The ultimate battle between the sexes is about to be settled right here in this article. Anytime this question is brought up it sparks great debate and it never ends well. We shall discuss in depth the two and come to a final conclusion. What hurts more; giving birth, or getting kicked in the testicles?
A DEL is a supposed measure of pain. Studies claim that childbirth produces 57 DEL and getting kicked in the balls produces 9000 DEL. Funnily enough, the maximum amount of DEL of pain a human can experience is 45. Shocking, right? So how can human pain exceed the human limit of pain? We must first understand what pain is.
What is pain?
The specialized nerve that allows us to feel pain is called a Nociceptor. These neurons fire signals to the brain once a large enough stimulus acts on them. To test this, try putting a pin on your arm so that it is just touching. It shouldn’t hurt at all, but once you start pressing down harder and harder, eventually you start to feel pain. At this point the Nociceptors start to respond to the stimulus which is the pain threshold.
So why do we feel different levels of pain?
When Nociceptors fire signals; the signals never vary in size, they are always the same, so surely that means we can only feel one level of pain… not quite. Imagine firing a gun; the gun is the Nociceptor and the bullet is the signal. The frequency at which we fire the gun determines how much damage is done to the object you are shooting. Firing one bullet in 5 seconds does less damage than firing 20 at the same object. The same applies with these neurons; rapid firing of signals means you feel a lot more pain than if very infrequent signals are fired.
Childbirth and Ball kicking both increase the frequency of signals significantly, so who wins?
Male vs. Female
The Testicles
Testicles are very precious organs. In fact, due to them being so precious they are coated in Nociceptors which is why they are so sensitive to pain. After all, they are completely exposed to the outside world and are our only way of reproducing. This is why any kind of a direct blow to them is going to trigger incredibly frequent signals via the Nociceptors causing:
• Pain
• Nausea
• Sweating
• High blood pressure
Many nerves in the testicles are connected to the stomach and the Vagus nerve in the central nervous system. This is why pain spreads to the stomach after receiving a blow; with feelings of nausea accompanied by sweating and high blood pressure.
The Uterus
Hold your horses though; despite women not experiencing a ‘direct blow’ to any organs, the uterus, especially the vaginal opening, are covered in Nociceptors and are very responsive to stimuli that cause pain. Since the size of a baby is to pass through a hole the size of a ring – it also triggers these neurons all over the place at a high frequency, causing immense pain – not to mention labour lasts on average 8 hours. As the baby slowly passes through, the stretching of muscles also causes sharp localised pain.
So who wins?
The problem with comparing the measurement of pain, DEL, from individual to individual is that everyone reacts to it differently. For example, someone could be in agony from a certain stimulus while someone else receiving the same stimulus feels barely anything. This is why the measurement of DEL is incredibly inaccurate hence why both childbirth and getting a blow to the balls supposedly exceeds the amount of pain a human can feel, on this scale.
Due to this problem, there is no stable and reliable way of measuring pain which can be generalized for everyone.
It can be easily concluded that both hurt a lot. How much each one hurts each individual varies so this one is going to have to be a tie. Disappointing, I admit. I know you came here to find a winner to prove a point from here on, but unfortunately there is no definitive answer.
This result may have let you down, but don’t fret. Do check out my other posts and leave a follow as I may end up impressing you in the future!
Until next time, take care.
~ Mystifact
I think there are more than a few woman who would disagree with this haha
A tie is the best result for both sides in my opinion!
depends on how hard you get kicked LOL
Agreed. There are many many factors affecting this hence why the question cannot be answered!