Advice from three of our guy friends. This week a straight woman asks, “What do blue-balls feel like… is it really that painful, or that big a deal? Is it even a real physical phenomenon?”
Straight Single Guy (Tyler Barnett): Blue balls are the testicular equivalent of a migraine headache. They are very real and can be very painful: pressure builds up due to sexual excitement from direct stimulation and has nowhere to go. Imagine having to sneeze, getting right to the second before and holding it for 15 minutes. Now, to be clear, I’m referring to situations where sexual activity has already begun (i.e. handjobs, oral, whatever) and then stopped in the middle for some reason. Mere kissing doesn’t cause blue balls, and those guys who claim otherwise are probably pigs. (To suggest a romantic situation that starts with kissing HAS to end with an orgasm is not only absurd, it’s borderline abusive.) But in those situations where physical contact with the johnson has been initiated by a second party and then arbitrarily withdrawn, it can be not only physically frustrating, but emotionally frustrating as well. It’s like, Why would she do that? Why??? My work ethic has always been to finish what I start, and I recommend this philosophy be applied to the bedroom as well. Of course, guys who find themselves in this situation have a very easy solution: masturbate! Much like Excedrin cures a headache, masturbation will cure blue balls. It’s really quite simple.
Gay Single Guy (Jay Dyckman): Truthfully, I had to look this up. Wikipedia claims it is “the condition of temporary fluid congestion in the testicles and prostrate region caused by prolonged sexual arousal in the human male.” I say no way. Total urban legend. “Prolonged sexual arousal?” What kind of oxymoron is that? I don’t know any guy who “prolongs” sexual arousal. Sexual arousal in men is like Superman: it’s up, up and away, end of story. Maybe it existed in the ’50s, when people would just “neck” for hours and it wouldn’t go anywhere. But those days are looooong gone. Hi Bristol Palin! And gay-wise? Uh, never an issue. However, if I’m wrong and there really is such a thing, I would sincerely hope they look like Smurf balls — because that would be kind of cool.
Straight Married Guy (Jim): What does it say about me that I’m not even sure I’ve ever really experienced blue balls? All I can say for sure is that not having orgasmic sex is the worst part of not having orgasmic sex. I’d prefer to think this is an evolutionary advance, rather than a carefully cultivated myth I’m ruining for half of everyone. Maybe someone who wasn’t effectively celibate in high school can explain if it’s only a problem with new balls.
Our “wise guys” are a rotating group of contributors, some of whom wish to remain anonymous and some of whom like the attention. This week’s Straight Married Guy is Jim from New York, our Gay Guy is Jay Dyckman, an LA copywriter, and our Single Straight Guy is Tyler Barnett, owner of the LA PR firm Barnett Ellman. To ask the guys your own question, click here.
I always thought blueballs were BS too… I mean, yeah, it’s uncomfortable to have a boner and not be able to come, but I never experienced anything near pain. But I guess if so many guys say it’s real and painful, I guess some people must experience it that way.
Anyway, we’ll have a conclusive answer soon. I just linked this page to the MythBusters.
They are very very real. I used to get them when i was young, and then never experienced it for 20 years or so. Lately I’ve had more than a few bouts, and no, it does not require physical contact.
Last week I was giving my girl an extended session of oral, and by the time she came down(double pun?) and was ready to move on, I was basically disabled by the pain in my sac.
Too bad for me!
I didn’t start getting them till pretty late in life. It’s a deep ache, not so much in the testicles as higher up. It sounds like it’s different for different men but for me just being aroused for a long time isn’t enough to trigger it. It also has to have been a pretty long time (maybe a week or longer) since my last ejaculation too. Since that doesn’t happen very often blue balls don’t happen to me very often either. I mean, even without frequent partnered sex there’s still frequent masturbation.
And speaking of which, I’ve got a feeling that as masturbation has lost most of its stigma blue balls has probably become a lot less frequent in the general population. And if nothing else, its certainly painful enough, and the “preventative medicine” is pleasant enough and harmless enough, that it *shouldn’t* have to be terribly common either.
I agree with some of the other men here that ejaculation once you’ve got them isn’t entirely pleasant. The orgasm’s nice but the achy cramps in (what seems to me like) the epididymis and vas deferens knocks out a lot of the enjoyment. But! The nice thing? If it’s been that long since my last orgasm it’s pretty easy to get aroused again. And the next orgasm feels just fine.
All that said, I disagree completely that “taking care” of blue balls anyone’s responsibility but one’s own. It’s usually up to you to go that long without ejaculating, it’s easy (and often surprisingly quick) to deal with them, and if you’ve had them once you can recognize the warning signs soon enough to call things off before it really gets bad.
