Blue Balls: How to Get Rid of It (and What to Tell Your Wife)

Way back in the day, I remember sitting in my boyfriend (now husband)’s apartment hearing his roommate loudly complain. He was telling a story about making out with his girlfriend when he all of the sudden got “the worst pain of [his] life” in his balls. According to his telling, he yelled and pushed back so hard his girlfriend fell off the bed. “Blue balls sucks man!” he finished emphatically.

That was the first time I had ever heard the phrase blue balls. Since then, I have heard many men complaining about how hard and painful an experience it is. On the other hand, I’ve had many women tell me men are faking it to guilt women into sex. I got curious, and decided to do a little research on my own. Here’s what I’ve learned about the myth and the reality of the phenomenon we call blue balls.

The short version: blue balls is real, it is not dangerous, and it usually fades on its own within a few minutes to a couple of hours. You can speed that along with an orgasm, a cold or warm compress, a cold shower, exercise, distraction, or an over-the-counter pain reliever. What it is not is a medical emergency, and it is not your wife’s job to fix.

What Is “Blue Balls”?

“Blue balls” is a slang term for a painful or heavy sensation in the testicles and genital area that some men experience after prolonged sexual arousal without ejaculation. When we (men and women) get turned on, the arteries carrying blood into the genitals widen while the veins that normally drain that blood away tighten up. Blood flows in faster than it flows out, and tension builds, waiting for release. When that blood engorges the genital region during sexual excitement but doesn’t dissipate — because an orgasm doesn’t happen — it can cause an uncomfortable ache or soreness.

The name “blue balls” comes from the blue-ish appearance the testicles may take on from the buildup of blood in the area. Some professionals prefer to call it epididymal hypertension, though the phenomenon hasn’t been studied enough to warrant an official medical definition. Researchers haven’t done much work on epididymal hypertension precisely because it has no known ill effects on long-term health.

And it isn’t only a male experience. Women can feel the same thing — a heavy, congested, aching pelvis after being aroused for an extended stretch without release. The same remedies that help men will release that tension too.

How Long Do Blue Balls Last?

Usually a few minutes to a couple of hours, and it resolves on its own as arousal drops and the blood drains normally. An orgasm ends it almost immediately. Most men find the ache fades within twenty minutes to an hour if they simply do something else.

That timeline matters, because it is the whole difference between an inconvenience and an emergency. If testicular pain is severe, comes on suddenly, or is still going strong after an hour, the problem is almost certainly not blue balls — see the section on when to call a doctor below.

How to Get Rid of Blue Balls: 6 Things That Actually Help

If you start to feel that heaviness after being aroused for a while, it’s not a bad thing to respectfully ask your wife if she wants to keep going. If the two of you were already building toward that anyway, great — ask. But many women feel pressured to say yes before they’re ready, or when they don’t want penetration, because they feel responsible for their husband’s discomfort. There are plenty of ways to handle this that don’t hand the job to her.

1. Manual stimulation

If this is a practice that aligns with your values and fits into your marriage, you or your wife could relieve the pressure through manual stimulation. The orgasm ends the congestion and blood flows back to the rest of the body. This is still not an excuse to pressure your wife into doing something she doesn’t want to do. Read on for more suggestions if this isn’t something the two of you are comfortable with.

2. Pain relievers — does ibuprofen help?

It can. Ordinary over-the-counter pain relievers — ibuprofen (Advil, Motrin) or acetaminophen (Tylenol) — will dull the ache while the tension dissipates on its own. They don’t treat the cause, because there isn’t really a cause to treat; they just make the wait more comfortable. Follow the label, and don’t use them to push through pain that is severe or getting worse.

3. A cold or warm compress

A cold pack applied to the area for a few minutes helps the blood vessels constrict and reduces the congestion. Some men find warmth works better for them by relaxing the surrounding muscles. Either is worth a try; neither will hurt you.

4. A cold shower

The cliché exists for a reason. A cold shower helps “turn you off,” ends the erection, and releases the tension you feel in your testicles.

5. Exercise

Exercise moves blood to the rest of your body. Go for a run, do pushups or jumping jacks, carry something heavy up the stairs. Anything that puts real demand on your large muscles will encourage blood flow away from your tense genitals and back into circulation.

6. Sublimation — put the energy somewhere else

Most people have had periods in their life without a sexual partner and had to learn to handle sexual feelings on their own. Whatever strategies you used then — a project, a hard problem, a walk, a task that takes your full attention — will work here too. Arousal needs your attention to sustain itself. Give your attention to something else and it drops.

