Poll: Who has a higher pain tolerance; Men or Women

Angilion

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Nov 22, 2009
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AC10 said:
I'm pretty sure it varies from person to person.
It does, but there's an overall average.

It's like height - there's a lot of variation between individuals and it's not uncommon for a specific woman to be taller than a specific man, but the average height of men is larger than the average height of women.
 

Brandon237

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Men are better suited for fighting, exercise, things along those lines. Sexual dimorphism will (logically) also then say that they handle pain better. But it does vary a LOT from individual to individual.
 

GeorgW

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Aug 27, 2010
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Well, since my GF sucks, scratches and bites on me and she can't even handle it when I nibble on her ear, I'd say men.

AccursedTheory said:
Men.

Women have almost twice as many pain receptors as men. The only way they can make it through child birthing is by automatic doping in the brain.

Also, if I remember correctly, men have a larger adrenal gland, which helps to ignore pain in high stress scenarios.
Fact. You can't refute that!
 

Tsaba

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Oct 6, 2009
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men,
Do not watch link if you have a faint heart or weak stomach
 

DefunctTheory

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SirBryghtside said:
AccursedTheory said:
Bara_no_Hime said:
Weird. Most of the people posting on the thread say men, but women are winning the vote.

Yeah, gonna have to go with women on this one. You men are big, studly babies when it comes to the long-term pain department.

Quick pain (like a punch)? Maybe you win there. But for anything sustained, we kick your ass.

You know those leg cramps you get that can drop you to the ground hissing (ala the dad from Family Guy)? We get those in our abdomens, once a month, for three-four days. Yeah.
Ever seen the effects of chronic pain on females and males?

I have. I've spent quite a bit of time in pain therapy, and I can say, from experience, females handle it much worse, abusing pain medication at a higher rate when most men, who refuse the meds in the first place.
Are you sure that's to do with pain tolerance? It could easily be men trying to be MANLY, while the women haven't got that stigma.
I'm in the Army. Everyones trying to be tough here.

Though, admittedly, there are some flaws with the assumption I'm making. Most of the people in the Pain Clinic (Yeah, thats what it's called) are there for spinal damage, an aliment that is, typically, hard to impossible to treat with meds.

Unless your just getting too stoned to tell if your in pain, which was the case with a female I know. But I wont use her as any sort of example. She's bat shit crazy.

Interestingly enough, I just ran across an article that says more women have chronic pain then men. But it was due to hormonal shifts and shitty bodies.
GeorgW said:
Well, since my GF sucks, scratches and bites on me and she can't even handle it when I nibble on her ear, I'd say men.

AccursedTheory said:
Men.

Women have almost twice as many pain receptors as men. The only way they can make it through child birthing is by automatic doping in the brain.

Also, if I remember correctly, men have a larger adrenal gland, which helps to ignore pain in high stress scenarios.
Fact. You can't refute that!
Well, most of it.

Tsaba said:
men,
Do not watch link if you have a faint heart or weak stomach
Soldiers (Male) have, in certain cases, displayed the ability to continue action despite various injuries, including massive blood loss, loss of a limb, brain injuries (IE, shit poking INTO their brain), etc.

I've never seen females do that, but it's likely they could. Just don't have too many females running around high intensity war zones.
 

NezumiiroKitsune

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Women generally, I can only assume it's through experiencing prolonged inevitable bouts of pain on a regular basis from puberty. It's possible this lead to a lower natural frequency of impulses per positive axon through genetics. It can be "taught" however, anyone who experiences daily chronic pain will adjust to dealing with it, depending on severity. In the case of Cluster Headache sufferers for example, it's impossible to accurately imagine what they have to deal with with scheduled regularity. My best wishes go out to them, and hopes for a cure.
 

Colour Scientist

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Jul 15, 2009
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DeadSp8s said:
we're not even allowed to hit women. it's clearly men.

they complain about having babies as being painful. babies aren't that big.
Compared to the hole they come out of they are.
And there's the possibility of third degree tears, oh God, the third degree tears.
 

Daaaah Whoosh

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I remember that old joke about women in movies having to stop what they're doing because they "broke a nail." I'm not sure exactly what that means, but when I break one of my fingernails, it fucking hurts.
 

