BOOBYTRAP: The "Magical" Testicles

I have to admit that I've always suspected that what men have below the waist equals what they lack above it, namely between their ears. Or - put in another way - they have got their penis on their brain where it takes up much too much room. The physical characteristics of men may also get me to utter less flattery utterances like e.g. "they suffer from "snot" in both ends of their bodies". That's neither nice in me nor quite fair, but as we know, that's often the case with a lot of male gender comments about women, so there ....

I was a bit surprised when I learned that up through time, there has been some weird testicle robberies. I know that some hold these organs to be a special delicacy, being cherished at special festivals.

Weird as it is, one has to admit that they may have other uses, especially for those who feel in need of some kind of a "male boosting" of their own masculinity.

For instance, in 1922 the very masculine vet Joseph Wozniak found himself robbed of his testicles after spending a pleasant evening at a bar with four new "friends", namely men he didn't know. They seemed like decent and nice guys, but by their actions they proved that that assumption was wrong: They abducted Wozniak and somehow stole his testicles by cutting them off. This robbery led to his suicide four years later, so the four men stole more than his testicles, namely his life. As to the use they had of these stolen testicles I think they were intended to become some kind of medicine to boost the masculinity of one or all of the four men because that was what others used testicles for, stolen or not.

When testicles are seen as some kind of rejuvenating "medicine" it's obvious that they have many uses by those who believe this myth. In 1914 the urologist Frank Lydston tried a very special "cure" of a declining masculinity when he stole the testicles of a dead man and had them put into his own genitals with surgery. However, being a firm believer in the magic of testicles he ended up sewing even more testicles into different parts of his body, like for instance in his heart region. Other doctors sold testicles from animals in a perpetual hunt for something that could be the answer to men's wish to stay youthful and vigorous.

At one point there were several "cures" with monkey-testicles - most likely with no one being cured. However, the belief in the magic of testicles made some doctors rich. The ony "excuse" is that they themselves may have believed in the myth: The male craving of a cure turned into pure medical fantasy fiction, like in some articles in "Journal of the American Medical Association" i 1922. Also the need to believe in a sexual magic of some kind was part of the medical experiments of the Nazi doctors in the camps. Some used the testicles in attempts to "cure" homosexuality.

Others used the very idea of their magic in attacks on what to them were "inferior" races, like in some blatantly racial and absolutely non-scientific articles on the "negro problem" and the "need" of castrations of colored men. Sheer nonsense, but popular with some parts of the medical world who may even have held a belief in these wild ideas.

As was to be expected, the belief in the testicular magic have not been shared by many women. Some may even laugh at it as testicles to them are not a symbol of strength, but the opposite: