Abby and Brittany Hensel have not only built up and vast and supportive fanbase, but they've also been happy to share details and answer questions about their unique lives. And now one of the biggest questions about the twin sisters has been answered.
The 35-year-old Minnesota twins - who share a body from the waist down, including reproductive organs - made headlines again after sharing rare footage of Abby’s 2021 wedding to Josh Bowling.
While fans have long admired the sisters for their determination to live full, independent lives, their future plans have stirred both fascination and speculation - especially when it comes to the idea of having children.
In a resurfaced documentary filmed when they were teens, the twins didn’t shy away from the topic of motherhood.
“Yeah, we're going to be moms. We haven't thought about how being moms is going to work yet,” they said at the time, according to E! News.
More than a decade later, those questions still loom - this time with added legal and biological complexity.
Since Abby and Brittany share one reproductive system, it remains unclear which twin would legally be considered the mother.
Unlike male conjoined twins such as Chang and Eng Bunker - who each had their own genitalia and fathered a combined 21 children - Abby and Brittany would be the first female dicephalic twins (conjoined side-by-side) to give birth if they do choose to go down that road.
The Bunker twins, born in 1811 in what’s now Thailand, made history by marrying sisters, living in alternating households, and raising large families of their own, per the New York Post.
In contrast, Abby and Brittany share more vital organs, making pregnancy far more complex - and far more private.
“The whole world doesn’t need to know who we are seeing, what we are doing and when we are going to do it,” Brittany said in a rare statement.
The conversation around intimacy and relationships for conjoined twins is one that often draws public curiosity.
While Abby tied the knot in a private ceremony, the couple has remained mostly tight-lipped about the dynamics of their relationship. That hasn’t stopped questions from being asked - especially about how intimacy works when two individuals share one body.
Medical experts like Alice Dreger, a professor of clinical medical humanities and bioethics at Northwestern University, have weighed in on the complexities.
“Based on what we know about the significant variability of one conjoined twin’s feeling a body part (e.g., an arm) that putatively 'belongs' to the other twin, it’s hard to guess how any conjoinment will turn out in practice,” Dreger wrote in The Atlantic.
She added: “If twins share one set of genitals, they’re both going to feel any touching down there. Whether or not both are 'having sex' with the third person in the equation depends on how you think about 'having sex.'”
Dreger also pointed out that intimacy for conjoined twins is shaped by multiple factors - nerve endings, hormone responses, emotional dynamics - and can be far less common than in the general population.
“Conjoined twins probably end up having less sex than average people, and that is not only because sex partners are harder to find when you’re conjoined,” she noted.
“They already have their ‘soulmate’ attached to them,” Dreger said, suggesting that the deep emotional bond between conjoined twins may reduce the need to seek outside companionship.
Meanwhile, the Hensels themselves have never directly addressed the nature of their physical intimacy with partners, choosing instead to maintain their privacy - as is their choice that should always be respected.