Balls are complicated: That seems to be the main takeaway from a recent Reddit thread in which men have been sharing common misconceptions about their anatomy. Many of these men claim that their testicles are frequently bashed and bruised during intimate encounters as a result of widespread scrotal misinformation (or, if you prefer, total bollocks). For example [sic here, and throughout]:
“I’ve heard a few women say that squeezing the balls makes more cum come out,” commenter riphul writes, to which fellow commenter Ivanalan24 accurately replies, “I’m glad I’ve never run into any of those women. That’s how people get hurt.”
Meanwhile, commenter PapaFern chimes in with a real-life tale of woe:
“When playing with my balls instead of being slow or gentle, they bounce, shake, pat or suck them like they’re a bag of marbles. They have the audacity to tell me they’re playing with them fine and I’m being a sissy. No, you’re hitting my balls and it’s straight up uncomfortable.”
Now, it’s easy to understand why someone without balls might have trouble gauging how sensitive they are, as commenter Magi-Cheshire points out: “I can imagine it’s weird for a woman to play with balls because they don’t understand how the pain works. At least for me, pulling & sucking is fine and feels great but if anything lightly taps them then I’m in agony.”
But this is barely scratching the surface of ball-related misconceptions:
- “I met a girl who was convinced the balls were in front of the penis and just sat up there high and mighty,” commenter Fauxally writes.
- “I knew a girl who thought the testicles went in with everything else during sex,” commenter kenyongale says.
- “My first girlfriend thought that balls and penis were the same thing,” commenter dd156 adds. “She was genuinely surprised to discover they were not.”
Look, I get it, many men can’t even find the clit and all, but are balls really that complicated to handle? Especially when advice about fondling balls in a gentler, more pleasurable manner isn’t too hard to find. “It’s because they don’t have a similarly sensitive area on the outside of their body,” commenter DoctorMolotov writes in the same thread, explaining why some women overestimate how much pressure a sack can comfortably withstand. “The closest is the eye. Tell them to touch and poke their closed eye and pay attention to how much pressure it takes before it’s uncomfortable or painful.”
Now, despite what some people may tell you, I have balls (two of them!), and as a possessor of balls, I can confirm: This isn’t terrible advice! As a general rule of thumb (or whatever else you’re using to fondle), gentler is better when it comes to ball play. An informal poll of my male colleagues agreed: “What I want from a fondling is just that — a fondling,” one emphasizes. “Fondling is good. Squeezing is monstrous. It’s that subtle difference between foreplay and don’t-leave-any-marks interrogation.”
“Even a fondling can be sort of excessive,” another remarks. “How about a caress?”
Of course, what’s true for most isn’t true for all, and you may yet encounter a man in the wild who enjoys the rougher stuff (“I used to have a guy shout ‘Tug on my balls!’ right before cumming,” shares one colleague). So as with most things, when it comes to properly playing with balls, it’s really a matter of reading the room. Much like how it’s a bad idea to engage in pussy slapping before knowing that your partner’s into that kinda thing, it’s also a bad idea to jackhammer your man’s balls unless he has clearly asked (and preferably signed in triplicate legal documents to this effect), “JACKHAMMER MY BALLS” (when I say “link NSFW” here, I’m not fucking around even the tiniest little bit). Instead, consider testing your man’s interest by just barely stroking his sack, then gauge your pressure based on his response.
This isn’t just dudes being a bunch of wimps, either. While somewhat rare, battering balls around like they’re a tetherball can result in severe testicular injuries, such as testicular torsion — a nightmarish ailment involving the twisting of the cord that supplies blood to your balls that will pretty much leave your man writhing on the floor like Zed in Pulp Fiction.
To avoid this fate, consider starting off with the Gentle Jellyfish maneuver mentioned in this Elite Daily article:
“Pretend your hand is a jellyfish and your fingers are the tentacles swimming through the water. Place your BF’s nut sack in the clutch of your makeshift tentacles and gently squeeze and massage the balls. Don’t tug or pull; just wiggle your fingers like waves upon the sand. Unlike a real jellyfish, your tentacles won’t sting. They will only caress.”
Only, y’know — and I can’t stress this enough — don’t actually squeeze, just caress and stroke until you know what you’re doing.
This same gentle approach can also be applied to balls when it comes to mouth stuff. As much as you may have seen porn stars sucking balls like Tantalus going after a grape, it’s not always going to be appreciated. “Licking feels great,” one of my colleagues explains. “Sucking, mmmaybe, but that has too much potential to basically be a mouth-squeeze. It’s not worth the risk.” (“It’s a little worth the risk,” another quickly retorts). Again, you want to test the waters before diving right in — or rather, consider giving your man’s balls a light lick to see if he’s even slightly interested in having them vacuumed all the way into your mouth.
For many men — myself included — ball play might even be unnecessary, if not unwanted altogether. “My feeling is that the balls are gonna have a great time at climax — there’s no need to involve them too much before then,” another colleague argues.
So there you have it — as with pretty much anything sexual, ball play is a matter of personal preference, and therefore, the only way to do it right is to communicate with your partner about their needs and wants. Just remember: Slow and steady wins the race, and also doesn’t crush their partner’s nutsack into oblivion.
Ian Lecklitner
Ian Lecklitner is a staff writer at MEL Magazine. He mostly writes about everyone's favorite things: Sex, drugs and food.
