There are two mysterious balls hidden beneath the brown, hairy envelope known as the scrotum, which hides in the shadow of the more famous penis. With the ability to give 50% of life or bring their owner to the ground with a simple touch, they represent the Achilles heel of these gentlemen. If you even threaten to manhandle one of them, you will see them blush. However, in certain cultures, they were the ultimate symbol of masculinity and one of the elements that enabled men to establish their domination! In the following, we will share 11 interesting facts about testicles.
So why do kicks to the testicles hurt so much?
The reason a kick “in the abdomen” hurts so much is that the testicles are full of nerve endings that are not protected by a thick layer of skin, as they are, for example, in the fingertips. While the density of nerve endings in both areas is similar, banging your fingertips on the table doesn’t hurt as much.
The Man with the Three Balls
His name was Bartolomeo Colleoni, a dreaded 15th-century leader from Bergamo. And in his coat of arms, there are three testicles, while Coglia was his battle cry. A cyst or a testicle? Some speculate that the third testicle was a perineal cyst, also called an extra testicle or third testicle, because it was long in transit.
Nowadays, such cysts are rarely observed in cyclists who ride long distances. Frequent microtrauma against the saddle in the perineum (the area between the anus and genitals) results in the death of the cells, which then become encased in connective tissue and form a false cyst, similar to a third testicle.
The largest protein factory
In the human body, which organ houses the most specific proteins? Nope, it is not the brain, and it is not the heart either. It is the testicles: Male sex glands produce 999 different types of specialized proteins.
It is divided into segments, much like a tangerine
The interior of a testicle is divided into segments (lobules) like a citrus fruit: each contains 1-3 testicular tubules where spermatozoa are formed. How many, though? The quantity of sperm varies depending on age and situation.
By analyzing the sperm of men from 15 stable couples, it was determined that the average sperm output is 3 million per ml per day, but with significant differences from couple to couple. When a man spends little time with his partner, he ejaculates 6 million sperm per ml; when he spends a lot of time, 1 million.
Tap to swear
Among ancient civilizations such as the Babylonians and Egyptians, the testes were considered sacred, a divine attribute: they provided offspring. For that reason, they were held in the highest respect, to the point that solemn oaths were made by laying hands on them. In the Bible, too, we find a reference to this custom in chapter 24, verse 2 of Genesis.
Abraham (in the illustration by Gustave Doré) requests his servant to swear “by placing a hand under his thigh.” It is not a coincidence that testis is derived from the Latin testis (witness). Therefore, they are called sacred, family jewels, Zebedee (from Hebrew, ‘gift of Yahweh’, i.e. God).
What would you call this?
Geoffrey Huish, a young Welshman in the box, can still not explain why he did it. It was February 2005, with his rugby team, Wales, scheduled to face England. And it had been 12 years since Wales had won. “If they win,” he told his friend Gethin Probert in the Caerphilly pub, “I’ll cut my balls off.” Sure enough, Wales won 11-9. Being a man of his word, Huish took more than 10 minutes in his home bathroom and with a pair of wire cutters to execute the sentence.
He then retrieved the family ornament from the toilet bowl, put it in a bag and fainted in a pool of blood on the doorstep on his way to the pub to show it to Gethin. There was nothing left for the doctors to do but stitch up the wound and admit the patient to the psychiatric ward, the one-stop shop for people who celebrate their victories by spontaneously turning into eunuchs.
A Key Factory
These are the factory of sperm and testosterone, the most crucial male hormone responsible for maintaining secondary sexual characteristics (hair and beard growth, muscle strength, deep voice and Adam’s apple, aggressive behavior and libido). The testicles are egg-shaped and are located in a sac called the scrotum.
They are formed in the abdomen during fetal life and do not come down until the last few months of pregnancy. In some babies, however, either one or both testicles are absent. Approximately half of the cases are spontaneously born during the first year of life. Otherwise, surgery is required.
The left one hangs more
Chris McManus of University College London found that in 107 sculptures from the classical period, their left testicles were almost always carved larger and lower than the right. What’s more, according to him, he attributed this oddity to the fact that the Greeks believed the left side was “responsible” for producing women. But if that assumption is wrong, the weird asymmetry of the testicles was instead confirmed by “field studies” (with researchers snooping around swimming pool showers!): that 2/3 of men have a larger and lower left testicle.
Males without balls
For all we know, castrated men – or eunuchs – are a Chinese “invention” that dates back at least 5,000 years. In most of the ancient kingdoms, from Rome to Greece, North Africa to China, Eunuchs were harem guards, confident men and spies of the rulers. By the 18th century, castratos, castrated at a very young age to preserve their male soprano voices, were revered in opera houses all over Europe. Eunuchs were not banned from use in the Vatican choir until 1878.
So how does one become a eunuch?
The mutilation was practiced on children and could be performed in two ways: The first method involved crushing or completely removing the testicles, preserving the penis but still affecting fertility.
The second way was to remove the entire genitals, which was more dangerous because of the risk of infection and the fact that the wound could prevent the flow of urine after healing. For that reason, after surgery, they inserted a cannula to keep the opening open, and the children were buried in the sand for a week without drinking. Very few, under half, survived.
The bigger they are, the smaller is the brain (at least in bats)
The human testis is about 4-5 cm long and 2-2.5 cm thick. In animals, however, the testis size varies from species to species: from 0.02% to 0.75% of the body mass. So why these differences? It appears that testis size correlates with the fidelity of females of this species.
Analyzing the testes of 334 bat species has found larger testes when females are more promiscuous. The bigger the testes, the smaller the brain. By contrast, for species where females are monogamous, their bats have more brains and smaller testes. The image shows lamb testicles, a Turkish dish.
