How much can you sell your dick for

Or am I gonna have to do Postmates again?

If there’s one thing we can all agree on, it’s that life ain’t cheap. Unfortunately, that means many of us are forced to take drastic measures when bills start piling up. So, um, seeing as I’ve got an extra, how much is a testicle worth? And, uh, can you sell a testicle, like legally? 

Seems I have some questions to answer before I exchange my roly-poly for cold, hard cash.

Can You Sell a Testicle?

Not legally (which, major blow to my retirement plan). The National Organ Transplant Act, signed in 1984, bans the sale of human organs, and that includes your ball(s). If you do engage in any nut-involved transactions, you could face a five-year prison sentence and/or a fine of up to $50,000. (If you venture to Iran, however, they have a system that involves “paid donations” in exchange for organs, so you may be able to fetch some cash for a ball there.)

What you can do is donate your dead body, ball(s) included, for education or research. A body broker could subsequently sell your body — usually for $5,000 to $10,000 — but you’d be way too dead to see a penny. There are some regulations that aim to control these kinds of sales, though for now, it remains a messy business.

The one other option is selling your ball on the black market, but it’s tough to say how much you’d get for it. The FBI seized a price list for the underground market a few years ago, and a full pelvis was listed for only $1,750.  A single nut likely goes for much cheaper.

That said, there are a few other considerations, so don’t get discouraged yet.

How Much is a Testicle Worth?

So, you can’t directly sell your ball, at least not legally. But that doesn’t mean it’s worthless. If you were to lose a testicle on the job, for example, the national average worker’s comp payout is $27,678. But due to a lack of federal oversight, it really depends which state you’re in when your nut makes its departure: If you’re in Illinois, you’re looking at a payout of $73,537. In Minnesota, however, you’ll only get $3,750. So maybe look into where you’re living before “having an accident.”

There’s also the case of a Nevada man who, in 2013, hoped to have his testicle removed for $35,000 as part of a medical trial. (He planned to use the money to buy a new Nissan.) However, the researchers weren’t interested in buying his ball so much as seeing what would happen if they replaced it with an artificial one. Plus, there’s no evidence that the Nevada man actually went through with the trial.

Now, before we finish up today, there is one more question we should address… 

Why Would You Want to Sell Your Testicle?

If you’ve made it here and can’t wrap your head around why someone would want to sell a ball, here are some reasons from dudes on Reddit:

• “College isn’t cheap.”
• “It’s not like I’m going to have any use for it.”
• “Money’s money, and I was blessed with a spare.”
• “That would almost get me out of debt.”
• “I could buy at least two WWI Maxim guns.”
• “I don’t really need them for procreation.”
• “Hate balls.”

Too bad there’s no good way to actually make it happen. Guess I’ll just have to do Uber then.

Ian Lecklitner

Ian Lecklitner is a staff writer at MEL Magazine. He mostly writes about everyone's favorite things: Sex, drugs and food.

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Jo Eberhardt, a fantasy writer and mother of two from Australia, penned a reply that is so spot on that it keeps repeatedly popping up on social media. When you nail it, you nail it—and this mother nails it.

"Ah, puberty," she wrote, "It changes our sweet, wonderful little boys into sweet, eye-rolling, angsty, accidentally disrespectful, but still wonderful young proto-men." Yup.

Eberhardt then described a discussion she had with her 11 1/2 -year-old son when he started going through this stage—a conversation they had in the car, which is usually the best place to have potentially uncomfortable discussions with kids.

She told her son that she'd messed up in the way she'd talked to him about puberty, then explained exactly what was happening in his brain.

“I've spent all this time talking to you about the way puberty changes your body," Eberhardt told her son, "and what to expect as you go through the changes, but I completely forgot to talk to you about what's going on in your brain right now. Puberty is the time when your brain grows and changes more than at any other time in your life — well, except for when you're a baby, perhaps. So I really let you down by not preparing you for that. I'm so sorry."

Her son accepted her apology, then asked why is his brain was changing.

“That's the amazing thing," she told him. "Did you know that your brain grew and developed so quickly when you were little that by the time you were about five or six, your brain was almost as big and powerful as an adult's brain?"

"But here's the thing," she continued, "Even though your brain was super powerful, the instructions were for a child's brain. And all the information about building an adult's brain was a bit… let's say fuzzy. So your brain did the best it could, but it didn't really know what kind of person you were going to be back then, or what shape brain you were going to need."

“Now we come to puberty," she went on. "See, puberty is amazing. Not only is your body being transformed from a child's body to an adult's body, your brain has to be completely rewritten from a child's brain to an adult's brain."

“That sounds hard," her son responded.

“Yeah, it is," Eberhardt replied. “That's why I wish I'd warned you first. See, it takes a lot of energy to completely rewrite a brain. That's one of the reasons you get tired quicker at the moment — and that, of course, manifests in you being crankier and less patient than normal."

Eberhardt paused, then added, “That must be really frustrating for you."

Her son looked over at her, wiping his eyes. “It is," he responded. Sometimes I just feel really angry and I don't know why."

It's amazing what happens when we explain to kids the physiological reasons for what they're going through.

Eberhardt continued, “The other thing is that one of the first parts of your brain that gets super-sized to be like an adult is the amygdala. That's the part that controls your emotions and your survival instincts. You know how we've talked about fight/flight/freeze before, and how sometimes our brains think that being asked to speak in public is the same level of threat as being attacked by a sabre tooth tiger?"

Her son laughed. “Yes. So you have to tell your brain that there's no sabre tooth tiger to help you calm down."

“That's right," Eberhardt replied. "Well, that's what the amygdala looks after: sabre tooth tiger warnings and big emotions. So, the thing with puberty is that all of a sudden you've got an adult-sized amygdala hitting all your emotion buttons and your sabre-tooth tiger buttons. That must be really hard for you to manage."

Her son nodded and said, “Sometimes I don't know why I say the things I do. They just come out, and then I feel bad."

This is the moment where what a parent says can make or break a kid's spirit. But Eberhardt handled it with empathy and expertise.

“I know, Sweetheart," she said before explaining:

“See, the last part of your brain that gets rewritten is right at the front of your head. It's called the frontal cortex. And that's the part of your brain that's good at decision making and understanding consequences. So you've got this powerful adult amygdala hitting you with massive emotions, but you've still got a fuzzy child frontal cortex that can't make decisions or understand consequences as quickly as the amygdala wants you to. It pretty much sucks."

“So it's not my fault?" her son asked.

“No, it's puberty's fault your brain works the way it does," Eberhardt answered. "But that doesn't mean it's not your responsibility to recognise what's going on and change your actions. It's not easy, but it's not impossible, either. Your feelings are your feelings, and they're always okay. But you get to choose your actions. You get to choose what you do with your feelings. And, when you make a mistake, you get to choose to apologise for that mistake and make amends."

Eberhardt said she then paused for dramatic effect. “That's how you prove that you're becoming an adult."

It's also remarkable what happens when we empathize and communicate with our kids instead of simply chastising them.

Her son responded with a perfectly understandable and relatable, “Puberty sucks."

“Puberty absolutely sucks," Eberhardt responded. “I'm not in your head, but I can only imagine that it's a mess of confusion and chaos, and you don't know from one minute to the next how you feel about things."

Her son looked at her in surprise. “Yes! Exactly!"

“If it's confusing for you living inside there," Eberhardt continued, "imagine how confusing it is for me, when I only see your actions."

“That must be really confusing," her son agreed.

She nodded. “Do you know what that means?"

“What?"

“It means sometimes I'm going to make mistakes. Sometimes I'm going to get upset at things you do because I don't understand what's going on in your head. Sometimes I'm going to forget that you're halfway to being a man, and accidentally treat you like a child. Sometimes I'm going to expect more from you than you're able to give. This is my first time parenting someone through puberty, and I'm going to make mistakes. So can I ask you a favour?"

“What is it?"

“Can you just keep telling me what's going on in your head? The more we talk, the easier it will be for both of us to get through this puberty thing unscathed. Yeah?"

“Yeah," her son said.

When we let our kids know that we're going through these various phases together, it's easier to work with them instead of against them.

Eberhardt said they "had a cuddle" before they got out of the car. She also said this conversation didn't magically make her son always speak respectfully or make her remember that he's not a little boy anymore. However, it did open up lines of communication and gave them a shared language to use.

For example, she wrote, "He knows what I mean when I say, 'Sweetheart, I'm not a sabre tooth tiger.'"

Ebehardt wrapped up her excellent answer by saying that she and her son are "muddling through this crazy puberty thing" together, and that she's "completely confident that he'll come out the other end a sweet, wonderful young man."

It's always so helpful to see examples of good parenting in action. Ms. Eberhardt's response is something all parents can tuck away for the appropriate time. It's also a great reminder that our tweens aren't trying to try us—they're just trying to get used to their new and improved brains.

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