Gender Differences in Pain.

[The Funslinger]

Here's a question. What hurts more, giving birth, or being kicked in the nuts?

(...i believe there's joke about it...)
Kick in the nuts is more painful. How do we know it ?
Because some women want to have another baby immediately after giving birth, and there's no single documented occurence of anyone wishing to be kicked in the nuts again.

Actually, male masochists.

OT: Yeah, I basically said the pain thing was BS. Women have more pain receptors than men. During childbirth, they shut those out and they're stewing in dopamine, so... yeah.

 

[KefkaCultist]

That we only use 10% of our brain is a pretty common thing I see people throwing around them.
I believe that was proven to be false a long time ago, though I don't have any sources.

It's because the other 90% is blocked with curds and whey. (har har Scott Pilgrim reference)

My mother practically lives off of old wives tales and it annoys the piss out of me.

"don't go outside in the cold or else you'll get sick"
-too bad sickness is due to viruses or bacteria and not temperature

 

[CrazyGirl17]

I kinda think it depends on the person. That and I'm a female with a fairly low tolerance for pain.

 

[Robert Ewing]

Well, i'm going to use logic to solve this one.

Pain originates via stimuli on skin or tissue. Males have more pain receptors than women, so men get 1 point.

The paint travels down the central nervous system, men have slightly more pathways, but not all of them are for pain signals, but it's still enough. 1 point to men.

The pain gets to the part of the brain that causes the sensation of pain, I did a bit of research and it's totally up to the persons brain to which decides whom gets most pain. So I guess that's 1 point each.

The pain then ends up shooting to the afflicted area. The male pain receptors are smaller, so men feel less actual pain, however womens receptors are slightly bigger by comparison, so they feel more profuse pain over a short area, while males feel more spread out pains over a larger area... So I guess you can draw your conclusions about who gets the most pain. Because personally I'd go for the smaller area of pain being more painful, but it's up to you.

NOTE: I'm using complete base examples of a male and female, so please don't flame me about the possibility of their being female body builders that can take a horse shoe to the face without flinching, I don't care.

 

[Use_Imagination_here]

Can we just agree that women being 90 % better at not going insane and murdering a bunch of people is good enough?

 

[Zio_IV]

I think it depends on the individual.

Having been in the military (as well as having had a pretty active childhood), I have been able to safely ascertain that my tolerance for pain is fairly high compared to all the other people I've seen who were in similar states of distress. Out of all those situations, I would see women who were tougher than some of the men, as well as men who were tougher than some of the women. Though I have a high pain threshold, I think it was just the card I, myself, was dealt, rather than something inherent to the male gender.

 

[Beliyal]

Men's pain threshold is higher because we beat each other for a decade. Women, on the other hand, start squealing about pain the moment you firmly grip their wrist.

In most cases we squeal because we know that squealing will force you to leave us, and not because we're actually in pain. Squealing is an annoying sound that a lot of living beings use to make the attacker back off. Usually, it's not because of real (or any) pain, but a preventive way to get out of the grip before it becomes painful or dangerous. Culture teaches us that it's okay if a woman squeals, but not okay if a man does. Which is ridiculous of course and only based on cultural norms, and not on our biological difference for pain threshold.

I don't really understand why one gender must have a higher pain threshold. I honestly can't say that I've ever noticed the difference in how men and women perceive pain and I'm pretty sure it depends on the person, not on their gender. Men are of course, sadly, usually forced to not tell anyone if they're hurt (mentally or physically), while women are expected to do so. Which makes no sense biologically whatsoever, especially not today when you don't have to fight with your tribesmen for the role of the leader. Some people have a higher pain threshold, some don't. It depends on the type of pain too. What dangles between their legs is completely irrelevant. The only way to test that would be if we gathered and questioned all people on Earth and then made a statistic. And even then, that would be just a statistic. So I'd like people to stop spewing this "women/men have a higher pain threshold". It means absolutely nothing either way, because there will always be people who don't fit the statistic and in the end, we're left with pain threshold being a personal thing, and not a gender one.

 

[Exius Xavarus]

I think its more about gender roles that still exist (edit: they do, if you think they don't, go outside and listen to people), so people have a confirmation bias. If they see a woman dealing with pain, they'll think "that's normal, women can do that" whereas if they see a no doubt fine male specimen such as myself (trollololol) dealing with pain they'll just think its the exception because of a preconceived notion.

Or more, "women give birth, that has to hurt," and therefore assume that women have a high pain threshold.

Child birth doesn't give women a higher threshold, it simply means they experience a large amount of it at one time. Whatever women are saying they have a higher threshold than men because of child birth, don't actually understand what a pain threshold actually is.

Here's a question. What hurts more, giving birth, or being kicked in the nuts?

Neither one of them, and both of them, are worse than the other. They're gender specific pains, thus a man cannot experience child birth and a woman cannot experience being kicked in the nuts. Both genders are going to say each pain is worse than the other because neither gender can experience the other form of pain.

 

[Something Amyss]

Child birth doesn't give women a higher threshold

Which is why I labeled it an assumption.