I like jjimm’s answer. The first reason is fear of pain. Then, it gets a little bit more emotional.
I suspect the reasons for why the nads hurt so damned much at any provocation is, like so many things in nature, manyfold. High sensitivity ensures you can be encouraged to deliver the payload in a hurry, reducing the vulnerability inherent in the sexual act. It also teaches you real damned quick that you have to take care of the package. So there’s two stones crushed by one bird right there.
But we’re also thinking creatures, and I suspect that at a basic level men understand pretty well (or poorly) that they have only one real mission in life, and that’s to spawn as many offspring as is physically possible (actually, we think so well (or poorly) that we’re satisfied with just performing the act rather than actually achieving the results). The contemplation of having that ability taken away is… in a nutshell… fear inspiring at a level that transcends mere pain.
I’ve only had a gun pointed at me a couple of times and never been shot at. I’ve never been in mortal fear but for a few seconds at a time. But I have had surgery on the boys, and let me tell you, that’s by God enough for me.
In fact, my fear of the operation was so great that the first time I was facing it I evaded the surgeon and didn’t return to a hospital for almost a year–and I knew that evasion was potentially life-threatening, or at least very dangerous. When they finally cornered me and tricked me into surgery (“you’re fine, but we’re just gonna need you to drop by the ER for a check-up”), my fear was many layers deep.
First, as jjimm mentioned, was a fear of pain which half of this audience will understand implicitly. Then two things happened. First, a male nurse took me aside and said essentially, “look, I know you’re worried about the pain and I promise it won’t be that bad.”* Almost at the same instant, another nurse said, “put it this way, you’re going to get fixed–oh, God, I’m sorry I said that.”
That was when the second type of fear kicked in, a hollow, gutless feeling of emptiness and despair. That’s when I called my father and told him what was about to happen, asked him to tell everyone I loved them, etc. In retrospect, I realize that though there was virtually no danger to my life, my call to the old man was very funerary in nature. It’s because the reason for my existence was in jeopardy, and that was, to me, just as bad as if my life itself were in the balance.
It’s taken a long, long time for me to even start getting over that, and I’m still working on it. (By the way, I still have the Boys and I treat them like the royalty that they are.)
Men don’t have a lot of reasons to live except to serve as an advertisement for a teaspoon or two of genetic material. Threaten the font of that and you imperil the very foundation of a man’s existence.
- The sonofabitch lied like he was running for President.