Abby and Brittany Hensel, who documented their lives in the TLC reality series “Abby & Brittany,” have a new member of the family.

Abby and Brittany Hensel, who documented their lives in the TLC reality series “Abby & Brittany,” have a new member of the family.

Conjoined twins Abby and Brittany Hensel first gained national attention when they appeared on “The Oprah Winfrey Show” in 1996.

Now the sisters have reached a major life milestone: Abby is married.

The Hensels later starred in the feel-good TLC reality series “Abby and Brittany,” which showed them driving, traveling to Europe and even riding a moped. When the show ended after one season, Abby and Brittany had just graduated from college with degrees in education.

A lot has happened in the last decade. Abby, 34, is now married. According to public records, Abby, a teacher, and Josh Bowling, a nurse and United States Army veteran, tied the knot in 2021. The sisters also shared photos of the wedding on social media. The couple live in Minnesota, where the Hensels were born and raised.

            • Lmaydev@programming.dev
              28·
              3 months ago

              Then they wouldn’t do it.

              It’s hard for us to imagine but they have to live in agreement of everything they do.

              They have been doing it since birth so imagine they’ve worked out a lot of ground rules around this sort of thing.

              • NatakuNox@lemmy.world
                6·
                3 months ago

                Being physically aroused and mentally aroused are two different things. I hope that they would take her body-mate’s feelings into consideration. I bet they both are romantically involved with the husband but legally could only marry one.

              • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
                6·
                3 months ago

                There’s more to being “in the mood” than hormones. Non-consensual sex can trigger a similar hormonal response as consensual sex, but that doesn’t mean the victim “enjoys it” or whatever.

                So I wonder how much the brain dampens the orgasm response if you’re not interested.

    • MxM111@kbin.social
      411·
      3 months ago

      The answer is: Yes, Josh can procreate with Brittany in plain Abby’s sight, and Abby would never suspect infidelity.

    • catloaf@lemm.eeEnglish
      351·
      3 months ago

      Wikipedia says one set of reproductive organs, and apparently they’re fully functional.

    • Pacmanlives@lemmy.world
      31·
      3 months ago

      Basically a threesome every night 🤣

      All joke aside these girls are bad ass I could not imagine being in their situation. I remember them dating different people for a while which would have been interesting for everyone…. Glad they figured it out with a life partner

  • kn33@lemmy.worldEnglish
    87·
    3 months ago

    So, like, realistically, he’s marrying both of them, right? I get that they can’t do that legally, but… You can’t exactly not, right?

  • Waldowal@lemmy.world
    841·
    3 months ago

    I’m really curious about some details. They both meet this guy. He seems interested. Does he just keep talking to one face and ignoring the other? Were he and Abby kissing, and Brittany’s all “Ew, Abby, he’s gross”. When he proposed, was he like “Will you marry me?” And they both say “yes”, and he’s like “Uh, I just meant the left side”? How do you not end up dating and marrying them both?! Maybe they are in reality, but they can’t say that due to polygamy laws?

    • Etterra@lemmy.world
      45·
      3 months ago

      That’s my suspicion. They obviously can’t legally have a plural marriage. But then again they could have such a ceremony but only one of the girls’ names on the paperwork.

    • Андрей Быдло@sh.itjust.works
      281·
      3 months ago

      I mean they don’t have options for a legal poly marriage or some harem multi-wife practice, and they are registered as two persons in one body, I believe. In reality, yes, he can’t marry just one. A weird situation law-wise.

      • bitchkat@lemmy.worldEnglish
        212·
        3 months ago

        I was going to say “marry the one that has the worst health insurance” and then I realized I’m not as smart as I thought I was.

  • jordanlund@lemmy.world
    641·
    3 months ago

    People are getting so hung up on the sex angle, but the ramifications are more interesting. What if one of them wants to get pregnant but the other doesn’t? One consents to go through labor and delivery but the other doesn’t?

    This is all incredibly complex, but you know if Chang and Eng could make it work…

    https://www.ncpedia.org/biography/bunker-twins

    "They lived together in one house for nine years, but their wives began to quarrel. Starting in 1852, Sarah and Adelaide lived in separate houses. Chang and Eng agreed to reside in one house for three days, in which that brother made all the decisions without question. They spent the next three days at the other twin’s house, where he made all the decisions. The Bunkers faithfully held to this arrangement the rest of their lives.

