I'm a straight guy and I'm really into having my balls sucked—it's one of my favorite things and just thinking about it turns me on. But whenever I've had my balls sucked, it hurts, and ball pain is not a kink of mine! It hurts enough to override any pleasure, and I have to tell my partner to stop. Is this normal? Does ball sucking hurt for everyone? Is there something I can do to make it less painful?

She Can't Roughly Osculate Trouser Eggs

The next time you find yourself in an argument with a proponent of "intelligent design," SCROTE, lay this one on 'em...

There's this muscle called the cremaster that attaches a man's balls to his abdominal muscles. When a man is cold, the cremaster contracts, lifting his balls toward his body so those little darlings stay nice and warm; when he's hot, the cremaster relaxes, dropping his balls away from his body, keeping the little darlings cool. Putting this in language the average "intelligent design" proponent can understand: Your cremaster is Goldilocks and your nuts are a delicious-looking bowl of sperm-cell porridge. Cremasterlocks doesn't like sperm-cell porridge that's too hot. Cremasterlocks doesn't like sperm-cell porridge that's too cold. Cremasterlocks likes sperm-cell porridge that's just right.

And here's the cruel twist, SCROTE, the absolutely irrefutable proof that humans evolved over the eons through a completely random and directionless process of spontaneous mutation and natural selection: Our cremaster muscles don't just contract when we're cold, they also contract when we're aroused. So the better it feels to have your balls sucked, the more turned on you get. The more turned on you get, the more your cremaster contracts. And the more your cremaster contracts, the more it hurts to have your balls sucked! You can call a system like that a lot of things—crazy painful, deeply ironic—but it can't be called "intelligently designed." (In defense of the cremaster muscle: It's pulling your balls up toward your body so they don't get hurt during intercourse—so they don't get smacked around too much—but if humans are smart enough to create a car that knows when its door is open, then an intelligent designer would be smart enough to create balls that know when they're being sucked, right?)

So the problem here, SCROTE, isn't ball pain, it's muscle strain. And there is something you can do about that.

"This guy should get himself a set of short ball stretchers," said Stephen "Ox" Lane of www.oxballs.com, an online sex shop that specializes in toys for men. "We have a good selection of ball stretchers, most made of silicone so they are nice and soft. He should get in the tub, soak in warm water, and let his sack relax and sag, then gently put one ring on. Then he can play with his balls for a while, stroking them and his dick, and if everything is feeling good, add another ring."

At least for now, though, Lane doesn't recommend that you leave the ball stretchers on when you come.

"His balls will pull up as he's getting ready to shoot, and that may cause pain," said Lane. "For the time being, he should use his ball stretchers as a warm-up. Over time, his balls will get used to the feeling and his sack will stretch."

And not just your sack, SCROTE, but your cremaster, too. And a slightly looser, more elastic cremaster will mean less painful ball sucking.