Men's Health April 30, 2026 0 Comments

The Untold Secrets Behind the Quest for Massive Gains: What No One Is Telling You About Bigger Balls

Ever wondered just how far someone might go to redefine what “bigger is better” really means? Meet Marcus—a 57-year-old who’s taken the quest for enlargement to a whole new level, with a scrotal sac reportedly as large as a small cantaloupe. His decades-long obsession with inflating his balls, inspired oddly enough by shapeshifting comic book heroes, dives into the world of ballmaxxing—an intense, deliberately risky procedure where men inject fluid into their testicles to achieve jaw-dropping size and sensation. Curious, thrilling, and yes, medically dicey, this underground practice blends elements of BDSM, body modification, and a deep yearning for control and identity. So, what compels these bold adventurers to willingly stretch the limits of their bodies? Let’s unpack the surprising, transgressive, and oddly euphoric world of scrotal inflation—the science, the stories, and the scars.

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8 min read

MARCUS HAS HUMONGUS balls. His ball sac, he claims, is bigger than an apple, bigger than a mango. The 57-year-old has been obsessed with enlarging his balls for decades, a passion he thinks grew out of the comic books he’d read as a child, which were filled with drawings of shapeshifting bodybuilders. Why he hyperfixated on his genitals, though, he isn’t sure. According to his own measurements, Marcus says he’s got his scrotal sac up to 14.5 inches (about the size of a small cantaloupe melon) by injecting Surgilube, a surgical lubricant made from natural water-soluble gums, into the region. It’s the latest in over thirty years of scrotal experiments, which include pumping (placing a suction device over the scrotum which draws fluids into the area) and saline infusions. “I’m astonished at how flexible the testicles are,” he tells me. “They just expand.”

You might call it ballmaxxing—the pursuit of bigger and bigger balls by fluid infusions—and according to scrotal-stretching obsessives, it’s an exhilarating endeavor. On the subreddit r/salineinflation, which has over 8,700 followers, members share photos of exorbitantly enlarged scrotums, taut and near translucent, regaling the prismatic pleasures of the medically risky procedure. There’s no single reason that leads someone to inflate their genitals with fluid (other body parts like breasts and labia can be inflated too), but genital-expansion fanatics describe it with an array of celestial terms: Electrifying. Addictive. Euphoric. Transcendental.

“Nothing really matches experiencing it yourself,” Jack, a 31-year-old blue-collar worker who is into scrotal saline inflation, says. “You have to talk yourself into doing it, find the time, get everything prepped, and then sit there for anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour and a half while it takes effect.” The procedure works by transporting fluid (such as Surgilube, saline, glucose, or dextrose) into your scrotal sac via an IV line, piercing the skin where the base of the penis meets the scrotum with a butterfly needle or a catheter. You may feel a burning sensation as the saline fills your scrotal sac, but for some ball-expansion aficionados, this is part of the appeal. “Watching it happen and feeling it in real time is intense,” Jack says. “The whole buildup is electric. It’s similar to really good foreplay.”

It takes upwards of 30 minutes for a bag of sodium chloride to fill the scrotal sac, according to a “guide for beginners” pinned to the top of the r/salineinflation subreddit. A liter of saline is said to inflate your scrotal sac for 24 to 42 hours, and the more fluid inserted, the longer the effects will last. Once enlarged, an inflated scrotum feels heavier than usual, intensifying the sensory experience of moving around. Sex also feels different. “There’s this mass that has its own momentum and inertia,” Marcus explains.

“The whole buildup is electric. It’s similar to really good foreplay.”

Some saline inflators associate saline play with BDSM, in its blending of painful and pleasurable sensations. But the exact origin of the fetish is murky. There’s little written about saline play, and it’s difficult to say definitively when folks began blowing up their scrotal sac with fluid. Penis modification, on the other hand, is well-documented. As far back as Ancient Greece, men have been meddling with their members—pulling their foreskins and tying it up with a cord to hide the glans. In India, the Kama Sutra, written around the 3rd century CE, advised males to rub their penises with bristled insects to elongate it. The Topinamá tribe in Brazil are said to have allowed venomous snakes to bite their penises in the hope that they would expand.

