sit down, stand up

[waltermonkey]

Meet Ab-n-Brit, the only living dicephalous conjoined twins. Two spines, two hearts, one leg and one arm each - but they can play softball, swim, legally drive. No one has any idea, neurologically, how

Comments

[redshylock]

I absolutely noticed the gum too! OUTRAGEOUS!

[roninspoon]

The social scientist in me has been fascinated with this pair since they were first featured in magazines several years ago. The pervert in me has been equally fascinated, but for very different reasons.

Interestingly, watching their gait and stance, it appears that Abby has assumed a dominant spinal posture.

[waltermonkey]

Yeah, she has. My thought was that if there's even a slight variation in the spinal columns that naturally is putting Abby more upright, that's what led to her becoming more "outgoing" - because people make eye contact with her first. Or, that might be because we look from left to right in this culture. Either way I'd guess their personalities are influenced by placement, but that may be an ignorant outsider's perspective.

As far as the sexual thing goes... I hope I'm not being overly cynical but it seems like it'd be very difficult for both of them to have fulfilling long-term relationships, because since their personalities are so different, they probably won't fall in love with the same guy. And yet, they obviously both have to be attracted to the same guy, or nothing will happen at all. So that might breed jealousy.

I know that Chang and Eng both fathered children on separate wives, but they had separate pelvises.

[roninspoon]

My initial reaction is to suggest that any type of romantic or sexual liaison is doomed to failure for these two. The logistics of coordinating a relationship for them is staggering in itself, without even considering the additional emotional toll. I think it's pretty clear from their interaction that they'd desire seperate partners, but how does one arrange these liaisons when genitals are a shared resource

[joyquality]

I read something about these girls several years ago, when they were just learning to ride a bike. The dad said "Abby, watch where you're going!" and Abby said "I don't need to, Brittany's watching for me!" (It might have been the other way around). I found that pretty astounding.

In the scene where they're talking about their favorite part of driving (24:14), each of them gets sort of embarrassed. When one of them is embarrassed, they both touch the embarrassed one's face. It's really strange.

[waltermonkey]

Yeah, that also struck me as a bizarre thing, the face-touching, because it means they're both picking up on tiny subliminal cues in the other's demeanor and reacting instantly.

Then I thought about it some more and realized, that's much less, as you put it, astounding than the fact that they learned how to walk when they were babies, just like everyone else.

[roninspoon]

I have a suspicion that there is considerably more shared limb responsiveness than the twins themselves are even aware of. I'd also be willing to bet that they get a little embarrassed or annoyed about questions relating to it, and are deliberately evasive at times.