Why do people make jokes about having been sperm but never about being the egg

r/

Before conception wouldn’t it be equally correct to say you were an egg?

Comments

  1. annalatrina Avatar

    Because the don’t understand basic biology.

  2. Alfiy_wolf Avatar

    Because the rooster came on the egg

  3. CunniffQuotes Avatar

    Biological sexism

  4. grayscale001 Avatar

    Sperm compete with each other.

  5. aprilsm11 Avatar

    They believe they’re making a clever analogy about being the “fastest” and “best” of millions. It doesn’t work the same way when you’re talking about a single egg that doesn’t move.

  6. sharknj Avatar

    I’ve never heard a person joke about being a sperm

  7. macdaddee Avatar

    Sperm can propel themselves, so a lot of jokes just work better imagining you’re a sperm cell with an active role than an egg cell which we didn’t know until recently can “reject” or “accept” sperm cells, and that’s not common knowledge. So people imagine sperm as having agency and eggs just take the first sperm that reaches it.

  8. helpless9002 Avatar

    Because the sperm has this amazing, thrilling race, where the winner gets its prize, the egg, where he enters and grows into a baby and eventually into an adult sperm (known as a person).

  9. fermat9990 Avatar

    We like the motility of sperm.

  10. Acrobatic-Fall-189 Avatar

    A lot of people genuinely don’t know how conception works. I argued for hours with people who insisted that a man carry the sperm that becomes his children his whole life but didn’t acknowledge that’s actually true about eggs not sperm. They were tryna one up their wife who said she carried the kid for 9 months by saying he carried it his whole life.

  11. GrabLimp40 Avatar

    Eggs are never the yoke of the party… yoke… sounds like joke… yoke, joke… eggs have yokes… yoke of the party… oh come on people!!!

  12. Temporary-Pin-320 Avatar

    Are we the egg… or are we in the egg…

    Thats why..

    A sperm is still a sperm til it’s been accepted and starts forming as a baby..

  13. OuroborosOfHate Avatar

    I’ve heard jokes about both but honestly, sperm is just funnier. There are also lots of jokes about being in your mother’s womb, so I think it balances out

  14. kirkevole Avatar

    I think it’s mostly because sperm looks like a being more than an egg.

  15. HollowChest_OnSleeve Avatar

    Jizz just seems a lot more funny, crusted socks, stuff towels, black lights, pearl necklaces. something that is gently fanned down from fallopian tubes to a lovely soft nesting spot I guess isn’t dramatic or mental image creating enough to form jokes about.

  16. oneeyedziggy Avatar

    Because sperm “does stuff”… The egg just kinda sits there (I’m sure this is technically wrong, but it’s answering to my current knowledge) 

  17. notaredditer13 Avatar

    If you tell us one of these jokes we can then tell you why it’s about a sperm instead of an egg…

  18. Kampurz Avatar

    the rat race that is the real life is similar to the millions of sperm cells.

    there are way more sperm cells than egg cells involved in a conception, so calling yourself a sperm fits the “humble origin” gag much better.

    conversely, sperm is also often wasted (ejaculation, blowjob, anal, etc), so this can make one feel extra special (becoming a person against all odds).

    women as well as the egg tend to serve the passive reception role in sexual reproduction vs the male/sperm counter parts, so whether or not you could come into existence depended much more on your dad.

    men tend to make crude jokes way more than women, so the sperm is naturally more relatable in these types of jokes.

    and if you’re feeling extra hate-y today, we can add in sexism in there too, but this isn’t very logical — it’s not like the joke is elegant; it’s rather crass.

  19. ILuvYou_YouAreSoGood Avatar

    The egg we all are was going to be that one egg, but the sperm could have been any one of millions.

  20. degjo Avatar

    Because the chicken came before the egg

  21. CasualStoneer Avatar

    I think the reason is because the sperm is the life and The egg Carry their life till the end of the pregnancy.

  22. Financial-Maximum237 Avatar

    Sperm come from the man and do all the work

  23. Cliffy73 Avatar

    The Patriarchy, man.

  24. GiftNo4544 Avatar

    Because there’s only one egg but millions of sperm. Although theres also variation on what egg is “chosen”, at the point where the woman gets pregnant the egg is already decided. However any of the healthy sperm from the man can be “chosen” during sex. I doubt the average person is thinking this when they make a sperm joke, but thats my best guess as to why its the sperm and not egg.

