I can address this one. The answer is it depends on the nature and severity of the man’s spinal cord injury. Spinal cord injuries (SCI) are extremely wide-ranging and their is much diversity within it’s community. Most SCI involve sensation loss and those who have no sensation below their injury level (known as a “complete” injury) typically would not feel pain in the testicles either.
As far as the guy you saw on the program with two paralyzed legs who could still get an erection and orgasm-like I said, there is a lot of diversity in the SCI community. I myself am a guy with two paralyzed legs who can still get an erection and orgasm. I can’t speak for the guy you saw on tv but I have full sensation everywhere, so I can feel. Its not just “in my mind”: But some paralyzed men without sensation can get erections one of two ways: reflexogenic erections and psychogenic erections. The former is an erection produced totally through physical stimulation, while the latter is an erection brought about “by the mind”.
Suppose you’re a lion, in a fight with another lion. You wanna go for the groin, but the problem is that the lion you’re fighting keeps his head facing you, the better to attack you with. How exactly are you gonna go for the nads without getting past the bitey scratchy parts first? He isn’t exactly gonna sit there wondering what’s happening while you circle around behind him, is he?
Humans are uniquely constructed among mammals in that our testicles are vulnerable to attack from the front. Other mammals are quadrupeds and don’t have their torsos and heads and back legs blocking the lines of attack. The only avenues open are from below and from behind. And if you’re underneath, you’re very vulnerable to getting stomp/clawed/smashed, you’re too busy not getting stomped to have time to go for the goolies. And if you can attack from behind then you’ve got a huge advantage in all sorts of ways, not just a lucky nut shot. Going in low for a nut shot leaves you vulnerable to kicks in the face.
Which is why I also asked the quesrion regarding primates.
Your point about large cats facing one another is valid, but when one gets the upper paw, so to speak, the other one might find itself on the ground in a prone or semi prone position. A male lion could take a swipe at the other male’s groin with either the front or rear feet, and a lucky, well placed kick or swipe would have the desired outcome… Assuming the outcome is the same as what we humans would imagine it to be.
Thank you for sharing your personal story. Your situation is different than the one I saw on TV, in that the man in the documentary stated he felt no stimulation, even though he said he could get and maintain an erection until climax.
I wonder if the testicles intense pain has evolved as feedback loop with social intelligence.
Males who feel more pain in their testicles would have to be more careful in sex with their mate. This could lead to the male becoming able to notice subtler parts of their partner’s behavior. This could increase the survivability and reproductive ability of the pair. This creates a feedback loop
All testicle are easy to squash from a powerful kick, a squashed one can cause death…
An animal that has to outrun carnivores may have painful testicles as a weakness, they’d prefer to get them badly bruised than to be eaten .
The apex carnivore or safe animal may well feel pain so as to avoid accidentally hurting them.
The sensation one feels in them when lying down may well be referred sensation from the lymph nodes near by. When lying down, the volume of lymph in the leg reduces as the pressure in the fluid, which is due to height ,reduces and so the volume of the vessels reduces… they are stretchy … less pressure means closing up. So then the lymph node in the groin is having lymph flow into it… a sensation of moving and pulsing. Its also important not to damage your lymph nodes, and the blood vessels near the joints are easily squashed too, so they are a bit sensitive to being squashed.