Men's Reticence to go to the Doctor | David Mitchell's SoapBox

[ATetrisBlock]

>open video

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>sound plays

OH GOD WHAT IS WRONG WITH MY STOMA- oh it's David Mitchell.

[robair9911]

@ATetrisBlock that awkward moment when your text isn't green. look at anon we are on to you

[ATetrisBlock]

@robair9911 Well, I also think it looks better than dashes.

[ColFeren]

Oh, fuck you Mitchell you miserable piece of shit.

[3xsweetiepiex3]

That is so true. Men see health in black and white.

[ThePsilocypher]

I hate to point it out, but reticence is not the same as reluctance. Men are reticent about their illness, they are reluctant to go to the doctor.

[CowLunch]

@ThePsilocypher Come on, you loved pointing it out lol

[quantumG]

I think more telling is the way women get dressed to go to the doctor.. yes, you know what I'm talking about.

[Henry1993bc]

"copious bleeding from my genitals"

[KashmirKiddy]

I'm a woman, and I'd pretty much have to be carrying a couple of my limbs in a carrier bag before I'd go to the doctor.

[JaytheOstrich]

Anyone else glance at their microwave at the start of this video? Anyone? No? Just me then.

[CowLunch]

@JaytheOstrich Your microwave is next to your computer? When was the last time you left that room?

[JaytheOstrich]

@CowLunch No, not right next, but my kitchen is right behind me and within eyeshot.

[alexhamster1134]

how can be inside a uterus? rubbish!

[Buffoon1980]

Reticence? Really?

[slightlyinsaneFTW]

This is one of the few videos where the gender of every person commenting becomes apparent. Except the floaty duck one...

[Rdburnzy]

''As we lumber about, doing our best to remember to eat and shave'' hahahaha. Only from you David, only you.

[domydoyle88]

oh poop i forgot to shave

[CowLunch]

@domydoyle88 Oh dear, you just reminded me of something even more important.

[SirBigBrain]

who got distracted by that passing duck and had to rewind to understand to what he said?

[CalumnMcAulay]

i cant believe this guy gets paid for this!

[yatter1]

"The secret significance of the hurty elbow" How fantastic is the world now that sentence has been spoken?

[benehan]

I love how every 2nd video has an allusion to the victorian age

[Selinor578]

Men do 99.9% of the amazing "things with their bodies". Of course, INSIDE the body, only women gestate. But try and tell a women that that's one of the things women alone are meant to do and it's all tetchiness and attitude. If a woman makes that point it's all "ooohhh yes, it's so true, we're so special", but if a man says it, the feminist nazi hypocrites crawl out of the woodwork for a big whine-fest. I'll end with a nice cuppa...now, where's that wife o' mine? In the kitchen I'll warrant...

[madviolentchicken]

That made me laugh so much about remembering to eat and shave then I realised I'd forgotten to shave xD

[thegreatCOOPS]

i thought he was going to say men only "eat and sh!t"

[mulberrytoast]

@thegreatCOOPS me too!

[Selinor578]

Yes, david, and the world goes on believing women are so much better than men because people like you keep spouting such pro women balderdash. Now don't get me wrong, I'm a Mitchell, Mitchell-Webb fan in general. But all this false praise of women just induces them to go on believing it. I haven't watched all of this video, so maybe there's something at the end which would have changed my comment. But maybe not.

[rohawa11]

@Selinor578 You were so angry about pro-women propaganda that you wrote a 5 line comment before even bothering to finish watching a 3 minute video? Mate, with patience like that, you aren't going to win the gender war...

[Selinor578]

@rohawa11 Who sed the reason I didnt watch all of this video because I didnt have patience. And is having the patience to watch the remaining 40ish seconds of a video going to be a deciding factor in "winning the gender war"? I think it's a phoney war anyway,especially with so many artificial laws favouring women.And most of what is said on the subject is said by people who have a product to sell and therefore pour out mostly false praise on women, who tend to get very tetchy if told the truth.

[rockfotze]

@Selinor578 Sorry dude, we women do many more amazing things with our bodies than men. The day men start producing children inside themselves is the day people should stop singing the praises of how wonderful the female body is.

