15 Times People Were Very, Very, Very Incorrect About Women's Anatomy
That's why when Redditor u/Sad-Opening-6531 asked, "What is the worst case of someone not understanding women's anatomy you have experienced?" women were more than happy to share the most unhinged misconceptions they had ever heard about their own anatomy. From blue period blood to constant lacation — here are 15 of their most shocking responses:
1."I was dating a guy who suddenly became very conservative and anti-abortion. He was also anti-birth control because, according to him, 'It's like getting an abortion every month.'"
"I tried to tell him that birth control keeps sperm from reaching the egg or stops the fertilized egg from implanting. However, he interrupted me to say, 'That's ridiculous. Women don't have eggs, they're not chickens.'
I then asked him how he thought human babies were made and he said, 'The sperm goes up the vagina, into the ovary, and grows the baby.'
He could not answer what the uterus was or what it did."
—u/AshamedPurchase
2."I had a friend, who at 20 years old, genuinely believed women did not have buttholes and therefore, did not poop. He thought when we farted it came out of our vaginas. Mind you, he had a girlfriend and was not a virgin. She was the most shocked when he admitted this to the group."
—u/GraphicDesignMonkey
3."When I was in Air Force technical school, I met a woman my age (19 at the time) who was convinced the umbilical cord carried SOLID FOOD to the fetus. She refused to believe otherwise. Her evidence: 'My niece and nephew pooped after being born, so you're wrong.'"
"I had never met anyone so disarmingly dumb, and I still question how she managed to snag a job that (at the time) required one of the highest ASVAB scores across all military services."
—u/Forevernevermore
4."A coworker (who was over 60) went to the doctor because her breasts were hurting, and she was constantly out of breath and tired. She was scared because she thought it could be breast cancer."
"She went to a male doctor (also in his 60s). He scanned my coworker with his eyes and declared, 'I think your breasts are still growing." She walked out after he said that and prescribed her medicine for the 'pain.'
A different doctor later diagnosed her with lung issues."
—u/random_banan_75547
5."One of my classmates asked me if women really bleed blue. I was like, 'What?' This dude thought we had blue periods because 'in the pad commercials they pour some blue liquid, and I figured that's period blood.' I asked him why he thought some blood in our bodies was blue and some was red?"
"But seriously, why do pad commercials show the blue liquid when movies are okay with showing blood, guts, and brains?"
—u/Desperate-Exit692
6."When I was pregnant, I was a few centimeters dilated for several days before the baby was born. I was home for those days and told my sister what was going on. She asked me later that night if I was 3cm dilated and I told her I didn't know because I hadn't checked."
"She was shocked that I wasn't at the hospital. She told me I should get my partner to check it out with a ruler. She thought 'dilated' meant the baby's head was out a couple of centimeters; she didn't know it was referring to the cervix.
The kicker? She was also pregnant at the time."
—u/Relevant_Tax_3737
7."I had a friend in high school who was convinced that it was anatomically impossible for a woman to get pregnant the first time she had sex; In her mind, you didn't need to use condoms for your first time. She thought if you didn't use a condom, but stood up immediately after sex and didn't lie down for 2-3 hours, it would be 90% effective, so it wasn't a big deal if you forgot them occasionally."
"I couldn't understand how that made sense, so I asked her to explain it. She looked at me as though I were dumb for not understanding. Her idea: Before the hymen broke (she seemed to think it was like a freshness seal), the body wasn't capable of producing babies. After the hymen broke, it took time for your body to switch on the 'baby-making' part of the uterus.
She held on to this misconception even after she had sex the first time, and it's truly a miracle she never got pregnant."
—u/all-you-need-is-love
8."In nursing school, before we catheterize real people, we must attend clinical skills training. The university had lots of anatomical dummy things to use. I was in a group with two other women, and we started with one of the female dummies. They kept putting the catheter up the vagina and couldn't figure out why the bladder wasn't draining."
"I don't know what education they received growing up, but they were grown women in the second year of a nursing degree, who didn't know that women don't urinate out of their vaginas. I had to show them where the urethra was and they were gobsmacked."
—u/smooth_relation_744
9."One day, I was on my period and felt like crap. A friend and I were supposed to go to the pool that day, but I told him I didn't feel comfortable getting in the water and I had really bad cramps due to my period."
"He looked at me and said, 'Can't you just hold it in and make your period stop for like an hour so you can enjoy the water. You know, like how you can hold in a sneeze?'
I thought he was being a smart ass but, no, I had to explain it to him."
—u/noonecaresat805
10."This one was extremely concerning because it came from my male gynecologist: When I went for my annual check up, I informed him that I had a polyp at my vagina which was left unnoticed. Due to its placement, it was undetected during my pap because the speculum was in its way."
"After confirming it was there, he wrapped up the consultation and told me my non-surgical option would be to have rough sex with my partner, and hope the friction would buff it out while we were having a 'good time.'
Safe to say I have never returned to him."
—u/eNgicG_6
11."A group of allegedly 'sexually experienced' guys at my school confidently exclaimed that the female orgasm is a myth — meaning that women are physically unable to orgasm."
"When one guy spoke up to say his girlfriend had definitely orgasmed, they told him she was lying and emotionally manipulating him."
—u/jetkism
12."My husband and I were the only married people in our friend group for years. We wanted to have four kids, so we made a general timeline of when we needed to start trying to conceive each one. Because we had to plan for specific times, we were out of sync with our friends who went on fun trips and attended drinking events every weekend."
"After a while, one of our friends genuinely asked why we couldn't just put it off and have kids later (we're in our thirties).
He did not know what menopause was. We had to explain to him that if we want four kids, we can't start trying to have them at 50."
—u/carmelkat
13."Once, I tried to convince a friend to go to a concert with me at a local bar. She declined because she was on her period. I asked her why that affected her going out. Did she feel sick or have cramps? Nope."
"She didn't want to go out because drinking made her pee more, which meant she'd be changing her tampon all the time. I asked her to explain, and she said she changed her tampon every time she peed because the pee gets into the tampon.
I had to explain to her that, no, pee doesn't get into her tampon. She can change her tampon as needed, typically every 4 hours, or if she starts to leak. She doesn't need to change it when she pees every 30 minutes.
She still didn't go with me."
—u/gonzothegreatz
14."I had to explain to a friend that her husband did not enter her uterus when they had sex. She had no idea that the vagina is a muscle, or that the cervix is a barrier between the vagina and uterus."
"I told her if he was 'stabbed' by her IUD, she needed to go to the doctor because it was not placed correctly or her body was experiencing something horrendous."
—u/Syzygy_872
15."I had an ex-boss who had very dumb ideas about women's anatomy..."
"First, he believed that a pregnant person can predict or control the date of their non-induced delivery. We learned this when he tried to write up a male coworker who 'wouldn't' tell him what day his paternity leave would start.
Once he learned the truth, he tried to save face by saying he wished our office had a father's room equivalent to the mother's. We pressed him on this, and he admitted that he thought the room was for napping instead of pumping. 'Dads need to nap too, right?'
When we corrected him about the use of the room, he told us that women constantly lactated, regardless of pregnancy status. The amount of lactation was directly proportional to the size of the breasts in question.
Then he pointed directly to my chest (I have large breasts) and stated that he was surprised I wasn't pumping all the time. I've never even been pregnant.
He was fired within the hour."
—u/DarkField_SJ
Which one of these misconceptions surprised you most? What's the most incorrect thing you've ever heard someone say about women's anatomy? Tell us in the comments or answer anonymously using the form below!
Note: Some responses have been edited for length and/or clarity.
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