  25. TheGreatGoatQueen Avatar

    I think it’s just a holdover from the time when people thought that men were the creators of life and women were just the “receptacle” for that life to grow in.

    For most of human history, we didn’t have the technology to know that eggs even existed, but sperm was something you could literally see go inside the woman before pregnancy, so it seemed obvious that the actual “life” was in the ejaculation, and the woman just took that life and grew it into a baby.

    Even though we now know that not to be true, for the majority of human history we didn’t, and that affects the culture and views around reproduction to this day. Culture doesn’t adapt to science very quickly.

  26. stoned_ileso Avatar

    Well in all fairness the egg isnt much of an active partner in the relationship. the sperm at least are wriggling a round.

  27. LakeLov3r Avatar

    🎵Misogyny, it’s always Missssogggyyynnnyyyy🎵

  28. septober32nd Avatar

    I’ve joked previously about being the fastest egg specifically to invert this.

  29. Mighty_Eagle_2 Avatar

    Easier to personify the one that actually moves.

  30. NecessaryGoat1367 Avatar

    Eggs only carry an X chromosome while sperm carry either the X or Y chromosome, essentially determining who you are.

  31. VirtualMoneyLover Avatar

    As a sperm, you were the winner,

    As an egg, you just sat there.

  32. timshel_turtle Avatar

    I think it’s as simple as it’s mostly men who make this joke and men would rather joke about being a winning little superswimmer

  33. thatthatguy Avatar

    Sure. You can identify as the egg. You can identify as an amalgamation of your biological parents in addition to all the influences that have made you who you are along the way.

    It’s your imagination, use it.

    Please imagine responsibly. U/thatthatguy is not legally or ethically liable for the consequences of imagination.

  34. AlDef Avatar

    Patriarchy 

  35. probablyaythrowaway Avatar

    So the egg came first?

  36. JamesTheJerk Avatar

    Eggs are lazy. Sittin’ around, eatin’ bonbons, just a-waitin’ fer the milkman to commeth.

    Sperm all like, “is this supposed egg gonna meet half way or do I gotta do aaaall the damn swimming?”

    BTW, I’m kidding

  37. PetiteNanou Avatar

    Because the egg isn’t a funny little fish-thingy with a squiggly tail racing against other little fish-thingies with squiggly tails! 

  38. monioum_JG Avatar

    What would the egg joke be then? Bitch I allowed myself to be created?

  39. Space19723103 Avatar

    While the ova is the largest cell in the body, the sperm is the more active participant in the process.

  40. Dlairt Avatar

    The joke usually is “a million sperm and you won” indicating you’re 1 in 1million and you are a waste of space and the worst outcome that was possible.

    This is a fascinating subject though as you always think of the sperm being you that then develops in the egg.
    Does it mean as that the egg dictated you were always destined to be and needed the sperm just to start the process of who you “consciously” (before life experiences change you) are?
    Or is it in fact that it’s not 1 in 1million (roughly) or a far higher ratio as it has to be that sperm with that particular egg to create “you”

  41. SlapstickMojo Avatar

    Chaos theory. The butterfly effect. If you went back in time to the day you were conceived and met your parents, the SLIGHTEST interaction with your father, something as simple as waving at him, could change which sperm resulted in the kid conceived that day — or even if a kid was conceived at all. But the egg is already sitting there waiting. That half of the equation is pretty set for the current month, barring exceptions like fraternal twins or something. You’d have to prevent them from having sex altogether for a few days for the outcome to change on Mom’s side.

  42. Uruguaianense Avatar

    If you think about you are the sperm cell and the egg but at the same time you are neither of them.

  43. ChefArtorias Avatar

    The egg is just the shell, while the sperm holds the spirit.

  44. DreamingofRlyeh Avatar

    Yes. Each gamete contains half the genetic code necessary for a human.

    Though it wasn’t you, at the time. Saying sperm and egg are a person is the equivalent of calling flour, butter, sugar, and eggs a pound cake. Until conception fuses them together into the body of a new human, they are not an organism.

  45. Considered_Dissent Avatar

    Because sperm is colloquially considered “seed”.

    You hear people talking about fruit having once been a seed, not the soil that the seed was planted in.