[mulberrytoast]

@Selinor578 'false praise of women induces them to go on believing it' ... you got that from David saying that a woman's body is generally more complicated? Sorry, but that's not false praise. The whole 'letting a small human grow inside you for 9 months' is actually pretty complicated. Also it's not something women generally boast about. It's not the kind of thing we put on a job application. Also it's not 'pro-women'; it's just a fact. Good luck with the whole sexist pig angle though.

[Selinor578]

@mulberrytoast Yes, I know gestating is a complicated business. Complicated yes, but as around 50% of the population are able to do it at some stage of their lives, it's not special. It's normal. And no, you dont put it on your job application because what sensible employer wants to give paid leave for endless months to a total stranger because they think 7 billion human beings is too few. Have one if u want to, but why should people who worked hard to build up their business pay for it.

[SmugDarkLoser10]

@mulberrytoast but... in comparison to other things... like friggen cellular structure.... it's really not.....at all.

I mean, you can call a rube goldberg machine complicated, but then you're a fool, because if you look at it a level deeper and look at physics, you'll just a pure fool for focusing on the top level stuff.

[Thisnameistaken11]

Points and observations that have been made by comedians and academics for decades. What I like about David Mitchell is that he manages to tread the line between academic and scholar by being neither clever nor funny.

[matrixch88]

Oh shit i forgot to shave!

[Sykotix1]

Reluctance, not reticence. Reticence is specifically, reluctance to speak.

Such a common error that it's even made it into the dictionary.

But does that mean that it's correct now?

[BankieFroyle]

Copious bleeding from my genitals.. well there goes my erection.

[existenceisrelative]

I don't rightly know about you medically sensible countries. But here in good old give us money america, men (young men anyway) don't go to the doctor for potential problems because it would incur a very actual couple thousand dollar hospital bill. And it's generally considered bad fiscal strategy to invoke the mysterious and mighty forces of insolvency only to find out the significance of the hurty elbow was the fact that you fell asleep sitting upright at an odd angle.

[PrezLeefun]

Praytell? A man comfortable enough to mention a woman's period? What is this! What is this!! Good God I love David.

[255ad]

I’ve had swollen painfully sensitive toe for four years and done nothing about it

[Naddig74]

@255ad gout, imo :P

[255ad]

@Naddig74 I'm 18

[Naddig74]

@255ad Gout has nothing to do with age :P Anyway, go to the damn doctor and get him to sort it out :P

[the0siren0of0night]

both my parents say to not worry about it and not to analyse things too much...

[cYRsatLIcarus]

What is the significance of the Hurty Elbow?

[lessthantheUK]

video starts at 00:12

[WillShakespeare2007]

When you get over forty go to the bloody doctor. I have lost a couple mates last year that didn't bother and by the time they went the odds of clearing up their bowel cancer had gone from 90% certain to you will be dead within 12 months. It kills us like women get breast cancel but no one bother to run campaigns to tell us or run half marathons in funny costumes to draw attention in another way.

[Aparition42]

Certainly not true of any of the women in my family. Getting any of them to the doctor is like pulling teeth. Which must be difficult as they won't go to a dentist either.

[SiskinOnUTube]

Well, that was a cheerful thought.

[Richy0326]

there is also the problem that men get treated like hypochondriacs if their not at deaths door, so they give up bothering because they know the doctor won't listen.

[Lokifan13]

Interesting thing about this - a trans male friend told me that when he went on testosterone all the little pains he'd been feeling went away, but he seemed to get much more ill when he did. So possibly all the ill/well binary vs female spectrum stuff, not to mention the man stuff, actually happens for a reason.

[greyareaRK1]

Eat AND shave? Well, there's my day.

[MarisaRodusky]

I just got to say, ducky!

[PocusUK]

David Mitchell should do a string of rather uncomfortable tv adverts about prostate cancer awareness. Not sure if anyone would want to become the face of such a taboo subject but i'm sure he'd be able to bear the responsibility

[azione]

I have got a hurty elbow. I was sure I was the only one and never even considered going to the doctor about it. This man is a national treasure, if national treasures did come in the form of doughy men in their late thirties who seem to have a talent for whining in an extremely amusing manner.

[PurpleFunnyChocolate]

Wait...does this mean David Mitchell was never a baby, he was born a 35-year-old man, already fully aducated and wearing clothes?

That answers everything.

[255ad]

@PurpleFunnyChocolate how could you have expected anything else? LoL

[hitlarspenis]

@PurpleFunnyChocolate fully aducated?

[Qw3rtypop]

@hitlarspenis

How many times do you think he's received that comment over the last year? Is you repeating it really necessary?

[hitlarspenis]

@Qw3rtypop I don't know or care. While my comment may not be "necessary" it certainly is fun to point and laugh at the moron.

[Qw3rtypop]

@hitlarspenis

It was obviously a typo. Leave the poor guy alone.

[hitlarspenis]

@Qw3rtypop I've finished mocking him anyway.

[sweeniesforever]

Naught David Mitchells makes me sad

[IcaStarx]

0 David Mitchells? but....no :'( thanks for another entertaining and though provoking rant before bed <3

[Pedgerow]

I always make a big deal when I am proved right and I recover from whatever cold I had. People always say, "Oh, you should go to the doctor anyway", because they're not the ones who have to haul their asses out of the house for what is probably no reason at all. So when my illness does indeed turn out to be nothing at all, I always loudly proclaim, "Ha! I told you my sinuses were bluffing, and weren't really ill" to everyone around me.

[astrophonix]

I don't like to see my doctor 'cos he always assumes whatever I've got is 'nothing'. I call him 'Doctor Doolittle' and it's not 'cos he talks to animals!

[OTSTRETFORD]

When I tore the ligaments in my ankle, I went to the doctor, and she gave me gel to rub on it... Gel!

Now it's happened again you need not thing I'll go back.

[jrklein]

secret significance of the "hurty" elbow!

[zenqimaster]

I'm definitely a stereotypical man in this case.

It took three years of colo-rectal bleeding and insanely painful stomach cramps before I went to the doctor to discover that I had a tumour the size of a golf ball in my bowels.

At least I have some cool scars now!

[thumpaholden]

@zenqimaster LOL So, show your scars to all the girls now, do you? 

[lracuda76]

2:55 And on that day comedy dies a little.

[lilwabitgirl]

RUBBER DUCK!!!!!!

[EliGriff]

I should be writing an essay about this very subject as I type. Unfortunately these videos are more interesting.

[FuTeffla]

I'm female and I have to be dragged kicking and screaming to the doctor. I always feel terribly conscious of the possibility that I might just be being a hypochondriac and there will be nothing wrong with me and therefore I will have wasted a doctor's valuable time.

[TheLordSod]

@FuTeffla

dont feel that way, you pay for his time!

whether in the UK and pay national insurance/tax or in the US and pay health insurance, the fact is GPs are paid very good money to check on the health of the public, and it's all the better if you're given a clean bill of health!

David mitchell for world dictator!

[BGH122]

This gender oddity, if true, has a far more obvious explanation: the sexual selection criteria for women praises frailty and emotionality among the 'feminine' traits. The male sexual selection criteria praises the exact opposite. All across the animal kingdom, animals choose to act (where criteria are memetic) in a way perceived as attractive to the opposite gender. Going to the doctor is an admittance of frailty, which contradicts 'masculine' traits. It's just social learning theory.

[SaberScorpion]

Very true. I never go to the doctor either; I practice self-healing. No, not the girly kind of self-healing with all that spiritual nonsense; I mean the kind Rambo practiced when he stitched his own side back together and sealed his wounds with gunpowder. That's how a MAN does it.

[mrbeanaswell]

hilarious. "The hurty elbow", that is so true.

[minihats]

bollocks, run out of david mitchell rants

[anaemicandsweet]

That being said, if David's going to take this relatively evolutionist point of view, i.e. women preserving health for future childbirth, couldn't one also argue that men should wish to preserve health for greater longevity, in order to repoduce with more women? I do agree with him though, and 3 minutes isn't really enough to flesh out these obscure niggles of life. I guess that's why reading his columns is a little more fulfilling! (guardian.co.uk/profile/davidm­itchell if interested)

[NorthwindFusilier]

People only go to the doctor about things they don't find embarrassing. Men, being generally embarrassed to need help of any kind, often put off medical care until it becomes quite clear they need it. For example, once their whole arm is black with gangrene. Women are more likely to go to the doctor for such frivolous things like tuberculosis or flesh-eating bacteria, but it can take them twenty years to deal with something as dire as an overactive bladder.

