spanxthanx wrote: Uhm, I did not even go to med school, so maybe that's why? Or did you learn stuff like that without going to med school? All this pelvic floor and whatnot stuff? Because if you did go to med school then of course you know more about your field than the average. This reminds me about "The Doctor without Borders", a Swedish surgeon from Gaza, and he hadn't gone to med school either, lol.
Anyways, looks like there are a lot of medical experts here, if a chainsaw massacre went down yall would be able to glue the pieces back together if you know what I mean. From a narrative point of view I prefer things to happen under the muscle, but I thought that there was just a layer of skin in reality. And that I might put some readers off by being anatomically unrealistic, but now that I realize that the field of medicine is taking the side of narratorial expediency I am relaxed. I guess I bigger problem is the rib cage, but for all I know that too is going to do something unexpected, and that story shall also be told. Before I know it someone's gonna tell me that the rib cage too is a muscle and can flex, facetiousness aside there has been many surprises for me on this thread that have been interesting to learn. I take it that most people imagine there to be muscles surrounding the stomach and some even have it that these could be controlled somehow. I wonder if there are any bodybuilders who exercise their stomachs, huh? If I was a comedian I would insert a joke about fat women here. Fun, interesting and amazing facts.
This sort of thing is not exactly med school level I'm afraid to say. Anyway, here's a brief rundown.
Have you ever seen a picture or model or anything like the attached pic? This is roughly what humans look like without their skin. There is only a layer (thin in some places, thicker in other) of fat and connective tissue with blood vessels and nerves running through it between the skin and muscles. Make note of the muscles sitting where the abs are. All of your internal organs are called internal for a good reason, and all of the internal organs such as stomach, uterus, intestines etc. sit held in your torso/abdomen, contained by multiple layers, most durable of which (ignoring the ribs) is this layer of muscles. You can indeed control these muscles by, you know, tensing your belly, or doing any movement that involves these core muscles, hence why it pops up in vore that the pred's muscles tend to squeeze down on prey.
Yes, the rib cage does get in the way of same-size vore because bones are not that flexible/stretchy and you can't fit another person through your rib cage. We are not snakes, our jaws can only open so wide, and our rib cage forms horizontal solid loops with the bones (and some cartilage at the front) attached to each other at both our front (sternum) and back (spine), forming a solid girdle around our torso.
[image=600]https://cdn3.volusion.com/nqpvm.detql/v/vspfiles/photos/A10-1-2.jpg?v-cache=1562918090[/image]
For contrast, snakes have lower jaws not fixed together in the middle and open-fronted ribcages, so their bones can just kinda be pushed out of the way to swallow something whole without snapping anything, limted only by how stretchy the soft tissue is.
[image=600]https://previews.123rf.com/images/sparky2000/sparky20000605/sparky2000060500148/397032-a-snake-skeleton-on-display-at-a-museum-.jpg[/image]
The rib cage is not a muscle, it's just the structure formed by your rib bones, sternum and spine, although there are muscles between your ribs that expand and contract the rib cage like an accordion to make you breathe. So yes, it does kinda flex.
The stomach isn't a muscle, it's an organ, but it is very muscular, meaning it has muscles in it as well as other stuff.
[image=600]https://d2jmvrsizmvf4x.cloudfront.net/fiDqosUjQpOy52v8ZA5K_2415_Histology_of_StomachN.jpg[/image]
It's basically a bag made of 3 layers of muscle with some inner layers that produce acid/enzymes/mucus (first two digest stuff, third stops the stomach digesting itself). Yes, the stomach muscle will also squeeze down on food/prey, it's a major part of how digestion works, smooshing apart food that's been softened by the digestive juices. No, humans/the pred can't realistically control these muscles consciously, as most internal muscles are a different type of muscle from the ones in the very first picture and they're controlled subconsciously by our hindbrain. This is so that we don't have to think about keeping our internal organs running to keep us alive and die when we forget them or fall asleep.
Hope this was educational.