Talk:Urethral sphincter

Untitled
Isn't it the case that most males can't stop peeing once they start? Any info on reasons / proportions etc? -- Tarquin 15:21 Feb 2, 2003 (UTC) _____

Not at all true. All men can do it at a young age. Muscle atrophy may set in if the muscles are not used frequently. Exersice the muscles to prevent urinary incontinece. The process is not disimmilar to kegel exercises for women. http://www.kegel-exercises.com. Of course this is common knowledge in the Sodom and Gomorrah known as Toronto,Canada. And those people are not preventing urinary incontinence: they are training for recreation. ;-}  This is an encyclopedia for the whole family, I hope my meaning is not too obscure. User:Two16

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Data point #1: I am male, and have no problem starting and stopping urination at will. -- Anon.


 * neither do I. but a late night straw poll in my student days showed I was a minority (sorry if that's too much information). See also popular culture, such as the scene in Dumb and Dumber -- Tarquin 18:38 Feb 2, 2003 (UTC)

It seems clear that some can, some can't. Seems reasonable to think that Kegel's may help. But what does "in real life" mean?

Content
Considerable confusion exists regarding the presence of (or rather absence)internal urethral sphincter in females. Some referrence would be helpful. Najbhusan (talk) 14:41, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

This article is really very poor, both in structure and accuracy. Is there any template for improving it?

I have been looking over several related articles on Wikipedia. There is the article on the urethral sphincter, one on the internal urethral sphincter and two on the external urethral sphincter (one for the male and one for the female). There is also an article on micturition and another on ejaculation. The one on micturition seems particularly well written, but has a distinct focus. There is also an article on the deep perineal pouch, which contains the external urethral sphincter. Thinking about what would be useful in the context of an encyclopedia-type article, I think the best approach would be to have the "Urethral sphincter" page be a disambiguation page between the external and internal urethral sphincters. The external urethral sphincter link would then go to the page for the deep perineal pouch, which would need to be improved. The link for the internal urethral sphincter could go to the existing one on the urinary bladder, which may need to be augmented to include the relevant material.

I'm a newbie at this editing stuff, and I have no idea how the organizational changes could be handled. I agree this article is poor and contains misinformation, but the term "urethral sphincter" without specifying whether the external or internal sphincter is intended is not in current usage. rbatra55, 03:49, 28 September 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rbatra55 (talk • contribs)

Significant content error: Article states that male bladder does not share space with reproductive organs. In reality, the prostate is directly beneath the bladder. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.209.240.208 (talk) 05:28, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

Strength of the muscle in men vs. women
I have heard that men have a sufficiently strong urethral sphincter that they can die from a burst bladder if they try to keep it in too long, whereas women will instead leak if they hold it too long. I have no idea if this is true, but if anyone knows a source that could verify/deny this, it would be worth putting into the article properly. -- Whitepaw (talk) 19:49, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

I made some changes as stated in my comment below. Didn't have much time, but it's a start :) Dr.Kane (talk) 01:28, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Revamped the article
I just modified the article making many revisions. I corrected some mistakes, added more information, clarifications, and removal of the wrong information that was added regarding male/female bladder capacity from someone saying:

"Human males have much stronger sphincter muscles than females, meaning that they can retain a large amount of urine for twice as long, as much as 800mL, i.e. "hold it"." ..... The style is too informal to sound like an encyclopedia, not counting the misinformation and unneutral statement.

I also removed the disputed neutrality as I believe it is no longer necessary in my revision. Let me know if someone disagrees. Dr.Kane (talk) 01:28, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

... I'd like to note that sex differences in bladder capacity is a discussion that should not be under urethral sphincters.

The comparison of "strength" of urethral sphincters in the different sexes personally seems pointless to me considering variation on the individual level. However, if you do want to make a claim, even one in which "there is no difference in strength", remember that claims need CITATIONS. Considering that the female external urethral sphincter blends into the sphincter urethovaginalis, trying to make comparisons in strength seem like a hapless task. My personal opinion is, considering the anatomy of the external urethral sphincter, the speculation/assumption that the male external urethral sphincter would generally be stronger than the female external urethral sphincter has more credence to it than the speculation/assumption that they are equal. But again, "strength" and how it's measured isn't defined, and the individual variations is too great that I feel like any such claims are pointless and probably inflammatory. For example, a nulliparous female likely have a stronger external urethral sphincter than a male suffering from atrophied muscles from pudendal nerve damage. A healthy male will likely have a stronger urethral sphincter than a multiparous female. Etc etc etc.

Whoever wrote this initial discussion may be trying to explain the more frequent observed phenomena of urinary incontinence in females as opposed to males. This discussion does not seem appropriate here; this difference is more likely attributable to the shorter urethra in females, as well as the weakening of muscles and nerves in the urogenital region after parturition. Evilbob0 (talk) 02:15, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

Organization
The Gender Differences section lacks any sort of organization, has confusing adverbs, and at times seems contradictory. 75.118.170.35 (talk) 20:44, 4 July 2009 (UTC)