[gamesdisk]

haha to remember to eat or shave

[MetusModus]

It's true, Men worry about how to make more money, Women worry about how to stop aging. Once men get more money they have not the foggiest how to spend it wisely, women on the other hand still haven't grasped the scientific fact aging happens and you will eventually die. Women go to the doctors to preserve their life, men go to the doctors because he fancies the female doctor.

[Andythrax]

What's the way to get over a illness? Spend the entire day in bed and when you wake up the next day you'll be well again!

[mojacarben]

Not so much of a rant David... More of a kindly reconciliatory explanation. Women are like and men are like this... Could do with a little more vexation to be really witty, however insightful or fundamentally sound.

[flag4eva]

I love it. True, funny and in a way it was kind of tender lol. This little comment also contains the only periods' I've ever laughed at.

[snackajack117]

I'm loving the consistently magniloquent comments on this audio-visual concept conveyance.

[xcantstoplaughingx]

@snackajack117 - *insert comment with an extravagant range of vocabulary saying 'I was thinking that very same thing'*

[mrcool123456789]

These are great, like Grumpy Old Men but so much more articulate and so much more true.

[SketchyBack]

"copious bleeding from my genitals" pmsl

[Zompyric]

secret significance of the hurty elbow! XD why do I love that line so?

[eoghanhickey]

Reticence means silence. The word David should be using is reluctance. This is exactly the sort of thing that annoys him.

[Gunnariffic]

also means:

not volunteering anything more than necessary

:)

[Tristanslav]

No it doesn't. It means control, reserve, restraint, demureness or diffidence. It doesn't mean silence. I do, however agree that you are correct in that it's the wrong word for this title, and that reluctance would be more appropriate.

[BGH122]

@Tristanslav It also means reluctance, so it works fine for this title:

ret·i·cent /ˈrɛtəsənt/ Show Spelled[ret-uh-suhnt] Show IPA

–adjective

1.

disposed to be silent or not to speak freely; reserved.

2.

reluctant or restrained.

[noelperry]

hmmmm interesting...interesting indeed

[Naddig74]

I love these segments, however...an ex-girlfriend of mine experienced rectal bleeding for _two years_ before she took it to the doctor. She was embarrassed to show the doctor her bottom and, more dangerously, worked a doublethink mind trick on herself, whereby she convinced herself that if she didn't go to the doctor, she wouldn't risk being told she had cancer, and thus by not going to the doctor _she doesn't have cancer_. Thats a dangerous way to be.

[loquatiousbadger]

So far, it's worked for me.

But then again, I don't have bleeding from any orifice. I'd hope I'd get over that doublethink in THAT situation!

[kernel2006]

Thanks for sharing.

[sestrensaz]

@Naddig74 I can understand how your ex got into that mindset. I think the first step on that road is trying to self-diagnose. As soon as we see the word cancer panic sets in. I had rectal bleeding & severe diarrhoea for about 3 weeks before I went to the doctor; I had the new non invasive bowel screening & was cleared of cancer but diagnosed with the less serious condition IBS 2 weeks later. I feel awful for your poor ex who put herself through 2 years of constant worry and doubt so needlessly.

[Naddig74]

@sestrensaz don't be. She's a bitch.

[SentinelConvergence]

@Naddig74 My ex-girlfriend had a tendency to do the same thing (although about nothing quite as alarming as rectal bleeding). Eventually, the only way I could convince her to go to the doctor was to write out her argument as a syllogism to explain why her thinking was faulty.

[bv90andy]

@Naddig74 So you're saying that you had a gf with rectal bleeding FOR TWO YEARS????? OMG LOL (aka wtf)

[Naddig74]

@bv90andy and that wasn't the craziest thing about her, dude...

[DogonDrugs]

@Naddig74 Also interesting, it sounds like she didn't want to tell anyone and now all of YouTube can read it, only that nobody knows who she is, oh anonymity how I love thou.

No offense intended, I too know people that rather want to pretend that everything is just fine, than actually get help for a problem that might or might not be of vital importance.

[qttytn]

@Naddig74 is she still alive?

[Mrknowladge]

How come this has no comments? This is both true and amazingly funny at the same time!

also 'first comment w00t'

[Scr3t]

@Mrknowladge Not much time to leave a comment, got move onto the next one quickly. =)