When a man rides a horse, how come his testicles don’t get squished? The answer, at last, to an age-old question.
Some years ago a couple of female friends asked me a delicate question, figuring I’d answer sensitively. The question, which they labored endearingly to articulate, was, When a man rides a horse, how come his testicles don’t get squished?
I suppressed a smile and answered that clearly a man can sit on a chair without violating the volumetric integrity of his testicles. Yes of course, they acknowledged, but a chair doesn’t leap over creeks and fences and pummel a man’s testicles with enough force to puree them.
The girls had a point. I had to think about it. When a man sits down on a chair his yarbles nestle in the prismatic space bordered by his thighs, the surface of the chair, and the root of all his joy. That such space seems especially well suited for his shape-shifting scrotum is one of the marvels of human evolution, to say nothing of office ergonomics.
Now enter the horse. A man riding a horse necessarily leans forward, at least while the horse is galloping, and this puts the bulk of the man’s weight directly above his clappers. The clappers dangle from precisely that part of a rider that gets spanked unmercifully by saddle leather. Somehow they survive to function another day. This is the dilemma the two girls sought to resolve.
I tried to offer up jock straps as an excuse, but soon abandoned the plan: Imagine a pair of ripe grapes securely enclosed in a cotton pouch. Or even a pair of well fed Lima beans; how you view this experiment really depends on your taste in fruits and vegetables. Now place the pouch on a bench and imagine a man sitting on it, bouncing on it, hurling himself upwards so that his backside plunges down upon it, again and again—pounding the soul and marrow out of the nibblies within. Those sacrificial yum-yums will reduce to their constituent atoms just as surely as had they faced their tragic end under the “protection” of a jock strap.
The girls looked up at me with innocent eyes, confident I wouldn’t burst out laughing at their question. Wouldn’t share it with the guys later over a beer. (Wouldn’t publish the conversation years afterwards at The Good Men Project.) They trusted me. How come his testicles don’t get squished?
I stalled for time. I imagined riding a horse—something I’ve never actually done, but no matter, I’ve seen cowboy movies. I imagined the horse trotting, galloping. My crotch thump-thump-thumping on the saddle. The horse leaping, arcing stratospherically, crashing back to earth, my gonads slamming against tanned and toughened cowhide. As I thought about it, I experienced a certain tightening. A certain . . . shriveling.
Then it dawned on me. I cleared my throat. I said, “Well, lil’ darlin’s,” and explained it to them: when a man rides a horse, a self-defense mechanism kicks in. His testicles shrink, retract, and petrify.
Envision some legumes, I said. Lentils and chickpeas, say. Or even acorns, or almonds—take your pick from the buffet. Spurred by natural selection, men have evolved over time, so that all they have to do is say “Giddy up” and their testicles prepare themselves to go horseback riding. Cowboys especially have transformed through the ages: low-hanging bronco busters begetting tightly wrapped buckaroos, spawning a whole new species known as homo bowleggedensis.
The girls looked at each other. One said, “So a man’s testicles really are just a pair of nuts?”
I nodded gravely. “Now you know where they get the name.”
Photo: Clinton Steeds/Flickr
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men do crack there nuts riding horses when they first start out until you learn to sit properly you normally sit back when riding slow which gets them out of the way, but when the horse gallops you lean forward but then you normally sit up in the stirrups. mind you beginner horse riders will have thier fertility challenged the first few times they ride.
I barely made it past the title…sorry, manufactured article….no horsey girls would even think that cos it obvious …haha…do you sit on your nutsack when you ride a bike?? doh! same thing mate…
Steve
Absolutely funny, amazing job on your article. Creative lines throughout!