The first acrylic penile implants were created in 1952, followed by liquid silicone fillers two decades later. Penile lengthening surgeries continued to develop in the noughties. You could get ligamentolysis (slicing the ligament that connects the penis and the pubic bone). Fat transplantation. Dermal filler injections. Between 2013 and 2017, the International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery performed 45,604 penis enhancements worldwide. By 2024, the global penile implants market size was estimated at $545.80 million.

But as penile procedures diversified and men’s magazines (this one included) ran feature after feature guiding readers how they can get bigger-looking dicks, no one seemed to be talking about testicles. That is beyond the occasional reference to Scrotox, a procedure that involves injecting Botox into the scrotum, with potential cosmetic benefits including smoother skin and the temporary appearance of larger testicles. The changes are subtle, though—nothing like the ballooned balls that fluid inflation can achieve.

For many saline-inflators, the potential shock-factor of their uber-bulbous balls contributes to the erotic appeal. One 29 year-old IT worker who is into scrotum pumping tells me: “I know it’s freaky and abnormal looking—that’s exactly what I like about it.” A 35-year-old electro-technician says that having a bulging scrotum “makes me especially horny, when I move around in public, knowing that someone can see that.” Other ballmaxxers enjoy feeling like a hefty animal, like a bull or cow; or they get off on the idea that they are doing something “unnatural.”

“I know it’s freaky and abnormal looking—that’s exactly what I like about it.”

But while some saline inflators are turned on by the feeling of transgressing male body ideals, others fixate on more normative models of masculinity. Multiple ballmaxxers have also experimented with enlarging their penises via vacuum pumps and believe that jumbo balls serve a similar purpose. “I felt so manly, manly man,” one user wrote on r/salineinflation.

Several others say that they thought sexual partners might enjoy bigger balls, particularly if they didn’t have a big penis. “I would think that maybe a woman might like a larger package down there,” one 55-year-old manager in Southern California, who is into scrotal expansion, tells me. In reality, though, artificially-engorged genitalia is not everybody’s cup of tea. Multiple ballmaxxers admit that their partners aren’t into scrotal expansion, or they’re nervous to tell people they’re dating about it.

Once, Jack posted on r4r, a subreddit where people were looking for connections, asking if anyone was interested in seeing the results, but the reaction was disappointing. “A few people responded with shock, questioning why anyone would do this and acting like this is where someone should draw the line,” he says.

Eventually, Jack met a woman on FetLife, a social network for the BDSM, fetish, and kink community, who wanted to watch one of his infusions. They decided to meet for dinner, then went back to hers to watch a movie while Jack inflated his scrotum. “She would periodically look and feel and ask a few questions,” he recalls. “Her curiosity was absolutely electric… probably because the curiosity was showing a sort of acceptance.”

I wondered how ballmaxxers balanced the desire for huge balls with their own safety, whether thepursuit of acceptance could jeopardize their physical health. The “guide for beginners” pinned to the top of the r/salineinflation subreddit outlines a variety of safety protocols for saline play, such as wearing latex gloves, cleaning the area with alcohol swabs, and applying a waterproof bandage afterwards. But the procedure isn’t risk-free. In 2003, a research paper titled “A complication of an unusual sexual practice” described a patient who had developed scrotal cellulitis, a bacterial skin infection impacting the deeper skin layers and subcutaneous tissue, after buying a scrotal infusion kit online. Other reports of medical emergencies have followed since.

None of the ballmaxxers I spoke with said they’d ever needed medical attention after saline play. And while they took safety seriously, the majority had queasy tales of things going wrong: The 35-year-old electro-technician once hit a vein, turning his scrotum blue with bruising. Another time, he infused his scrotum with so much liquid that he couldn’t walk. “My groin was on fire,” he recalls.

