Like varicose veins in the legs, varicocele is an abnormal enlargement of the veins in the scrotum.
Let’s be honest, we are body obsessed, even when it comes to our balls. Balls “should” be oval shaped and smooth. When they don’t conform to the norm, we worry, we question why, we keep quiet and hope no one notices. “Let’s have a beer and forget about it”. Like varicose veins in the legs, varicocele is an abnormal enlargement of the veins in the scrotum. Often painful, varicocele might even cause infertility, as we discovered in our documentary, Balls, as in the case of our courageous documentary subject Adam.
After taking part in a medical study during his undergraduate degree, Adam donated some of his semen and found out that, in his own words, his “sperm was dead”. Adam jokingly compares his left testicle to an “asteroid”, because it looks enlarged and misshapen. Aside from infertility, other symptoms of testicular varicocele might include: an aching or dragging like pain, heaviness in the testicle, shrinking of the testicle and benign prostatic hyperplasia (noncancerous increase in size of the prostate).
Adam considered surgery to remove the varicose veins in his scrotum, but decided against it because he is a gay man that is not interested in having children. Though at times his varicocele is physically sensitive to touch or sexual play, he has lived with this condition for most of his adult life and doesn’t see the benefit of going under the knife. He is also in a supportive relationship with his partner Philip who has no issue with Adam’s “misshapen” ball. Philip loves Adam exactly as he is. Adam is lucky.
As men, particularly gay men, we are obsessed with our physical presence. In another episode of Balls we explore the use of anabolic steroids and how men physically transform their bodies through its use with often disastrous side effects.
Jeremy from I’m a Stripper.
We aspire to a physical ideal that is unattainable. We are constantly and unsuccessfully trying to transform and mutilate our bodies to fit a singular, perfect mold that only exists in some sadistic Greek god’s fantasy. For more on this explore our documentary STUDlebrity.
I am no exception. Though to date I have not been on a course of steroids nor have I had any testicular ailments that I am aware of, I did recently remove 12 moles from my torso. Granted, some of these moles needed to be removed for health reasons, but the majority of them were removed strictly based on aesthetics.
This didn’t feel good, emotionally and physically. Why am I putting myself though additional trauma for the sake of vanity? I’ve never had any part of my body removed, including my foreskin, of which I am very proud of (I have a lot of foreskin pride and always encourage parents not to mutilate their young baby boys). Now recovering from my minor surgery, in loo of my large moles, I have large unsightly scars in their stead. Sadly, I’m no closer to this perfect/ flawless body. In fact, I’m left humbled, a little embarrassed and further flawed. I’m embarrassed to tell friends and family why I had this procedure done. I think I’m sticking to the story of having been in a knife fight. It will make me appear strong and courageous. 😉 So manly! I guess I should have listened to my Greek mother. She refers to my ugly moles as “beautiful olives”. Either a mother’s love is blind, or she can see our true physical beauty, no matter how ugly we think we might be. Vulnerability is beautiful. Being different is beautiful. Being flawed is beautiful. Thanks Mom. I’ll be sure to have a chat with you next time I’m considering the operation table for elective surgery.
~ Nico Stagias, Balls director & cinematographer at Border2Border Entertainment.
WATCH the unblurred, unbleeped, balls out version of the Balls documentary on Border2Border Entertainment.
Comments