Share the Male Pain

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"Shinji winced when a sudden kick caught the woman Seldon was fighting full in the breast, sending her coughing on the dusty ground, and then grunted with a ghost pain that every man feels as he witnessed Seldon get kicked, punched, and poked rather harshly in his own sensitive area."
—Neon Genesis Evangelion fanfic Of a Pilot

Commonly used in comedy series/movies, this is any instance where other male characters seem to sympathetically feel it whenever another male character has found himself to be the victim of a Groin Attack. Usually complimented by a loud groan and the cradling of their testicles, as if they had been hit there themselves.

If the one delivering the kicks is an Action Girl, Tsundere or all of the above part of the reaction probably comes from wondering if they're next.

Any mention of circumcision will often result in this. Which is apropos, since African circumcisions are typically communal affairs, hence sharing the male pain.

Like Groin Attack, this is rarely applied to females in pain except comedically, but there are a few exceptions. The closest female equivalent is for mothers to wince during scenes of other women giving birth.

Examples of Share the Male Pain include:

Anime and Manga

  • In Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, when the Dai-Gurren is attacked in its crotch, all men (except Leeron) do this trope.
  • In Slayers Next Lina gets cursed to feel all the pain she inflicts on others; naturally, Xellos gets her to invoke this trope in the course of the explanation.
  • In One Piece upon seeing Franky subjected to severe testicular torture at the hands of Nico Robin to convince him to join the crew, a good chunk of the present male cast immediately break out in screams of painful protest. On top of that, even Nami finds it in herself to speak up about the poor man's agony.
    • Probably the audience felt the pain when the anime gave Robin's grab move a quintuple take.
  • Occurs during a manga episode of Ranma ½ when Akane and Shampoo are trying to get Ranma to be their partner through an obstacle course. Shampoo grabs one leg and starts dragging, Akane grabs the other and starts dragging... until the hallway splits and Ranma gets slammed against the corner in a most unfortunate position. Mousse, a romantic rival who hates Ranma and has been more or less trying to kill him all series, winces and remarks that even he wouldn't have wished that on Ranma.
  • In one episode of Crayon Shin-chan, Misae and Shinnosuke switch bodies. So as Misae (in Shin's body) chases after Shin to get him to stop doing weird stuff in her body, she accidentally trips against a short table, and of course, hits herself in the nads. Then she screams in pain and wails, "Why didn't you guys tell me it hurt this badly!? Oh God, I never knew! I've never KNOWN a pain this bad! Well, except for wracking period cramps for two out of five days in a month, and popping out two kids out of the (beep) after several excruciating hours and (more examples) and...!!"
  • In MÄR, the men in the public do this when Jack gets defeated with a Groin Attack by Pano in their first match.
  • Black Lagoon Lovelace maid (and protege to the Bloodhound of Florencia A.K.A. Roberta) Fabiola Iglesias comes to the Yellow Flag. A Too Dumb to Live cartel gangster grabs her by the collar. Well...just watch here.
  • During a fight in Change 123, Motoko (at that moment Hibiki) jumps into a fight with a Yakuza member by stepping on his sword, which flips around and slices him right in his...man area. All the other yakuza's, the group leader, Kousukegawa, and Motoko's own adoptive father (and by now, probably you) all grimace, and chastise her for the move.
  • During episode 6 of Maji de Watashi ni Koi Shinasai!, Momoyo and the girls demonstrate the proper way to erotically eat a mushroom shaped lolipop at a festival. Every male in the vicinity is totally mesmerized...and then they all aggressively bite the heads off the treats, causing every one of them to collapse in pain.
  • In Professor Layton and The Eternal Diva Emmy Altava uses a groin attack on one of Descole's tropes. Clamp Grosky sees this and proceeds to hold his groin.