Should I Tell My Wife I Have Blue Balls?

This is one of the most common questions we get about it, and my answer is yes — with the right intention behind it. Saying nothing tends to breed a quiet resentment that is far worse for a marriage than the ache ever was. But there is an enormous difference between sharing an experience and making it her problem to solve.

The version that lands badly sounds like: “I’m in pain because you stopped.” Even when a husband doesn’t mean it as pressure, that framing puts the discomfort in her lap. It implies she did something wrong, or that she now owes him a fix.

The version that works sounds more like: “Hey, I want you to know I get really aroused when we make out like that, and sometimes my body takes a while to come back down. I’m not saying it to pressure you at all. I just don’t want to seem distant afterward and have you wonder why.”

That’s self-disclosure, not a guilt trip. He’s letting her into his experience without handing her responsibility for it. Most wives, hearing it framed that way, are glad to know — it explains why he goes quiet or shifts around, and it removes the mystery. Mystery gets read as rejection or moodiness, and that is much harder on a marriage than the honest truth. Own the discomfort, but own the solution too.

There’s a deeper question underneath this one, and it’s worth sitting with. What does making out mean to you, and what does stopping mean? If every time the two of you kiss and she doesn’t want to go further you end up frustrated, that pattern will eventually teach her that physical affection is a transaction — foreplay with an expected outcome. And when she senses that, she starts pulling back from the kissing too, and you both end up with less connection, not more. Dan talks about this honestly in episode 318, including his own years of managing sexual tension and calling it desire. The goal is for her to feel that affection with you is safe and enjoyable on its own terms, not a down payment on sex.

The Blue Balls Myth: What’s Real and What Isn’t

So is blue balls a myth? The sensation is real. The obligation is the myth.

The problem is that some men use the experience to guilt their wives into sex, and some will exaggerate the pain to make their wives feel sorry for them. The idea seems to be: “You aroused me, now you need to let me orgasm so I don’t have to feel this.” That is where the myth lives. The ache of epididymal hypertension is uncomfortable in the moment and has no lasting effects, and there are half a dozen ways to relieve it that don’t involve another person at all.

The bigger issue here is women feeling guilted into having sex with their husbands. As we discussed with Dr. Cami Hurst on our podcast, it can be very damaging to a person and to a relationship to have sex out of duty. For a woman, having sex when she doesn’t feel turned on or any desire for it can lead to ongoing physical pain, mental aversion to sex, and disconnection from her own sexual identity. Some women have been raised to believe it is their duty to provide sex to their husbands. That way of thinking won’t let a woman learn what she wants or explore her own desires, and it leads to less pleasure for her and a rift between them. If that describes your marriage, our guide to moving on from duty sex is the place to start.

Blue balls do hurt. Guilting your wife into relieving them is still not the answer, and it will only produce more pain, more confusion, and less intimacy.

When to See a Doctor About Testicular Pain

Everything above assumes ordinary blue balls: a dull, heavy ache that follows arousal and fades on its own. Testicular pain has other causes, and a couple of them are urgent. Get medical help right away if you have any of these:

• Sudden, severe pain in one testicle, especially with swelling, a darkening scrotum, nausea or vomiting, or one testicle sitting higher than the other. This can be testicular torsion — the cord has twisted and cut off blood supply. It is a surgical emergency and the window to save the testicle is measured in hours.
• Tenderness and swelling with fever, or burning when you urinate. This suggests epididymitis, an infection that needs antibiotics.
• Pain radiating from your back or side into the groin, with blood in your urine or nausea. That pattern points to a kidney stone.
• Pain following an injury, particularly with significant swelling or bruising.
• Any testicular pain that is severe, or that hasn’t settled after an hour or so, whatever you think caused it.

None of that is meant to frighten you. Blue balls itself is harmless. But “it’s probably just blue balls” is a bad reason to wait out pain that doesn’t behave like blue balls, and torsion is the one where waiting costs you something you can’t get back.

The Bottom Line

Men can experience real discomfort from prolonged arousal without release. It isn’t lasting, it isn’t severe, and it isn’t dangerous — and if it is any of those things, the problem isn’t blue balls and it’s worth a call to a doctor. Tell your wife what’s going on with your body if you want to; just tell her as information, not as a bill. Then go take a cold shower, take an ibuprofen, or go for a run, and let your own body sort itself out.

For more on the medical side, see Healthy Male’s article on epididymal hypertension and how to get rid of it or Medical News Today’s overview of blue balls, definitions and myths.

Blue Balls FAQ

Written by Amanda Severson, LMFT with Get Your Marriage On!

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