Why is it that if a man’s balls are crushed, or somehow cut off, his voice will suddenly become high pitched? OK, I know the man’s nuts contain the sperm, but I don’t see the direct correlation between sperm and vocal cords.
Or is this just a case of me believing everything I see in TV comedies?
(I am a guy, by the way… I am just asking this out of morbid curiosity - don’t worry I’m not planning on mutilating myself).
I think about 90% of it is just made up for TV shows because it is supposed to be funny somehow.
The other 10% is split two ways:
I think there is a tendancy to talk strangely when in pain.
The testicles produce testosterone which does deepen the voice. That is why a man’s voice gets deeper during puberty.
While true, I don’t see how that could possibly have anything to do with the subject at hand. So to speak. It’s not like the testicles are constantly emitting a stream of hormones that keep the vocal cords stretched, so that the slightest interruption of flow causes them to spring back like overextended Slinkies.
Luckily, I haven’t been on the receiving end of this experience often enough to speak with any real authority on the subject. If anything, I’d say that when we experience pain, we tend to tense up, which could cause voice pitch to rise. Try it yourself - to speak in a higher pitch, you have to tense muscles in your throat.
The testicles furnish the majority (but not all) of the androgens and testosterone that are responsible for the maturation of males. If a boy below or in the early stages of puberty should be castrated (on purpose or accidentally), he will retain a relatively high voice and a few effeminate features (and be prone to overweight due to the failure to build standard male musculature) unless he is given hormone supplements.
To finish that, because I inadvertently posted before completing the thought, once one has passed through puberty one has the essence of one’s adult form in place (though some physical maturation will follow) – so there would be no retrogression to a treble voice from a man castrated at, say, age 20.
To add to Polycarp]s post. If you Google “castrato” or alternatively watch the movie Farinelli you can get a better idea of where that concept comes from. Back in the day (before it was outlawed) “boy sopranos” could be castrated in hopes of preserving their soprano voices. But that had to be done before the onset of puberty.
The most famous castrati apparently had incredibly versatile voices – however it was outlawed before modern recoding technology could adequately capture it. For the film Farinelli they did a weird “morphing” of a female soprano with a male tenor in order to achieve an effect that apporximated the effect of what the legendary castrato’s voice ought to be like.
It’s probably due to the perceived connection of:
Crushed nuts => no more machoness => girly voice
I did have the opportunity of being kicked in the nuts a few times (twice in one week :eek:), always when doing martial art sparring and the partner is a friggen newbie (OK, I s’pose it’s partially my fault, but is it really too much to ask for control?). No high pitched voice, but I can vouch for the blood draining from face, and rolling in a small ball of agony.
Thanks for the straightdope, people. It’s enough to bring a tear to the eye, just thinking about this stuff.
According to this site: Here
The last castrato, Alessandro Moreschi, died in 1922, leaving a legacy of 17 recordings of not very high quality and not very choice music.
One final point, samarm – if you experience any blow or other injury to that area, and are still capable of immediately making any sound at all, it’s likely to be quite high-pitched! 
To be fair, I seem to recall a lot of comedies in which people of both sexes experience injuries to non-gonadal areas and subsequently their voice goes up a few octaves. Hence, it’s just a pain thing rather than totally a balls thing.
You can hear samplings of Moreschi’s singing–the only extant recordings of an actual castrato–here. Unfortunately, Moreschi was just a poor singer; his pitch and vibrato are hideous and in fact the recording is noteworthy only for its historical value.
There’s a jazz singer named Jimmy Scott (I know I’ve posted this before, but don’t feel like digging it up) who suffers from a medical condition in which the testicles never descend and the voice never matures. In other words, he is a natural castrato. And when you listen to him sing, you know you’re hearing a master. You can listen to samples of him here. His voice is incredibly soulful and powerful, if (or because) somewhat discomfiting. It gives you an inkling of what a castrato with actual talent might have been able to achieve.
To answer the OP, though, the TV/movie joke about someone getting kicked in the groin and immediately having their voice rise is nonsense. The voice might rise a little bit due to stress, but it will not go irretrievably up into falsetto-land. I am sorry to say I can attest to this from awful personal experience.
Nor does undergoing a vasectomy have any effect on voice pitch.
…and to sound like a “Thank you.”
When I practiced jujutsu, I occassionally took a hit that was not quite where one was to put it when merely practicing. My voice got no higher pitched during the events.