RuralGamer

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I would say its less about sex and more about the individual, plus I think different people react differently to different kinds of pain; back in January I put an axe through my fingers when chopping kindling. That pain wasn't too bad for me and within a few hours, I didn't notice it despite it still being there, even though the marks still haven't fully gone away. On the other hand, I find razor rash intolerable (I'm scratching some the now); the stuff on the edge of the jaw is worst for me.
 

Pistachio101

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AccursedTheory said:
Men.

Women have almost twice as many pain receptors as men. The only way they can make it through child birthing is by automatic doping in the brain.

Also, if I remember correctly, men have a larger adrenal gland, which helps to ignore pain in high stress scenarios.
I saw this thread and thought I'd mention about the no. of pain receptors thinking it was a little known fact. Then I see it mentioned in the second reply. I guess it isn't then.
 
Feb 13, 2008
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Angilion said:
Why didn't any of the consultants I've seen for my permanent pain(*) mention anything of the sort?
Because they're consultants, that's why they get paid. Assuming you are a woman, hard to tell on the 'net, they still have limits as well - ask any woman who's had a long birth.

You don't even realise that manflu is a sexist stereotype - you're using a sexist stereotype as proof of a sexist stereotype and you don't realise why that is not rational thought.
Because it isn't. There's scientific proof that estrogen fights the rhinovirus, mostly because women create the child's immuno-supressancy. There's also hard proof that men's bodies are built to withstand pain better (Musclature - Thyroid growth). And that while men only have 2 main hormones that keep steady states, women have several that are fluxing constantly.

It's ALSO a stereotype, but like a lot of stereotypes, it's just an exaggeration of the truth. The Rhinovirus is beaten by the immune system pushing it out, which is experienced by most women once a month; but almost never by a guy (apart from illness). That's why it seems to have a marked effect on men because they're simply not used to it happening to them.

Women, environmentally, rarely grow up with brawling, so they're less used to dealing with sharp stabbing pains that come from pecking order fights. They are more likely, however, to self-diagnose problems, and thus gain more from placebos.

The real problem with pain medicine, which has only recently been revealed is that men and women feel pain differently, due to them having different sized brain sub-sections- even with the same size heads: they develop differently. Most of the research into pain medicine was done in the '70s with MALE rats though, and scientists are now thinking that the stated tolerances ARE sexist, because no-one thought to calibrate for females - as they assumed the reaction was the same.

It's actually quite a new field of study. http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2008/12/23-02.html

I can only give you evidence for what I've experienced, of course. And there are obviously variations to the rules, but Morphine works far better for guys - and that's proven, despite being a sexist stereotype.
 

TheTurtleMan

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I don't like the childbirth arguement because it is completely unfair. Of course men will never feel the pain of childbirth, but that doesn't mean we couldn't take the pain if we had to. It's not like woman sit there on the hospital bed stonefaced without signs of pain. No, they scream and cry trying to push the bastard out like a guy would.

That said I think women are better at dealing with sickness, although for external pain I think men can take more.
 

Angilion

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Nov 22, 2009
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InnerRebellion said:
Childbirth and periods make their arguments invalid, because only they can experience those.
True. It's like a man arguing that obviously men have a higher pain tolerance than women because women can't be hit in the balls.

Actually, it's worse than that because at least that man would be right by mistake.

There have been many tests into pain tolerance and threshold. It's not like the results are unknown.

Of course, reality doesn't stop people believing the opposite is true because it matches the prejudices they've been conditioned to have. It's even normal for people to genuinely believe that their opinion is supported by evidence when it's just popular prejudice. You can see it in this thread - many people have claimed that there are numerous scientific studies showing that women have a higher pain tolerance than men. They may all be lying, but I'd bet that at least some of them believe it despite the fact that they have never seen this studies (because they don't exist) and they can't refer to them (because they don't exist).
 

Joe Deadman

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Jan 9, 2010
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Well it's definetly not terminators because they lack the feeling of pain and thus have no threshold for it whatsoever.

I'm probably going to go with men except when it comes to pregnancy due to the endorphins.