Nevermind, They're Just Bollocks

What phrase is even more hateful than “man-up”? Correct, it’s “grow a pair”. Seriously, “grow a pair”? Equating bravery and strength with the flimsiest, most vulnerable of all the organs? Glands so laughably delicate that so much as a faint tap with a drinking straw sends the owner into a spasmodic recoil of abject pain and the urge to vomit? Oh, fuck off, men.

Some testicles, yesterday.

If you want to suggest power and courage, why not, “flap up”? A vagina has the muscle power to project a nine pound human into a delivery room, yet still retain its taught elasticity to accommodate a pathetically grateful penis merely weeks later (providing the owner doesn’t want to instinctively lop the cock off’ve every man she meets following said agonising birth).

"Say, once he's popped out, how about a quickie?"

Balls are useless, and I come here not to bury them, but at least tuck away the hairy sods when I sit down. Previously, I’d only ever been dimly aware of their existence if I’d accidentally slid off the frame of my BMX. Now I’ve tumbled into my mid-thirties, I’ve never been more aware of their groin-bothering antics, constantly banging about my crotch like some twin pendulum carved from kebab meat.

I admit that their functionality is a simple, yet vital, part of human reproduction. But it’s hard to marvel at their sheer worthiness when the base design seems so fundamentally flawed. As sperm needs to be kept at a temperature lower than that of the body, their exterior positioning is crucial. Unfortunately, this means that an awful lot of intercourse is unwittingly soundtracked to the familiar symphony of nutsack smacking arse, which has been scientifically proven to be massively off-putting. Chiefly because it’s the exact same sound you’d hear if you tried playing ping-pong with a wet pickled onion.



In porn, women go mad for the tang of sweaty scrotum, which is just like in real life, yeah?

And thanks to their exposed geography, they act as a natural beacon for assault – man’s own Death Star weak spot, only a hundred times less impressive and a thousand times more painful. Great if you’re fending off an attacker, not so good if a toddler wearing a crown runs through your legs. I’ve also never understood porn’s mission to make them visually appealing; shave them, coat them in oil, or pop them in a pair of Ray-Bans if you must – they still look like Postman Pat’s knuckles clutching a roller-coaster safety bar as far as I’m concerned. Pity the performer asked to lick a pair lustily for the camera. Nutritionally-speaking, they’d be better off tonguing a scotch egg that had rolled under a sofa. Fewer hairs too.

"Has anyone seen a pair of plums?"

Hell, I’m not sure what role, if any, a eunuch performed in Ye Olde Days, but I imagine that once they’d got past the horrific act of ballbag butchery, they were probably better off than the rest of us nad-janglers. Of course, it’s easy for me to opine; I was voluntarily neutered over a year ago, following two children and a feeling that I’d done enough for the world’s population problems. Little tip for anyone considering it: you will have to pop your genitals through a giant paper letterbox, making you the world’s most obscene front door.

"Hi there, I'm here to shift a penis."

Crushingly, the kindly-faced medical assistant needed only a wet-ended cotton bud to gingerly brush aside my flaccid penis from the proceedings. She could have at least used a toy JCB to protect my fragile modesty. Even one of those miniature wooden shovels given away with cinema ice cream would have done. My knob shame was the least of my problems some ten minutes later or so, as the surgeon knitted my deferens together in equal parts skill and sadism. Another tip: it’s really not that bad. Just a few kicks to the knackers. Deal with it.

I tried not to look at my nads for the next few days – they resembled a pair of Ribena Berries who’d had the shit kicked out them by a posse of burly bananas. I’d not felt less like wanking since Su Pollard’s pop career.

A eunuch, off've some TV show that you definitely haven't downloaded illegally

And now, their functionality no more, they hang about like a remnant of a past most people would sooner forget, a bit like those Golly Dolls your Grandparents insist on clinging on to for old times sake; every bit as ugly and offensive, only much less likely to sit on an elderly racist’s mantelpiece.

 

Grow a pair? Oh, grow up, men.