“I’m astonished at how flexible the testicles are. They just expand.”

Jack says he’s now hyper-meticulous about needle placement after once noticing a swelling in his pubic area near his stomach (he thinks he may have put the needle through the fascia of the spermatic cord, a cordlike structure that suspends the testes in the scrotum). Some scrotal-stretchers regaled horror stories they’d read about on Reddit, like someone microwaving a fluid bag for too long, causing internal burns. Others described itches, blotchy skin, blisters, cysts and bruises.

Even if the procedure is executed perfectly, doctors tend to warn against scrotal inflation. “The scrotum area is very sensitive and contains delicate structures, including the testes, blood vessels, and nerves, which are not designed to accommodate fluid distension,” says Dr. Shirin Lakhani, an aesthetic physician and intimate health expert in Kent, England. If a scrotum is stretched past its limit and can no longer expand, the skin ruptures.

“You could also experience tissue or nerve damage as stretching the scrotal skin and underlying structures can cause microtears, bruising, or longer-term damage to connective tissue,” Dr. Lakhani says. Fluid accumulation can impair blood flow, potentially impacting testicular function, and there’s also a risk of delayed complications, such as erectile dysfunction and permanent infertility. Some associated effects can be life-threatening, such as gangrene (the death of tissue due to a lack of blood flow) and embolism (a blocked blood vessel).

And yet for some scrotal-inflaters, the bliss of temporary transformation outweighs the risk of permanent damage. Kevin, a 33-year-old tech worker who struggled with body dysmorphia, says saline inflation was gender-affirming. He started experimenting with it last year, when a bad patch at work coincided with the breakup of his eight-year relationship. Usually when his job was stressful, he’d escape at home; but now, because he was still living with his ex-partner, he felt like he had nowhere to turn.

Kevin had already been dabbling with softer forms of body modification, piercing his nipples and urethra, enjoying the feeling of self-sovereignty it provided. He’d always been drawn to the “weird and wacky,” feeling safe among people who were “outcasts” and “underdogs.” He’d also used a vacuum pump to expand his scrotal sac, which made him feel more masculine. Then he came across a post on X about saline inflation. It felt like the natural next step.

“It was euphoric,” Kevin reflects on his first infusion. The process had been a cathartic exercise in bodily autonomy. “Taking ownership of my own body was a lot of the drive for it,” he says. “Typically masculine people have a lot of control in their life.” Looking in the mirror afterwards, Kevin felt satisfied with what he saw. “I achieved what I expected to experience,” he recalls. “It’s like Christmas where you’re getting the present you expected.”

“Taking ownership of my own body was a lot of the drive for scrotal inflation.”

Kevin was doing infusions up to once a week at the height of his professional and personal difficulties. It was a way for him to feel in control of something tangible when other parts of his life felt unmanageable. But when we speak a few weeks later, things were slowly falling into place. “I feel like there’s a lot more control in life now,” he tells me. He’d started seeing someone new, work was improving—and with those changes, his desire for bigger balls had dwindled. “I still have my appreciation for it,” he says, “but it hasn’t ever really eventuated into: ‘I’m actually going to do it.’ I don’t feel that compulsion [anymore].”

But other ballmaxxers have no intention of slowing down—even after injuries. Marcus says he once got his scrotum stuck in the toilet after inflating it with two liters of saline. It tore the skin, which became a seeping blister. “It was a bit painful,” he says. “I’m actually still recovering from that.” But within a few weeks, the wound had healed, and Marcus was ploughing on. “I’m thinking a little bigger will be nice,” he says. The plan is to add 30 cubic centimeters of fluid to his left ball sac and 20 to the right. “That should be ‘perfect.’”

Names have been changed.

Arielle Domb is a journalist and a photographer based in London who investigates health, sex and subculture. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, the Guardian, VICE, Vogue, Cosmopolitan and more.