with being female but I’ve been lucky enough to never have soak-through bleeding, so I called it a win.
I tried growing a beard years ago but it itched so bloody much I couldn;t stand it, off it came.
I agree, you don’t have to shave so why do it?. Don’t pamper to the fickle whims of fashion :dubious:
I often think about this too. But I think of it more as the hassle women go through just to look good for us Men.
If I were a woman I would be thinking to myself: “Whoever came up with these ideas such as make-up, highheelded shoes and tweezing; needs to be taken out back and flogged with a rubber garden hose.”
But I’m NOt a woman so…
HA-ha! /Nelson from the Simpsons
Meh. For me, personally, with my back in the state it’s in, I don’t bother most of the time. But the rest of the time because it bloody itches. Same as you!
So I wear pants, no one sees my (slowly atrophying, pale uber white) legs or their corresponding hair except the hubby, and … well.
Cons of being female;
[ul]
[li]The Gushing monthlies (band name!)[/li][li]Pain accompanying gushing monthlies[/li][li]Mood swings accompanying gushing monthlies[/li][li]Facial hair, mood swings, inability to regulate body temperature etc. that accompany the end of the gushing monthlies [/li][li]Pregnancy (it’s a tumor with a brain. Think about it.)[/li][li]Birth[/li][li]Societal pressures to be thin, beautiful etc etc. [/li][li]Being stereotyped as weak etc. [/li][/ul]
Cons of being male;
[ul]
[li]Stauners in public[/li][li]Inability to get stauner in private due to age/nerves[/li][li]Being stereotyped as selfish, lazy bastards[/li][li]Fewer resources for help regarding health etc. compounded by inability to discuss very private problems candidly[/li][li]Lots of pressure from society to ‘man up’[/li][/ul]
Pros of being female
[ul]
[li]Multiple orgasms[/li][li]5000 nerves endings in an area about the size of a 5c piece (Aus)[/li][li]Nerves which extend back towards the spine covering an inner canal[/li][li]Ability to be lazy during sex and still have a good tiime[/li][li]TITS![/li][/ul]
Pros of being male
[ul]
[li]Ability to pee standing up[/li][li]Ability to orgasm in at least one situation is guaranteed, not genetically decided[/li][li]Orgasms tend to be more powerful[/li][li]Get to play with TITS![/li][/ul]
And yes, it does seem like I’m biased towards being female or females having it harder but that’s only because I only know what it’s like to be female and am guessing with the male ones. Feel free to add.
Eh, being a girl isn’t all that bad. Menstruation can be controlled with birth control or a hysterectomy if it’s bad enough. There are some people who have experienced both who say that the pain of a kidney stone is even worse than childbirth, so men are definitely not off the hook on the pain issue (and there’s no reward at the end for passing a kidney stone the way that most people are happy once their kid is born).
More downsides to being a guy:
-Getting kicked in the crotch is apparently sort of a big deal for men
-From what I hear, a man could end up paying child support for a kid only to find out on its 18th birthday that it’s not even his
-Men seem to be at the mercy of their sexual urges to a much greater degree than women are. You don’t often see women hanging out in the shady part of town to pick up some toothless, disease-ridden prostitute or see female politicians throwing away their political careers for the sake of shtupping some young male bimbo.
-Even if an individual man isn’t particularly sex-crazed, people are quick to assume that is a guy’s motive for everything.
-The pressure to have to be a “provider” is probably a bit of a drag. Working for a living is not much fun. Most people can accept it whether a woman wants to be a CEO or a housewife, but yet would think it was weird if a man wanted to be a “house-husband”.
-In the dating scene, there’s the expectation that a guy should be a “gentleman” and pay for everything but yet if he expects anything in return for the money he spent he’s a horrible creep.
-Men are expected to get into physical fights more often than females are. I can remember, growing up, people would encourage my brother to hit back when he was bullied. He was hurt pretty badly in some cases (even once getting hit on the head with a baseball bat). In my own case, I was able to survive on the playground simply by hurling sarcastic remarks.
There are good sides and bad sides to both sexes in my view. I’m pretty happy being a girl.
