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It\u2019s a difficult time to be a man. They\u2019re falling behind women academically<\/a>, making less money <\/a>than their dads and grandfathers, and are so desperate for kinship and community that they\u2019ve started posting sticks on Instagram and asking each other to rank them<\/a>. It\u2019s tough out there, and now that the weather is heating up, it\u2019s about to get tougher.<\/p>\n A man told me something a few years ago that haunts me to this day: every summer, his balls get bigger. Not to the extent that he has to purchase new underwear <\/a>or anything, but enough to make a noticeable difference when he wears trunks or loose boxers. Every June or so, like clockwork, his \u201csummer long balls\u201d come in. It\u2019s one of the harbingers of summer, sort of like a collie shedding its top coat or Sabrina Carpenter releasing a new single.<\/a><\/p>\n This guy says he doesn\u2019t have strong feelings about his Summer Long Balls. \u201cIt\u2019s not something I either like or dislike,\u201d he said. \u201cIt is simply a reality.\u201d But I don\u2019t think he\u2019s being entirely truthful. I\u2019ve gone to the beach with him, and on at least one occasion, he had to find a Target en route and duck into the bathroom to self-adjust because his balls had gotten twisted in his trunks.<\/p>\n I had to know if this condition was specific to this one man, or if it was something that all men struggled with but\u00a0 just didn\u2019t talk about publicly. When I asked around my social circle, about half the men I polled didn\u2019t know what the hell I was talking about. Others, however, acutely felt the pain of summer long balls. \u201cIt sucks,\u201d one person told me. \u201cI wish I could wear sluttier shorts in the summer. But I can\u2019t do so comfortably.\u201d<\/p>\n Another told me he experiences a variation on summer long balls in which sweat causes the skin from his scrotum to stick to his leg, creating what he dubs a \u201cbat wing\u201d effect. \u201cYou have to make sure no one sees you grab your crotch to rearrange if you\u2019re in public,\u201d he says. I even heard about a guy whose testicles were so distended they hit the toilet water when he sat down in a public restroom.<\/p>\n Some pointed out the similarity to \u201csummer penis<\/a>,\u201d the term coined by MEL Magazine\u2019s Tracy Moore in 2018 to describe the way some men\u2019s genitals appear to swell during the summer. This phenomenon, Moore writes, is caused by vasodilation, or the dilation of blood vessels to allow for increased flow to erectile tissue.<\/p>\n But this is not the case for summer long balls, according to New Jersey urologist Anika Ackerman, which instead result from body self-regulating in warmer climates, so the testicles are at optimal temperature for sperm production. \u201cWhen it\u2019s a cold environment, the testicles move towards the body, and the scrotum tenses up,\u201d Ackerman explained. (Think: George Costanza\u2019s shrinkage incident<\/a>.) \u201cThe opposite is true in a warm environment. The scrotum relaxes and the testicles move away from the body.\u201d It\u2019s not so much that men\u2019s testicles become bigger in the heat; it\u2019s that they travel further away from the body.<\/p>\n Still, the question remained: why do some men clearly experience summer long balls, while others don\u2019t? And approximately what percentage of the male population is at risk, so to speak? I called Yaniv Larish, a urologist and surgeon at Fifth Avenue Urology, to see if he had any theories.<\/a> He suspects that a good proportion of summer long ball cases are actually men with varicoceles, or enlarged veins within the scrotum. (Which is basically like varicose veins, but for your ballsack.) \u201cWhen you have a varicocele, the blood is not moving around efficiently, so instead of circulating around the testicle and pulling the heat away, it\u2019s pooling up and actually insulating the testicle at an elevated temperature,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n About 15 percent of the male population has a varicocele in either one or both testicles. They\u2019re often undiagnosed, because \u201cmen are way less educated about their bodies than women are,\u201d Lavish says Varicoceles are usually harmless, but in some cases they can be linked to decreased fertility, in which case they are treated with minor surgery. \u201cWhat you\u2019re describing as summer long balls is, I suspect, really the varicocele becoming more pronounced as a result of the elevated temperature,\u201d Larish says.<\/p>\n If a man in your life is struggling with summer long balls, there are a few things he can do to alleviate his discomfort. Wearing tight underwear, for instance, can offer scrotal support; it\u2019s also helpful to spend as much time in the air-conditioned indoors as possible, as hotter environments aren\u2019t great for testicular health overall. Ackerman also told me about a product called \u201cNutsicles\u201d<\/a> \u2014 essentially, an ice pack for the testicles \u2014 that could possibly help, though it is intended primarily for men who have had vastectomies and not Summer Long Ball sufferers.<\/p>\n While there is no hard-and-fast cure for Summer Long Balls, the good news is that it\u2019s temporary. Once the temperature goes down, so, too, will the circumference of a man\u2019s balls. Men can also take solace in the fact that summer long balls can provide, if nothing else, a new opportunity for creative expression. \u201cActually, I think they\u2019re kind of awesome,\u201d a friend told me. \u201cWhen they\u2019re hanging way the heck down you can really grab a handful of them and twist them around, or pull them up to do a bullfrog.\u201d Who says men don\u2019t have hobbies?<\/p>\n Stay in touch.<\/p>\n Get the Cut newsletter delivered daily<\/p>\n Vox Media, LLC Terms and Privacy Notice<\/p>\n