Crotch Grab Sex Check



"Drew Carey: So 1000 points to everybody but Colin, because I was sitting the entire time... waiting for you to come over... Colin Mochrie: Oh, there's no doubt about you, my friend!"

- Whose Line Is It Anyway

Let's say you've got someone with an Ambiguous Gender on your hands. Either the Dude Looks Like a Lady or the Lady Looks Like a Dude. The mystery is driving you nuts, so what's the fastest way to figure it out?

Inspect the merchandise. By force.

When it's done to one's own self after a Gender Bender, it's Man, I Feel Like a Woman.

Do Not Try This At Home. It's called 'sexual assault' in the real world.

Anime and Manga

 * Yu Yu Hakusho: Yusuke figures that there's something a little off about a certain Femme Fatale opponent, so he pulls a reach-around mid-fight and finds that she's biologically male.
 * In the Edited for Syndication American dub, all the references to the female fighter actually being a man were changed to the fighter being a Manipulative Bitch who fakes her injuries so she can make her male fighters feel guilty about beating up a woman -- and uses that moment of weakness to strike back.
 * The young Goku had difficulty with the concept of males and females, so when meeting someone, he goes up and slaps his hand in the person's crotchular area, then triumphantly exclaims, "You're a boy/girl!" Notably, this causes Chi-Chi to push him off the Kinto'un in fright!
 * He first discovered this connection in the first place by pulling the panties off of a sleeping Bulma and realising that she's missing some parts that he has.
 * Kulilin managed to escape the treatment just by telling him beforehand that he's male.
 * In season 2, episode 6 of Girls Bravo Fukuyama doesn't realize a cross-dressing Yukinari is actually a guy until after he grabs his crotch.
 * Of course, in this case, he hadn't doubted that Yukinari was female yet.
 * This happens to Takatsuki, a male-transitioning-from-female Transsexualism, in Wandering Son once. It's Squicky being that he was around eleven then and the person who did it was an adult male (who later became his friend) who thought he was having an affair with his girlfriend. He puts on a brave front afterwards and holds in his tears.
 * In Fushigi Yuugi, Miaka rubs Hotohori's chest after finding out that Hotohori was not a girl. She does it again with another character...just to be sure.
 * Even funnier, the second time she does this is to a woman who doesn't look even remotely masculine. Despite the fact that they had literally just met only seconds before, Miaka gropes her breasts purely on the basis that Hotohori and Nuriko have already fooled her before, and she "figures I have to check these days."
 * Okabe does this to Ruka some time after
 * Gintoki pulls this off in the most Badass way possible in chapter 375.
 * In Otome no Iroha, Ryou checks Iroha's gender (now male) this way the moment they first meet.

Film

 * Crocodile Dundee has Mick flirting with a veiled woman. The cab driver he's been getting drunk with informs him that she's a biologically male. Mick walks right up and checks the crotch for the frank and beans. She, offended, stalks off. Later in the movie, Mick sees another rather ...handsome... woman and does it again. To his chagrin (and her delight), she's the got the full female package.
 * Occurs in two very different contexts in The King and the Clown. One of the Seoul jesters gets groped by audience members for this reason whenever playing a eunuch or a woman. In a much more serious moment Nok-su forcefully strips Gong-gil in a fit of jealousy, claiming she wants to find out whether he's really a man or not.
 * A variant occurs in Transamerica when pre-op transsexual Bree visits her mother. Her mother performs the grab in order to check that she's still physically male.
 * Begbie in the film Trainspotting chats up a 'girl' at a club and takes her to his car to get to know her better. After 'inspecting the goods' he finds out she is a HE and kicks her out of his ride.

Folklore

 * The sedes stercoraria are seats upon which a new pope is enthroned, which have a hole in seat. A popular rumor says that these are so that the college of cardinals can test if the new pope is in fact male, or if he has mangled genitals. Most historians now believe that they were just chairs that the Papacy used because they belonged to the Imperial family.
 * The sex-check story is generally associated with the "Pope Joan" historical legend -- according to that story, the cardinals took this precaution against a recurrence.

Literature

 * In the Aidan Chambers book Postcards from No-Man's Land the main character meets someone he assumes is a girl, and they have coffee. At the end of the meeting, the "girl" figures out that the main character thinks this, and grabs the main character's hand and puts it on his crotch before leaving.

Live Action TV

 * In one episode of Law and Order SVU, the investigators discover that the boyfriend of the perp didn't know she was a preop transsexual when they tell him why she killed his best friend. He rushes in, grabs her crotch to see if it's true, and then overdoses on pills.
 * As quoted above, this Party Quirks game of Whose Line Is It Anyway has a humorous version.
 * Less invasive variant in Bones where the sex of an androgynous Japanese detective is determined by a firm hug.
 * Pat from Saturday Night Live narrowly averted this a few times.
 * In Casanova, Casanova falls in love with Bellino, a male opera singer. He suspects that he's a girl and confronts him. He feels his chest and concludes that he's a girl. Bellino says it is a singer's condition. Casanova grabs his crotch and then runs off, he is a boy. Then later he comes back and tells him it doesn't matter and he still loves him. Turns out to be a false penis and a woman in disguise.

Theatre

 * In some productions of Cabaret, this is how the MC tells Victor and Bobby apart. (Maybe Bobby is really a girl?)

Video Games
"Raiden: YOU ARE THE WORST PRESIDENT EVER."
 * Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty: The president is a friendly guy. So friendly, in fact, that upon meeting bishounen hero Raiden, he decides to greet Raiden with a friendly cup check to make sure he's not a chick.
 * An extremely elongated, gentle cup check. You know you've been playing Metal Gear too long when things like that stop seeming strange.
 * The above picture is a fan's version of this very scene.

"Thief: "My gender? Why don't you have a little poke and find out for yourself? ...Wah! I wasn't being serious! I'm totally a girl, I swear!""
 * There was a similar example to the Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty example in Metal Gear Solid 3 Snake Eater: Volgin grabs Ivan's crotch to check not just the gender, but whether it's genuinely Ivan.
 * That's because the man knows his crotches.
 * Especially those of men he sleeps with.
 * Disgaea 4: Jokingly invoked and then defied by the same person, when you talk with the thief in the Campain Board.

Webcomics

 * An accidental example occurs in Drowtales when Ariel is in a fighting class and another student goes for the groin, only to discover that what he expects to be there isn't. This alerts him that something is up and later outs her as a girl.
 * In one of Kate's pre-Awkward Zombie strips, Link decides to try this on Sheik For Science!. Unfortunately, since he actually used a Groin Attack, it didn't prove anything.