Fan Works

Film

  • In She's the Man, the entire soccer team reacts in this form when Amanda Bynes' character is hit in the crotch with a soccer ball. Bynes (who is impersonating a guy) reacts last after seeing the other guys do it.
  • Hot Shots Part Deux has this trope to the nines. Spoofing on Blood Sport, Charlie Sheen's character and his opponent rush at each other and collide, with the implication being that they drove their knees into each other's tender spots. The crowd winces en masse before cutting back to the opponent's face, whose cheeks are puffed out... before spitting out two walnuts and saying "You Win" in falsetto and falling backwards.
  • In Bananas, Fielding Melish cringes at the mention of the word "Castration."
  • In Clue, when Mrs. White mentions what besides her husband's head was cut off, the seated men cross their legs protectively.
  • In Spaceballs, the bridge crew of Spaceball One have come to learn the hard way what pissing off Dark Helmet means. When he insists that nobody saw his latest faux pas, they all cover up in anticipatory terror.

Dark Helmet: "I always drink coffee when I watch radar!" [...] "Everybody knows that!"
Crew: "Of course we do, sir!"

  • In Krippendorf's Tribe, both male and female audience members respond like this to video footage of a (faked) circumcision ritual.
  • Curiously averted in Idiocracy, where the incredibly popular Show Within a Show "Ow, My Balls" features a man continuously taking blows to the crotch. Everyone thinks the show is hilarious, and his fans even pay "tribute" when he's making public appearances. Perhaps the people of the future are too dumb to recognize sympathy?
  • Z-grade horror Hell's Highway features Ron Jeremy (yes, the Ron Jeremy) being castrated by the devil, except he doesn't even notice for a while, and when he does, he crashes into a gas station that then explodes. The ridiculousness makes it less painful but still, what a way to die.
  • In the film Real Steel, Midas delivers a Groin Attack to Noisy Boy. Since both are non-sentient robots operated by humans with controllers, Noisy Boy feels no pain. However, the males in the audience visibly wince when this happens. Like Real Life boxing, it's implied that this move would have been illegal in an official match.

Literature

  • In Terry Pratchett's Monstrous Regiment, main character Polly, who is pretending to be male to get into the army, gets bitten in the crotch by her lieutenant's horse. She's not hurt, since all she keeps down there is a rolled-up pair of socks, but her lieutenant faints.
    • He almost does so again immediately after, when he comes to and and asks her if she's all right. She cheerfully replies "Oh, it'll just need a few stitches," meaning her trousers.
  • In A Civil Campaign, Lord Dono (who was Lady Donna prior to the sex change) invokes the trope retroactively after having been kicked there himself.

"Ivan, all those time I laughed at you or your friends when you were playing and got hit between the legs... I am so, so sorry."

  • In Varley's Gaea Trilogy, Robin the witch was raised in an all-female space colony. After having ignorantly inflicted a Groin Attack on a male companion, and witnessed the results, she spends the rest of the day marveling that he doesn't keep his hands over his groin all the time, to protect his vulnerable privates.

Live-Action TV

  • In an episode of Frasier, Eddie the dog is taken to the vet to be neutered. Frasier, Niles, and Martin are seen crossing their legs in response to the operation.
  • Referenced and explained in the Red Dwarf episode "Legion", where the titular Legion explains that any pain he feels is conveyed to the rest of the crew. He stabs his hand to show them and then tells them not to anger him, or "it'll be there".
  • Lampshaded in America's Funniest Home Videos, during the Daisy Fuentes season, where she gives a little speech about the three primary audience reactions to the videos - this trope, the usual LOL, and 'What Were They Thinking'.
  • In the Animal Planet series Pit Bulls and Parolees the parolees working at a pit bull rescue center are brought along to a neuter and spay clinic for the dogs and watch a dog get neutered. Their expressions alone constitute a Crowning Moment of Funny as you can tell they're thinking this trope.
    • Similar moments have been seen on Dirty Jobs, most notably when Mike had to assist in castrating a horse.
      • Another instance from Dirty Jobs is when Mike was assisting a family of goat farmers castrate the young male goats they didn't want reproducing. WITH. THEIR. TEETH. The goat farmers then had to spend the next five minutes (likely much, much longer was left out of the episode) trying to convince Mike this was very standard procedure for all goat farmers and that they were not raving sociopaths.
  • Man Check!
  • In an episode of Designing Women, Anthony recommends that a woman being assaulted by a man should execute a Groin Attack against the nearest male even if he's not the attacker, because this trope will come into play.
  • It's frequent on TruTV's The Smoking Gun Presents: World's Dumbest for male commentators to be shown wincing, cupping themselves, or otherwise expressing this trope in response to clips showing groin injuries (self-inflicted or otherwise), and not unusual for female commentators to at least verbally express sympathy pains of their own.
  • Averted in one episode of Mythbusters, when the camera cuts from Tory reacting to a groin impact to Grant laughing his head off, with no apparent sympathy.
  • Backup - when a dog bites a child abuser in the groin even the intended victim's father feels some sympathy.
  • This is what happens when a Japanese comedy troupe takes the concept and runs with it. How good are you at tongue twisters?
  • In one episode of Whose Line Is It Anyway?, during the Newsflash game, wait for it...
  • Invoked in CSI, the episode 'Ending Happy'. Doc Robbins has an autospy under way and is explaining some things to Warrick and possibly Catherine. Doc wants to examine the guy's privates because they were enlarged, and Warrick asks Doc to wait until he leaves the room.

