‘Ballmaxxing’ Trend Has Men Infusing Saline Into Their Genitals

You could say that this trend is a little nuts. Or maybe a lot. It’s called ballmaxxing. And it’s about infusing saline or some other substance into your scrotum in order to get it bigger and bigger and bigger. But before you roll into this salty practice to the max or even at all, keep in mind how it could get you into some big trouble—like really, really big trouble.

What Is Ballmaxxing

Ballmaxxing is sort of an extension—both literally and figuratively—of the scrotal filler trend that I described previously in Forbes. On social media, it’s been customary to add the suffix “maxxing” to a word when you are trying to maximize that thing. For example, the term fibermaxxing is about trying to get as much fiber into your diet as possible. So, if you are on the ball about how words work, you’ll realize that ballmaxxing is not just about making your scrotum a little larger. It’s about getting it a lot larger, in many cases, as large as seemingly possible

Just take a look at the subreddit named r/salineinflation that has over 8,700 followers. Or maybe don’t take a look at it. The subreddit includes quite a few photos of saline-filled scrotums, filled to the point that they look like balloons with the overlying skin stretched taut. In fact, some of these scrotums on display seem to be the size of melons. Needless to say, such images are likely NSFW—meaning “not safe for a whole lotta places.” And based on the descriptions posted, many of these seem DIY, meaning the owners of the scrotums did the inflations themselves.

Why Are Men Ballmaxxing

Speaking of DIY, your first question may be “why?” Why oh why would you insert a needle into your scrotum, connect it to a intravenous line and a bag of saline and then run the saline through the line over the course of about 30 minutes into your scrotum to fill it with saline. That is the burning question, especially since infusing saline in there can give you a burning sensation.

After all, no job seems to have as its requirement having scrotum that looks like that floating Pikachu in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade. And few dates will probably say, “I like your personality and pretty much everything about you but scrotum is just not big enough.” Moreover, the effect is only temporary as the saline gets absorbed and the scrotum gets deflated usually within a day or two. Yet, social media posts have been using words like “electrifying”, “euphoric” and “addictive” to describe this ballmaxxing practice.

One stated-on-the-posts reason is that such big genitals seem to be making at least some of these ballmaxxers feel more masculine. It’s the whole bigger is better belief. There are certainly phrases that seem to equate the size of one’s scrotum with things like bravery or aggressiveness. And some of the reddit posts speak about men feeling more confidence when walking around with a pair of huge ones in between their legs even when others may not necessarily see them.

Another stated reason is the belief that women might like them bigger, too. This is a big assumption, though, since any claims about women liking bigger scrotums could be, er, inflated without any hard evidence. Of course, different women can have a range of different preferences, and there is certainly a range of different fetishes out there.

Then there’s the assertion that this expansion will somehow enhance sex and the pleasure derived from sex. Mechanically, it’s not completely clear how throwing some melons into the mix will help things in bed. It is different and can provide different sensations, like that of playing volleyball simultaneously. So, maybe some people are simply looking for something different. Plus, some posts are suggesting a pain mixed with pleasure element there and that this could be a bit in the BDSM realm.

Finally, there’s intrigue and fascination, sort of like witnessing in awe the Aurora Borealis, your partner actually washing the dishes or the 4,353 kilogram fruitcake being unveiled in Hodenhagen, Germany, on May 24, 2014. Some posts express amazement of how much the scrotal skin can stretch and change appearance as the scrotum gets filled with saline. It’s sort of the OMG-my-body-can-do-this thing.

The Dangers Of Ballmaxxing

If you are indeed thinking, what’s the harm of sticking a needle into your scrotum and filling the scrotum with fluid, you had better think twice, in the words of that Gnarls Barkley song Crazy. Your scrotum is not just some kind of flexible flask. There’s a reason why you don’t typically store water or wine in your scrotum. It’s got a lot of sensitive, delicate structures within it, like your nerves, blood vessels and testes, that can be displaced, damaged or crushed by pressure, which can be very gnarly.

Damage or even just any kind of disruption to these structures can result in a whole host of problems. For example, impairing blood flow to your testes can lead to erectile dysfunction and infertility, even permanent infertility. There are also life-threatening possibilities such as bleeding, blood clots or ischemia, which can end up with tissue in your scrotum dying and gangrene. Yikes.

Plus, whenever you penetrate your skin anywhere with a needle, you risk bringing nasty microbes into your body. Such microbes can cause a variety of nasty infections. And while you typically don’t want infections in any part of your body, an infection inside your scrotum can be particularly nasty because of all those sensitive structures.

Therefore, it’s safe to say that this ballmaxxing practice can be quite unsafe, especially when it’s DIY. All of the aforementioned risks could leave you bawling in many ways rather than balling.