So. Sample script you can try out: “I’m really enjoying this but if we keep it up I’m going to get blue balls. I’d like to keep going if you’d feel comfortable helping me have an orgasm. But otherwise I want to stop.” And, incidentally, by making it a choice for your partner instead of an obligation she (assuming your partner’s a woman) may be a lot more interested in continuing than she might otherwise have been.
figleaf
I have had blue balls and they HURT LIKE HELL. Definitely not an urban myth. But I think some guys are more susceptible to it than others.
Add me to the group that thought the term was merely a metaphor… until I experienced them first-hand. The first time was in college after an extended makeout session, although there have been instances since. It’s definitely real, and it definitely hurts. It’s also no justification for any demands to be made and I’ve never mentioned it to any partners (mostly out of a desire to *not* seem douchy or lame).
My boyfriend actually went to the hospital for blue balls, shortly after our first date – he didn’t know what was happening. I never touched his genital area, we just spent nearly the entire day together, with lots of cuddling and things like that. I should probably mention that he was about 16 at the time.
Hoodie’s right — there doesn’t have to be “intimacy” involved to get blue balls. I got it bad one time without even kissing the girl. As to why it affects some stronger than others, I think one factor is level of sexual activity. Going a very long time without sex makes you a lot more susceptible to blue balls (which is a problem since I’m usually in a dry spell).
I’ve never had anything as bad as a migraine, though; it felt more like extreme soreness to me. Like any bit of movement or touching would make it worse. Masturbation is a handy cure, but as David says, it’s not always a practical option. If the girl just wants to cuddle, she probably won’t want you dashing off to the bathroom with your kleenex.
I used to get this all the time with high school girlfriends who had reached the petting stage, but weren’t yet ready to get me off. It actually hurts like hell. The worst part is if you don’t have the opportunity to masturbate for an hour or so after being seriously aroused. The ache really sets in and even walking is uncomfortable. Then you get home and find you’re so sore that it’s difficult to get hard. And when you finally do get hard enough to jerk off, the orgasm is so powerful it hurts a bit.
I doubt I’ll ever be as aroused again as I was back then, though. The mere fact of a girl touching me can’t possibly carry the same novelty.
I agree with Colin– they need to teach guys about this. Girls too.
The first time I got blue balls I thought I was dying of testicular cancer. I think they could do more to educate young guys on blue balls.
My boyfriend has admitted (blushingly) to having blue-balls. For the longest time he wouldn’t tell me what was wrong, just that he had a “really bad stomachache.” I discovered later that the “stomachache” was really blue-balls because one of our sessions from earlier in the day had stopped without him ejaculating.
He had trouble walking for awhile, and tried to masturbate as Tyler B. said in his reply, but was in fact too sensitive for him to even attempt it for quite some time. I suppose this must have been very uncomfortable for him, but this leads me to reason that if a guy really did have a bad case of the blue-balls, he wouldn’t be able to use the excuse of “Let’s just do the deed so I can get rid of this pain” because in all likelihood, he may be in too much discomfort/pain to do anything for awhile!
I was, shall we say, timid when first dating my ex; although he was too gentlemanly to tell me I was blue-balling him at the time, he revealed later that too much excitement without finishing did indeed give him migraine-level crotch-pain. I can believe it. However, I also believe it can be used as a cheap, sleazy excuse for overly-pushy men.
Oh, they are very very real. I’d disagree that you need touching, just prolonged arousal and an erection that doesn’t go anywhere (e.g., no ejaculation).
I’d never (and never have) used them as a bargaining chip or for a mercy fuck, but they’re quite real and they do hurt…
Now, as a married woman, my husband in no way has to use lame excuses to get some action…..but god forbid I feel up on Big Willy & the Twins every once in while (you know, just to make sure they’re still there and they still love me) I get, “I hate it when you do that, you’re give me blue balls.” I’m not sure of the specifics of what exactly it would feel like, but 2 out of 3 of the guys call it a myth, so I’ll be sure to bring that up the time I just want to fondle my husband!
I’ve experienced it before, but it was no where near “migrane headache” level. More just an ache — like my balls were swollen or something.
It surprised me, since I thought blue balls were just an excuse that jackasses gave to get laid.
But, having experienced it,
It’s still no excuse for being an asshole.
Very weird. I’ve never experienced this, either, and I’ve been in a situation before where I was facing very direct and, shall we say, imminent temptation to do naughty things with a very hot someone I should not have been doing naughty things with… In fact, started doing other naughty stuff before stopping myself and disengaging, as it were. If ever there was an incident that should cause the mythical blue balls, that was it, but nope. No such experience.
Maybe some guys get them, but I never have. I’ve always assumed that they were just a lame excuse that douchey guys give to their high school girlfriends.