How Can a Man Ride a Horse? A Tale of the Scrotum

Some years ago two female friends asked me a delicate question, figuring I'd answer sensitively. The question, which they labored endearingly to articulate, was:

"When a man rides a horse, how come his balls don't get squished?"

I suppressed a smile and answered that clearly a man can sit on a chair and not violate the geometric integrity of his balls. Yes, of course, they acknowledged, but a chair doesn't leap over creeks and fences and pummel a man's balls with enough force to puree them.

The girls had a point. I had to think about it. When a man sits down on a chair his yarbles nestle in the prismatic space bordered by his thighs, the surface of the chair, and the root of all his joy. That such space seems especially well suited for his shape-shifting scrotum is one of the marvels of human evolution as well as office ergonomics.

Now enter the horse. A man riding a horse necessarily leans forward, at least while the horse is galloping, and this puts the bulk of the man's weight directly above his clappers. His clappers dangle from precisely that part of a rider that gets spanked unmercifully by saddle leather. Somehow they survive to squirt another day. This is the dilemma the two girls sought to resolve.

I tried to offer up jock straps as an excuse, but soon abandoned the plan: Imagine a pair of ripe grapes, or even well-fed Lima beans, securely enclosed in the pouch of a jock strap. How you view this experiment really depends on your taste in fruits and vegetables. Now imagine a man springing up and down on the pouch, using the area between his bung hole and prick to pound the soul and marrow out of the nibblies enclosed within. Those sacrificial yum-yums will reduce to constituent molecules just as surely as had they faced their tragic end in the light of day, without the "protection" of a jock strap.

The girls looked up at me with innocent eyes, confident I wouldn't burst out laughing at their question. Wouldn't share it with the guys later over a beer. (Wouldn't blog about the conversation years afterwards.) They trusted me. How come his balls don't get squished? I stalled for as long as I could and finally answered:

"How else would we have cowboy movies?"

The Scrotum Song
lyrics © 2009 Stephen Parrish
all rights reserved
violators will be prosecuted*
*not really

I'm a happy little scro-tum
In a thorn tree
A happy little scro-tum
As happy as can be
How can I be so damn hap-py
In a thorn tree?
Better here than on a sad-dle
Getting turned to Jel-ly
Better here than on a sad-dle
Crotches pulverizing me
Better here than on a sad-dle
Crying out in a-go-ny

If you've indulged me this far you get to hear that Midnight Ink, the mystery/suspense imprint of Llewellyn Publications, is going to publish my first novel, Adamant Stone, and distribute it to a reading public that will struggle to stand upright in the winds of ambition, enthusiasm, and glorious destiny that are about to blow.



Now at last I can become insufferable.