April is Testicular Cancer Awareness Month, and we’re grabbing it right by the balls. Every day for the entire month, we will be publishing a new story aimed at getting men to better consider — and cherish — their family jewels in hopes of helping prevent a diagnosis that, if caught early enough, shouldn’t prove fatal. Read everything here.
For people with testicles, life can basically be measured by the distance between the balls and the body. What is time if not a metric of how low your balls can get? But at a certain point, maybe even earlier in your years than you anticipate, it might seem like something’s gotta give. They can’t possibly get any lower, right? You’re reaching tie-them-in-a-knot territory. Should you be concerned?
Actually, nah.
At least regarding testicular cancer and other scary possibilities like infertility, there’s “no relevance” to the length of your balls, according to urologist Tracy Gapin. “This doesn’t call for any concern. It’s simply not an issue,” he says.
By and large, low balls are either a matter of extra scrotal skin or the natural deterioration of collagen and elasticity in the region that causes the body to droop with age. “Average” balls are around two inches long, but that typically refers to the testicles, not the scrotum itself. Beyond that, there’s not a lot of data about how long balls “should” be, largely because, well, it’s just skin. It doesn’t matter all that much!
There is one caveat, though. While testicular cancer predominantly impacts men between the ages of 20 and 40 — who may not yet be experiencing much sagging — men’s fertility does decrease with age. So, as you get older, both your balls and your fertility might lower, but it’s not a causal relationship. That said, if you’re experiencing any pain in your balls, you should definitely consult your doctor.
But low-hanging balls don’t need to be a medical threat for them to be something that bothers you. Maybe they get in the way, or maybe you just don’t like the way they look. That’s fair, and there are surgeries you can undergo to help reduce some of that excess skin. Scrotoplasties are a thing, and they basically entail removing and reshaping the skin in the area to produce a neater, tighter package under general anesthesia.
As for what your partners might think of saggy balls, the reality is, we live in a particularly ageist society. Signs of aging are often considered the opposite of sexy — see, for example, Season Two, Episode Eight of Sex and the City, where Samantha is so repulsed by her age 70-plus date’s balls and body that she flees his apartment without saying goodbye. But again, there’s nothing inherently wrong with low balls. For some, they signal aging, but there are plenty of men who just happen to be born with the extra scrotal skin to accommodate such low-hanging fruit. Despite media portrayals of being turned off by low balls, it’s unlikely that most people actually care.
In fact, as with ball size in general, few people report balls to be a dealbreaker, regardless of what’s going on down there. In fact, if you look around on Twitter and Reddit for “low balls,” (very, very NSFW) you’ll see tons of people thirsting after dangly testicles.
“I actually often prefer saggier balls, as I like doggy and the added stim of them hitting my clit is a bonus,” one woman on Reddit told a guy on r/Sex who was worried about his low balls. Several other women on the thread agreed. In a different thread, some spoke about enjoying being hit in the face with low balls while performing oral, and how they believe low balls help make dicks look bigger. Meanwhile, on r/AskGayBros, there are men who seek advice on how to make their balls even saggier, going so far as to wear weighted “stretchers” (typically a heavy sort of cock ring worn around the balls) to achieve the aesthetic.
Really, when it comes to ball length, the floor’s the limit. Of course, do whatever makes you comfortable and pain-free, but medically, there’s nothing about long balls that needs to be addressed. If anything, maybe we should see them as a sign of wisdom and experience. The lower the balls, the higher the fun.
Magdalene Taylor
Magdalene Taylor is a staff writer at MEL. She covers internet culture, sex and the online adult industry. She lives in Brooklyn but is from God's Country, Western Massachusetts.
