Epididymal hypertension (the medical term for blue balls) is at worst, a minor inconvenience easily solvable on one's own, writes Bokody. Photo / Getty Images
We're having that talk again.
The one where my boyfriend reminds me how long it's been since we last had sex.
"I've got blue balls, it hurts. Come on, it won't take long," he insists.
I won't recognise this for the grimy, coercive experience it is for several years. Instead, I'll internalise the idea my boyfriend's erection is my responsibility.
It's a feeling familiar to most women, and something comedian Nikki Glaser astutely describes in her 2019 Netflix special, 'Bangin'.
"If you make a guy hard … You have to see it through."
Indeed, the "blue balls" directive is one of many unspoken rules we learn as women, in a culture that repeatedly tells us our bodies belong to men. But as Glaser deftly points out, the pain guys often allege they experience when denied sex is largely mythological.
"It's not a pain … It's a feeling, and I will validate that. It's just like a, 'I want to. Please, but I want to! Mum! It's not fair! He got to come!' That's it," Glaser jokes, hyperbolically enacting a toddler throwing a temper tantrum.
Of course, sexual frustration exists – for all genders.
A build-up of blood flow to the genitals that doesn't culminate in a release (read: climax) can result in a few minutes or hours of discomfort, regardless of whether you have a penis or not. Though that's easily remedied via some *ahem* alone time, or a cold shower.
There are to date, no known cases of men dying clutching desperately at their engorged testicles, choking out the words, "If only my wife had been in the mood!"
Epididymal hypertension (the medical term for blue balls) is at worst, a minor inconvenience easily solvable on one's own, and certainly not a problem that requires female intervention.
The key difference between the way men and women manage sexual frustration is the entitlement men are taught to have around access to sex. And we know this is a gendered issue because of how ubiquitous the experience of obligatory sex is for women.
Watch just about any TV comedy and you'll likely see a scene involving a prudish wife begrudgingly promising her husband birthday sex or agreeing to perform intimacy in exchange for the completion of a household chore to raucous audience laughter.
Or consider The New Yorker magazine, Kristen Roupenian's short story 'Cat Person', which attained super-viral status in 2017 due to its uncomfortably familiar depiction of a woman having unwanted sex with a date.
Roupenian narrates, "She knew that her last chance of enjoying this encounter had disappeared, but that she would carry through with it until it was over."
A study published in the Journal of Psychology and Human Sexuality suggests this experience is so pervasive, at least 80 per cent of women have felt pressured to "see it through" so as not to put out or embarrass a partner. Even a quick call-out on Instagram as I was writing this story triggered an overwhelming, albeit disturbingly relatable response.
"My ex used it to get me to have sex with him when I was recovering from a C-section," a mum confessed.
"My now ex-husband would constantly tell me I was a tease and that I was hurting him by giving him blue balls. It stayed with me for years. Took a long time to take my sexual power back," revealed another.
"I have slept with multiple men out of guilt because of this tactic," shared a third.
And that's what "blue balls" really is – a sexual coercion tactic, not a genuine ailment.
There's no commonly agreed-upon colloquialism for the female equivalent (though I've heard cutesy terms like "blue walls" and "cranky clitoris" thrown around), because women don't treat our sexual frustration as a problem to be solved by men. This is despite the fact just 65 per cent of us reach orgasm at all during partnered hetero sex (compared with 95 per cent of men, studies show).
Performative sex is so normalised among women, research suggests at least two thirds of us have faked it with a male partner (though, in news that will come as a shock to absolutely no one who's ever read the comments section on this column, only 20 per cent of men believe this has happened to them).
The blue balls approach works, because we teach men to view sex as something they're owed and women to see it as something they're obligated to provide access to in exchange for love and fidelity.
But sex isn't a right, and intimacy that necessitates feigning pleasure or "seeing it through" out of duty isn't intimacy at all – it's sexual coercion.
So, forgive me if I don't spare a thought for your testicles as I sign off here, guys. Next time you're afflicted by the mild inconvenience that is blue balls, I'd suggest resolving it the same way straight women are accustomed to, and finishing off the job yourself.
A sex educator has answers on the ins-and-outs of sexual intercourse.