Testicles are more than just ornamental! | Shutterstock
If you’re a man, you’ve probably felt it: that gut-wrenching, all-consuming pain that brings you to the ground in the worst way. It’s a pain like no other that can even waylay a big, strong guy. Have you ever wondered why that is? Why those soft, squishy protrusions can cause you more agony than you thought it was possible for a human life to contain? The answer to that question is actually very simple: nerves.
Firstly, a man’s balls are very finicky little (or big) things. Like Goldilocks, they need everything to be just right. While a woman’s ovaries can be safely tucked away inside her pelvis, testicles need to be two degrees—just two degrees—cooler than normal body temperature to be happy. So, even though they’re one of the most important parts of the male anatomy, testicles need to be outside the rest of the body. Unfortunately, this does leave them vulnerable to all kinds of horrors.
Secondly, balls are chock-full of nerves that act like a surveillance system. Some nerves help regulate the testicles’ temperature by drawing them into and dropping them out of the body; other nerves are responsible for yanking them up and out of the way of any perceived danger. Still other nerves have the power to drop your blood pressure, make you hurl, and make you cry. And that’s to say nothing of the epididymis, the thin tubes that store sperm—that most valuable of reproductive fruits.
All of these nerves climb up into our bodies and go all the way through our guts, so when you sustain any kind of trauma to the testicles, you feel it through the rest of your abdomen, too. In that moment, you are quite literally at the mercy of your testicles because they’re connected to so many of your body’s other nerves. If your young child clubs your nuggets with a toy and you fall to the ground under a wave of pain and nausea, it’s not because you’re weak. You’re just doing what your body actually told you to do.
When you do get hit in the soft stuff, an increased heart rate may cause you to sweat and your testicles to swell and get a little red and (more!) sensitive.
The good news is that the pain of getting hit in the testicles doesn’t last forever. The bad news is that it could last quite a while, depending on the severity of the injury. What does help is to lay on your back for a good 15 minutes to regain equilibrium in blood flow so your jewels can start to return to their ordinary, royal state.