Sorry, chaps… scientists say there’s no such thing as a ‘beautiful’ scrotum

Scrotox, scrotal band surgery and the scrotal lift: they are three of the latest trends in male groin correction and surgery.

With men more body-conscious than ever, doctors say scrotal cosmetic procedures are growing in popularity as word spreads about them.

But men need not worry now.

For German researchers conclude that ‘in the end’ it is ‘hardly possible to identify a ‘beautiful’ scrotum’.

Write in the Journal of Cosmetic Dermatologyscientists said, “We should speak instead of the least ugly.”

In a study by researchers at the Medical School Hamburg, 673 participants were each asked to complete a questionnaire and rate the attractiveness of 36 different photos of scrotums on a sliding scale.

A total of 374 women, with an average age of 25, participated, while 279 men, with an average age of 27, completed the survey.

About half were in a relationship and the majority had been in at least one sexual partner in the past six months.

A total of 461 participants – 200 women and 257 in makeup – also shared that they had used sexually explicit material online in the past six months.

Each participant was then given head-on photos of four different scrotums. There were nine versions of each scrotum, which the researchers edited to have differences in width and length.

Participants were then asked to rate all 36 images on a sliding scale from −3, ‘very unattractive’ to +3, ‘very attractive’.

The results showed that almost none of the scrotums were rated as “attractive,” with most scores being negative.

The researchers found that the participants’ age and pornography use did not affect the score they assigned to each image, while there were some differences between genders.

The researchers noted that previous studies have shown that women “perceive a prominent, large penis as a measure of masculinity.” So any penis that doesn’t meet these criteria could lead to a less positive review, they said.

However, their findings show that this was not true of the scrotum.

“The reason for this may be that the scrotum does not hold the same importance for women as the penis,” they wrote.

However, scientists acknowledged that their images showed scrotums in a “normal range” with “relatively small differences” in size, which may have limited the findings.

“If image processing had made the scrotums unusually large, small or bulky, the participants might have shown stronger preferences,” they noted.

All of the men whose scrotums were photographed were also between the ages of 23 and 30.

They added: “In most cases it is older adults seeking scrotal tightening, future work may choose to include models from a larger age range or focus on older men’s scrotums.”