Manhood: The Rise and Fall of the Penis Read Online Free PDF Page A
Author: Mels van Driel
a case of a retractile testicle caused by the tensing of the testicular muscles, whereby the testicle is pulled in the direction of the external inguinal opening or even the inguinal canal. The medi -
cal term for this phenomenon is the cremaster reflex, which causes the sudden disappearance of the testicle!
The cremaster reflex may be triggered, for example, by stimulating the skin on the inside of the upper thigh. In older men the reaction is harder to provoke. The spiral-shaped fibres of the cremaster muscles run through the seminal cord to the base of the penis and when suddenly contracted may even result in testicular torsion. On the underside the testicle is attached to the scrotum by a wide band which normally prevents it from it turning vertically on its own axis.
22
t h e t e s t i c l e s a n d t h e s c ro t u m During sexual arousal engorgement with blood causes the testicle to increase in volume by up to 50 per cent. In the case of prolonged sexual arousal the accumulation of blood may cause pain (‘blue balls’), from which ejaculation brings relief. (Not that women should feel in any way responsible for this state of affairs!) Scientists in the German state of Thüringen were able to demonstrate that when the testicles of male ferrets swelled in spring, their brains also increased in size –
definitely not the case in humans!
Moving balls also seem to be an object of particular fascination for visual artists. Joop van Lieshout, for example, has produced a series of huge plastic penises, and in a tv programme he showed an excerpt from a work by his fellow-artist Bruce Nauman, who in 1969 filmed the dangling and bouncing of his own testicles with a high-speed camera, as part of a series of four Slo Mo films: Black Balls , Bouncing Balls , Pulling Mouth and Gauze.
Nauman hired an industrial camera to film at very high speeds: the frame speed varied from 1,000 to 4,000 per second (the normal speed is 24 fps), in natural light. The shooting time was between four and six seconds, but the running time of Bouncing Balls is nine minutes. The extreme slow-motion effect means that movement is sometimes scarcely perceptible.
Leydig and Sertoli cells
Each of the two testicles – separated from each other in the scrotum by a membrane, the septum – is made up of two compartments. In terms of volume 95 per cent of the testicle is devoted to sperm production.
There are approximately 250 lobules, and if you were to lay all the tubes in the lobules end to end they would have a combined length of about 500 metres. The inner wall of the tubes contains germ cells which after a process of divisions produce young but not yet mature sperm cells.
Between ten and a hundred million sperm cells are produced every day.
The unbelievably dense network of fine seminal tubes constituting the sperm-producing section of the testicles was described in the seventeenth century by Reinier de Graaf, though the actual discovery was made by De Graaf’s teacher, Professor Johannes van Horne of Leiden University. During a study placement in France De Graaf had used bull’s testicles for his research. These were easily obtainable, but turned out to be less than ideal for research purposes. He finally opted for the testicles of an unusual little creature, the dormouse. Its body weight is approximately 100 g and the testicles weigh about 1 g each.
De Graaf removed the outer membrane from the dormice testicles and 23
m a n h o o d
then submerged them in a glass of water. When the glass was gently shaken the testicles simply fell to pieces. ‘One can clearly see that the testicles consist wholly of tiny tubes,’ wrote De Graaf in his book (Van Horne had previously stated that the testicle was nothing but ‘a collection of tiny threads’). This was in fact plagiarism by De Graaf, but after a long correspondence with the Royal Society he was credited with the discovery of the ‘threads’. For the sake of completeness he even had to
cal term for this phenomenon is the cremaster reflex, which causes the sudden disappearance of the testicle!
The cremaster reflex may be triggered, for example, by stimulating the skin on the inside of the upper thigh. In older men the reaction is harder to provoke. The spiral-shaped fibres of the cremaster muscles run through the seminal cord to the base of the penis and when suddenly contracted may even result in testicular torsion. On the underside the testicle is attached to the scrotum by a wide band which normally prevents it from it turning vertically on its own axis.
22
t h e t e s t i c l e s a n d t h e s c ro t u m During sexual arousal engorgement with blood causes the testicle to increase in volume by up to 50 per cent. In the case of prolonged sexual arousal the accumulation of blood may cause pain (‘blue balls’), from which ejaculation brings relief. (Not that women should feel in any way responsible for this state of affairs!) Scientists in the German state of Thüringen were able to demonstrate that when the testicles of male ferrets swelled in spring, their brains also increased in size –
definitely not the case in humans!
Moving balls also seem to be an object of particular fascination for visual artists. Joop van Lieshout, for example, has produced a series of huge plastic penises, and in a tv programme he showed an excerpt from a work by his fellow-artist Bruce Nauman, who in 1969 filmed the dangling and bouncing of his own testicles with a high-speed camera, as part of a series of four Slo Mo films: Black Balls , Bouncing Balls , Pulling Mouth and Gauze.
Nauman hired an industrial camera to film at very high speeds: the frame speed varied from 1,000 to 4,000 per second (the normal speed is 24 fps), in natural light. The shooting time was between four and six seconds, but the running time of Bouncing Balls is nine minutes. The extreme slow-motion effect means that movement is sometimes scarcely perceptible.
Leydig and Sertoli cells
Each of the two testicles – separated from each other in the scrotum by a membrane, the septum – is made up of two compartments. In terms of volume 95 per cent of the testicle is devoted to sperm production.
There are approximately 250 lobules, and if you were to lay all the tubes in the lobules end to end they would have a combined length of about 500 metres. The inner wall of the tubes contains germ cells which after a process of divisions produce young but not yet mature sperm cells.
Between ten and a hundred million sperm cells are produced every day.
The unbelievably dense network of fine seminal tubes constituting the sperm-producing section of the testicles was described in the seventeenth century by Reinier de Graaf, though the actual discovery was made by De Graaf’s teacher, Professor Johannes van Horne of Leiden University. During a study placement in France De Graaf had used bull’s testicles for his research. These were easily obtainable, but turned out to be less than ideal for research purposes. He finally opted for the testicles of an unusual little creature, the dormouse. Its body weight is approximately 100 g and the testicles weigh about 1 g each.
De Graaf removed the outer membrane from the dormice testicles and 23
m a n h o o d
then submerged them in a glass of water. When the glass was gently shaken the testicles simply fell to pieces. ‘One can clearly see that the testicles consist wholly of tiny tubes,’ wrote De Graaf in his book (Van Horne had previously stated that the testicle was nothing but ‘a collection of tiny threads’). This was in fact plagiarism by De Graaf, but after a long correspondence with the Royal Society he was credited with the discovery of the ‘threads’. For the sake of completeness he even had to
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