Testicularities: how satisfactory are these answers to the question, “Why does your left testicle hang lower?”

Jena Pincott’s elegant blog asks this question to which her speculative answers, and those of her readers, range widely.

 

greecesculpturehermes-infant-dionysusWhile 65 percent of women have a left breast that is larger than the right, the same percentage of men have a left testis that hangs lower in the scrotum than the right. The left testicle also tends to be 7-10 percent smaller.

Why?

It’s a question that won an IgNobel prize for Chris McManus. Although scrotal asymmetry is faithfully reproduced in Greek sculpture, the British psychologist observed, the Greeks weren’t exactly anatomically correct. Greek sculptors faithfully made the left ball lower, but they mistakenly made it larger. Absurdly, they thought the testicles acted like weights to keep open the ducts when semen was released. The left one was erroneously believed to be heavier.

Hundreds of years have passed and we still don’t exactly why the testes aren’t side-by-side and symmetrical, but there are a few theories that touch on the mystery:

Go HERE to read Jena’s article and see the answers provided.  Great articles and podcasts as well as her books!