Video Games

  • This happens in Heavenly Sword if Nariko executes a Groin Attack, causing nearby soldiers to fall over crutching their groins.
  • When the group is huddled together at the end of Jak X and Ashelin suggests a Groin Attack as a means of dealing with the Big Bad, Sig covers his crotch with his hand.
  • One Fatality in the Mortal Kombat reboot involves Kung Lao sawing his opponent in half from bottom to top with his chainsaw hat. A commercial used to promote this game featured males everywhere reacting to the attack, while a female bystander looked on in surprise.

Web Comics

Web Original

  • Loading Ready Run tried to give Casino Royale the 'Sympathetic Pain in Film Award', but the presenter was too busy wincing.
  • One of the Miss Dynamite webtoons ends with Eva torturing one of the Backstreet Boys tied to a chair by hammering a nail into one of his testicles until it pops. It even has a warning screen come up before the scene and the scene won't play until you press the button to continue.

Real Life

  • Somewhat Truth in Television, though other men clearly won't actually feel the pain, pretending they do shows sympathy toward the... situation with the other man. Whether men did this before the trope was played for humour, is similar to the chicken and the egg.
    • From personal experience, Men aren't cupping out of sympathy, it's because A) If one guy gets hit in the crotch, you don't know if you're next B) You feel a VERY sharp phantom pain C) It's terrifying to watch D) for those that have gotten hit before it's a reminder of the pain. It's sometimes jokingly referenced as a self-defense move. If you're ever surrounded by a group of men, pick out the smallest one and kick him in the crotch, they'll all go down.
      • There are also cases of females who also react to this as well, but only if the hit was one of the really heavy ones, along with the standard "I'm a girl and even I felt that one" statement.
    • Recent research has shown that when you see someone else doing something, the brain fires the same parts that it would if you were doing it yourself, and that includes when you see someone in pain. So when you see someone get nailed in the nads, the brain of a man watching fires in a similar manner.
    • It is kind of like why people get freaked out over Eye Scream. Just seeing, reading or hearing about the pain for some reason causes a fraction of that pain to be felt.
    • This entire main point is pretty much how the word "empathy" is defined.
  • It's a rare case in introductory anatomy classes when the task of dissecting the genitalia of a male specimen isn't delegated to a female student. When a male med student does dare volunteer to undertake such a task, he's usually complimented by his classmates for having nerves of steel.
  • This video of men watching a video of a man getting a vasectomy.

When it comes to their balls, guys don't seem to have any.

  • Judging by the comments, this (NSFW) entry on the Livejournal community Weepingcock for female readers.
  • Texts From Last Night is just full of little gems like these [1] from the female side. NSFW, obviously.
  • Women can very easily sympathize with the "male pain." Despite popular belief and lack of testicles, it's still extremely painful for women to get hit between the legs.
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