A study of over 600 men and women recently published in the Journal of Cosmetic Dermatology found … [+]
When you tell a guy that he’s “good in the sack,” you may not be referring to the appearance of his scrotum. After all, it’s not clear how much, in general, a guy’s scrotal appearance might factor into people’s assessments of him as a sexual partner or a significant other or both. Chances are you won’t hear too many people say, “He doesn’t have a whole lot of redeeming qualities, but my oh my, is his scrotum beautiful. That’s why there’s going to be another date.” In fact, a study of over 600 men and women recent published in the Journal of Cosmetic Dermatology found that they could not really identify what constituted a “beautiful scrotum.” Yet, in recent years, you may have heard of a cosmetic surgery procedure called “scrotal tightening” more and more. The big question is how much people really need or want such a procedure versus how much is it being pushed as a sack of you know what?
The authors of this publication from Medical School Hamburg (Paula Albrecht MSc, and Erich Kasten PhS) and the Aesthetic Compass Praxisgemeinschaft (Carolin Eimer MD) in Hamburg, Germany, had their eyes on the balls for one main reason. They wrote that “tightening of the scrotum…is a new trend in the aesthetic surgery market.” They cited statistics from the German Society of Plastic, Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgeons that showed that in 2018 male genitalia procedures consisted of 6.1 percent of all cosmetic surgeries and 4.0% of these male genitalia procedures involved the scrotum.
That’s not necessarily a huge number. It’s not as if everyone seems to be jumping into the sac, so to speak. You probably aren’t looking around the room, shocked by the number of people of people who had their scrotums tightened. Of course, it’s not easy to get a handle on what other people may have done with their scrotums since scrotums don’t tend to come up casual conversations. For example, you won’t often hear, “Wow, that Florida Marlins game was very tight last night. Speaking of tight…”
Nevertheless, a Google, Bing, or Duck Duck Go search for the phrase “scrotal tightening” does return quite a few clinics and practices offering this as a procedure. Of course, whenever you search for anything with the word “scrotum” or “scrotal,” be careful. Sift through the results first before showing them to others or projecting them on a screen in the main auditorium.
The scrotal tightening being referenced by the publication is not when someone simply grabs your balls and squeezes. That would be something very different with very different possible goals. Instead, in this case, scrotal tightening refers to when a doctor surgically removes skin and soft tissue from what’s often affectionately known as your ball sac. This procedure is otherwise known as a scrotal lift, a man lift, or a scrotoplasty. Scrotoplasties are presumably most often done primarily for aesthetic purposes. It’s not common to hear of people complaining about how their scrotal size is interfering with their work or their ability to do daily activities such as communicate. Sure there are exceptions, but you’re not going to hear too many people lament, “I meant to take out the trash last night, but my scrotum got in the way.”
The study tried to assess people’s perceptions of scrotal attractiveness, which is a term that typically should not come up during a first date. The researchers managed to recruit 374 women—with an average age of 24.9 years and a range of plus or minus 8.7 years—and 279 men—with an average age of 26.8 years with a range of plus or minus 9.1 year— for the study. The researchers asked each study participant about their porn-watching habits in the six months prior, whether they had a sexual partner, and, if so, how they viewed the attractiveness of their and their partner’s genitals on a sliding scale than went from a low of a negative three, corresponding to “very unattractive” up to a positive three, corresponding to “very attractive.” If you happen to be living around Hamburg, Germany, and see your partner carrying a paper with your name and a “-3” on it, you may want him or her some questions.
The researchers then showed each participant frontal photographs of four different scrotums. They didn’t specify who owned these scrotums and whether they (the people and not just the scrotums) were famous, although the publication did say, “We extend our especial thanks to the four men who were willing to allow us to photograph their scrotums for the study.” You could say that they “sac”-rificed their time for the study.
In order to generate even more photos of different scrotums—because who wouldn’t want more pictures of different scrotums—the researchers then adjusted the images of these four scrotums in various ways such as stretching out their length and width. This yielded a total of 36 different images of scrotums for each participant to review and rate on a sliding scale of -3 to +3.
So did the participants have any particular hang-ups about any of the scrotums? Well, in a word, yes. In several words, the participants really didn’t like any of the scrotums. It was sort of like trying to pick which of the three Star Wars prequels was the best. A summary sentence from the publication summed up the results with “Overall, almost none of the 36 images we showed participants was rated as ‘attractive’, as most values were in the negative range. Only a less negative assessment was found among men than among women.” So, surprise, surprise, this study showed that people in general do not like to look at photos of scrotums. And as another shocker, women were even less OK with the photos of scrotums than men were.
Now, you may say that looking at photos of scrotums isn’t the same as seeing them in the flesh, so to speak. But scrotums aren’t exactly like the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Green Day, or the Rolling Stones where people may say, “They are much better when seen live.” No, there’s a good chance that you’d have gotten the similar results if this had been an in-person scrotal review. All of this led the study authors to conclude, “Ultimately, it was barely possible to identify a ‘beautiful’ scrotum; we must instead speak of the least ugly.”
This does make one wonder how much of this whole scrotoplasty thing arose organically because people were actually demanding such a procedure versus those trying to create demand for such a procedure telling everyone that their scrotums need some “rejuvenating.” Dilara Bahceci, PhD, the Head of Communications for Psylo, called scrotum tightening the “new unnecessary cosmetic surgery,” on Twitter:
This is a continuing issue in plastic surgery. There are certainly times when plastic surgery is needed because the structure of a body party is causing real functional problems. However, as has been seen with both male and female body parts, entertainment and marketing efforts can make it seem like there’s some type of ideal appearance that everyone should strive for when in actuality no such ideal exists. In most cases, appearance is highly subjective and conditioned by what we see in advertising, movies, and television. OK, in the case of scrotums, it’s probably more advertising since TV shows don’t tend to be scrotum-based. When selling products and services, there can be a tendency to promote one-size-fits-all solution rather than celebrate the variety in life. And when it comes to scrotums, it’s definitely not a one-size-fits-ball situation.