Thursday, November 29, 2007

Pain/Gender Equivalencies



I wonder if there is a pain for women that is equivalent to the pain of a male getting one in the groin? Is there some instance in female life that causes them the same dull, all encompassing, indescribable and very debilitating pain that comes from a blow to the testicles. Judging by what research data I have gathered through casual discourse throughout my life, there is no equivalent; it appears to be uniquely male. Sure sure there will always the girl in gym class who gets hit in the breast by a volleyball and says it hurts just as bad, but the mere fact that she is coherent enough to make an argument like that spoils her little ruse. If that were a boy who got hit in the child factory with the same ball at the same force, there would be no sounds other than faint moans, and certainly no coherent thought processes traveling across the synapses.

There is also the school of thought that likes to compare childbirth pain to the aforementioned boy pain. I guess they don't necessarily compare it in exact likeness, more they say, "well, that may hurt, but what about having a baby? That hurts." I bet it does hurt. I bet it hurts more than any pain I will ever feel in my entire life (barring any run ins with a gun and my knee caps), but I doubt it offers the same sensation of having Burt and Ernie smashed on a bicycle top tube.

Maybe this is where I am wrong and the pain of child birth is in fact an extremely intense version of the male pain. Perhaps women really are experiencing this pain but in such a different environment and circumstance that it renders the feeling in a different psychological light that gives the woman more strength to maintain a certain amount of composure so that the duty of childbirth can still be accomplished. I still tend to think that the pain from childbirth is different (although unfathomable) and that it is an issue of apples and oranges; they are two different flavors of pain.

One conclusion I can extrapolate from this thought experiment is that women and men are very different in both physiology and psychology. Well, I guess this isn't the end all confirmation. I should say it is yet another confirmation that women and men really are assembled differently. I also know that even though I sometimes wish a girl could feel that same feeling of the worst diarrhea of your life mixed with the worst stomach ache of your life mixed with the worst genital pain in your life mixed with all of that all over your whole body, I realize how mean that is to wish such an awkward pain on someone else. I certainly don't want to experience the pains of childbirth so I guess that is where the fair trade is: both sexes don't want to experience the unique pain of the other sex.

Toblogs picture is a picture to remind me of the good times of summer: Yet another Joshua Tree Picture.

1 comment:

napalmbrain said...

I think that the sum total of pain for a woman having an average number of kids and pit it against the sum total of pain for a man getting an average number of shots to the junk, the pain level would be comparable.