Watch This When You're High - The Huichol Tribe. Where Women Tie Rope On Their Husband's Testicles To Pull On Them During Childbirth

I saw this graphic today on Instagram and it caught my eye. Shout out to @historycoolkids for posting

Fatherly.com - The Huichol people, descendants of the ancient Aztecs, have a pain-relieving ritual (for the one giving birth, anyway) where the woman gets to yank hard on the man’s baby baskets every time she has a contraction.

If you haven’t blacked out from that mental image yet, here’s more on how it works. While the wife gives birth, the husband sits on the roof above with ropes tied around his scrotum. Every time a labor pain hits, she pulls on the rope (and presumably yells out “This is all your fault, you f–king asshole” in Huichol), so her man can share in the childbirth experience. At the end, she has a baby, and he has balls the size of cantaloupes.

This testicular tug-of-war might sound like some cartel-level torture, but it’s actually part of a long tradition of extreme paternal participation in pregnancy known as couvade, which is derived from a French term meaning “to brood, or hatch.” 

The Huichol Indians believe that the husband should share the pain and pleasure of giving birth.  This custom of sharing the pain of childbirth in which the husband maintains an attitude of compassion for the arrival of his child is wild spread among many natives.

This is certainly one way to keep the birth rate in check. 

The Huichol are also heavy into peyote and the healing powers they believe it harnesses.

Keep the suggestions coming. Keep them classy. No butt stuff.