    The twins returned to touring between 1849 and 1870 to support their large families. Chang and Adelaide had ten children, and Eng and Sarah had eleven children."

    • fathog@lemmy.world
      12·
      3 months ago

      That article is a ride. All sweet stuff until

      The twins prospered and moved to Surry County, where they came to own more than one thousand acres of land and twenty-eight enslaved people.

      Wild

      • jordanlund@lemmy.world
        10·
        3 months ago

        I know, right? Conjoined twins in then Siam (Thailand), essentially sold into slavery, smuggled out of the country, then established as slave owners themselves… and having 21 children between them…

        There’s a movie to be made there.

  • zerog_bandit@lemmy.world
    7824·
    3 months ago

    Do you think they can both give him a BJ at the same time? Or maybe one tosses the salad while the other gobbles the knob?

  • Syd@lemm.ee
    52·
    3 months ago

    One in 200,000 births results in conjoined twins? That seems way higher than I thought.

    • Stovetop@lemmy.world
      55·
      3 months ago

      I’d imagine most are a lot more minor than this. Baby is born with a small growth that turns out to be a malformed limb of an incomplete/reabsorbed twin, doctors remove it quickly after birth, and the baby goes on to live a normal life.

      I’ve heard of there being chimera people as well who go through most of their life assuming they’re perfectly normal until they learn that their DNA in one part of their body doesn’t match their DNA in another part of their body.

    • AItoothbrush@lemmy.zipEnglish
      21·
      3 months ago

      Yes but this is muuuch rarer because its a very clean case of it. Most of them pass away in early childhood.

    • catloaf@lemm.eeEnglish
      91·
      3 months ago

      A lot of them die in infancy, so you don’t see them around.

  • ApeNo1@lemm.eeEnglish
    441·
    3 months ago

    “Hi everyone and thanks again for coming to the wedding. Firstly, I would like to introduce for the first time my better half Abby”. The reception room falls awkwardly silent for a moment until punctuated by the laughter of a very tipsy uncle Ron from right at the back.

    Sorry all …

      • catloaf@lemm.eeEnglish
        111·
        3 months ago

        I’m sure Abby wouldn’t have done it if Brittany wasn’t on board. They all have to live together after all.

        I want to know how it works if Brittany starts seeing another guy now.

        Also, if they have one set of reproductive organs, who’s the mother? I assume they have separate DNA so they should be able to test that, right? Do the eggs by DNA belong to one of them, or is it a mix?

        • SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world
          13·
          3 months ago

          Being conjoined twins, they likely have the same DNA.

          You’ve already got to be adjusted to a very unique situation to be two people sharing a body, and I’d guess that Abby’s husband has considered and discussed the topic of Brittany’s romantic life; if those three can make things work, I suppose finding another special fourth person is possible. It’s difficult to imagine all the intricacies, but there’s seemingly no limit to the human ability to adapt.

        • intensely_human@lemm.ee
          22·
          3 months ago

          I’m sure Abby wouldn’t have done it if Brittany wasn’t on board

          So much for them being “independent” then.

          It really seems like any mention of difficulty of this situation is being met with “It’s all magically fine!”

          Why are we having such a hard time acknowledging the difficulties here?

  • Cheesus@lemmy.world
    20·
    3 months ago

    Not related to the marriage. They work as a 5th grade teacher, do they each get paid or is it one salary?

    • webghost0101@sopuli.xyz
      12·
      3 months ago

      I heard they technically each hold a part time position and take turns who pays attention to the students.

        • webghost0101@sopuli.xyz
          2·
          3 months ago

          The reason given is she cant do the economic work of 2 people but i do agree.

          People with disabilities have so many hidden costs in todaya world, she should be getting a proper liveable income no matter if she has a job. Cant imagine she has the same chances on the job market.

          Actually beyond that. Everyone should get a basic liveable income regardless of work and people with medical challenges should receive additional resources and care. But yeah society isn’t all that emphatic.

  • HeyJoe@lemmy.world
    152·
    3 months ago

    Well, they will always have someone who can weigh in as a final decision when they both disagree on something. Sadly, I think it will be a bit one-sided.

    • june@lemmy.worldEnglish
      10·
      3 months ago

      Yea, they really are a throuple.

      I do wonder how insurance works for them too, are they treated like two individuals or do they get the benefit of having a single body and are treated as an individual?