Male or female joints on bowls and bongs
Updated
A male joint goes in. A female joint takes it. So a male bowl goes into a female joint, and the two have to be the same size: a 14 mm male bowl fits a 14 mm female joint. Every 14 mm bowl we have is on the 14 mm chart, grouped by the joint it fits.
How to tell at a glance
- Female: a hole. You can look down into it, and the frosted glass is on the inside.
- Male: it sticks out. The frosted glass is on the outside.
What's usual here
Almost every bong takes a male bowl. Here's what we have:
| Male | Female | |
|---|---|---|
| Bowls | 19 | 0 |
| Bongs and bubblers | 0 | 21 |
Two ways of saying the same thing
Some shops describe a bowl by its own joint, like our Maria color lip bowl: "14mm male". Others describe the joint it goes into, like our sketch burn bowl: "Male (fits a 14mm female joint)". Both are a male bowl for a female joint. On this site a part is always named by its own joint, and its page shows the bongs it fits.
A downstem has two joints
A removable downstem sits in your bong's joint at the top, and the bowl goes into the downstem. So when you replace one, it has to fit both: the joint it sits in, and the bowl that goes into it. How to measure a joint covers the dime test and the ruler.
Questions
- Is my bong male or female?
- Look where the bowl goes. If it's a hole with frosted glass inside, it's female and takes a male bowl. If the frosted part sticks out, it's male and takes a female bowl.
- Will a male bowl fit a male joint?
- No. Two males can't go into each other, and two females have nothing to go in. You need one of each, in the same size. There are adapters that switch male to female, but we don't sell one.
- Does male or female change how a bong works?
- No, it only changes which parts fit. Get the size and male or female right, then pick the bowl you like.
Sources
How glass joints work: ground glass joints and the ISO 383 list of joint sizes.