A Testicular Blow is Not More Painful Than Childbirth
The Claim
A testicular blow is more painful than childbirth
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Emerging story
The claim is a key component in, and is therefore potentially as old as, the “battle of the sexes” itself: a term which goes back about 50 years. More recently, the claim has been popular on social media where it can be traced back almost a decade just on Twitter.
Misbar’s Analysis
Misbar’s investigation into this claim reveals it to be false. Overall, it seems that there’s no clear scientific answer to the question of which act is more painful. First of all, medicine has not been able to come up with an objective measurement of pain, and all ‘pain scales’ are subjective, based on individual pain tolerance. Second of all, comparing testicular and birthing trauma is nearly impossible since the one involves an unanticipated and intense but brief flash of pain that subsides relatively quickly, while the other is anticipated for nine months, comes and goes, and lasts for at least several hours. Due to this variety of competing factors, the video that ASAPScience created to investigate this question ruled that it was a tie.
