Blue Balls: A Ball-Faced Lie?

Science Vs

Spotify Studios

Education, Science, Health & Fitness

4.4 • 12.4K Ratings

🗓️ 1 June 2023

⏱️ 38 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

We join forces with Sarah Marshall from You’re Wrong About to dive into a question for the ages: Blue balls — are they real? And we’ve got some BIG blue balls news in this episode! The survey we did when it originally aired has been turned into a peer-reviewed paper led by scientists at Queen’s University! WE MADE SCIENCE! And if you took our survey, you helped! So join us as we revisit this romp where we ask if blue balls are a ball-faced lie, something that men make up to pressure women to have sex with them. Our guests include Sam Pierstorff, Dr. Jamin Brahmbhatt, Professor Caroline Pukall and Dr. Jonathan Chalett. Find our blue balls paper in the journal Sexual Medicine: https://academic.oup.com/smoa/article/11/2/qfad016/7148610 Find our transcript here: https://bit.ly/sciencevsblueballsupdate Link(s) to related episode(s), if desired (and ask Jen Hahn to make a button once published): In this episode, we cover: (00:00) Chapter One: We’ve published a scientific paper on blue balls! (04:05) Chapter Two: A cautionary blue balls tale (09:25) Chapter Three: Could a semen backup cause blue balls? (15:00) Chapter Four: Is blue balls caused by blood flow? (19:05) Chapter Five: We do our own blue balls research! Credits: This episode was produced by Wendy Zukerman with help from Ekedi Fausther-Keeys, Meryl Horn, Nick DelRose, Michelle Dang, and Rose Rimler. We’re edited by Blythe Terrell. Gimlet’s managing director is Nicole Beemsterboer. Fact checking by Eva Dasher, update fact checked by Erica Akiko Howard. Mix and sound design by Bumi Hidaka. The updated version was mixed by Catherine Anderson. Music written by Peter Leonard, Emma Munger, Bobby Lord and Bumi Hidaka. A huge thanks to all the experts we got in touch with for this episode, including Dr Gordon Muir, Dr Michael Leapman, Dr Karan Rangarajan, Dr Randal Rockney, Dr Nan Wise, and Dr Kevin Gandhi. A big thanks to Joel Werner, R.E. Natowicz, Eric Mennel, Ayo Oti, Andrea Scott, Jack Weinstein, the Zukerman family and Joseph Lavelle Wilson. Science Vs is a Spotify Original Podcast and Gimlet production. Follow Science Vs on Spotify, and if you wanna receive notifications every time we put out a new episode, tap the bell icon! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hi, I'm Wendy Zuckerman and you're listening to Science Versus from Gimlin.
0:05.4	Today on the show we're putting facts against the family jewels.
0:09.0	As we tackle blue balls.
0:12.0	Are they real?
0:18.0	For the uninitiated, blue balls is this idea that people can get an awful pain in their testicles
0:25.0	if they get aroused but don't ejaculate.
0:28.0	But for many years, there's been this question surrounding the idea of blue balls.
0:33.0	Like, is this a real medical condition?
0:36.0	Or perhaps something that men make up to pressure women to have sex with them?
0:43.0	Which happens?
0:44.0	More often than you might think.
0:46.0	A few years ago, we surveyed you, our listeners, about blue balls.
0:51.0	More than 2000 people responded and 40% of those with vaginas said that they had been pressured
0:56.0	to do something sexual because of their partners so-called fear of blue balls.
1:03.0	40% had felt this pressure.
1:05.0	One listener said that she'd been called a tease.
1:08.0	Others said they were made to feel really guilty about not making their partners ejaculate.
1:13.0	In this survey, we also uncovered a whole lot of other mysteries about blue balls.
1:19.0	And then, we joined forces with researchers at Queen's University in Canada
1:23.0	to publish the results in a peer-reviewed journal, Sexual Medicine.
1:28.0	And that paper, it's just come out.
1:34.0	So, with that nut cracked, a first scientific paper for science verses,
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Spotify Studios, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Spotify Studios and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.