Is 'Ballmaxxing' Safe? Doctors Warning Men Over Reckless Trend of Injecting Fluid to Inflate T*******

Men in the UK and abroad are being warned by doctors and s** educators in May 2026 that 'ballmaxxing' – the trend of injecting fluid into the scrotum to inflate the testicles – is not only risky but could cause permanent damage to fertility and blood supply.

Ballmaxxing has been incubating in niche online forums for years, but has recently burst into wider view through social media clips, Reddit threads and adult content sites. Enthusiasts inject saline and, in some cases, surgical lubricant directly into the scrotum to create a swollen, pendulous effect that can last hours. The practice has spawned a dedicated Reddit subculture with more than 8,700 followers, where users trade photos, tips and what they describe as 'aspirational' results, often with minimal reference to medical advice.

Why Men Say They Turn to Ballmaxxing

Adult content creator and certified s** educator Max Hovey says he had a 'visceral reaction' when he first read detailed ballmaxxing accounts, including one widely reported case of a man named Marcus who described a 'two litre session' that left his scrotum so swollen it became stuck in a toilet and tore the skin. Despite that, Marcus allegedly told interviewers he planned to inject again.

Hovey, who spoke to the Daily Star, is blunt about what he thinks is driving the craze. In his view, some men will 'do literally anything other than just go [to] therapy' to deal with their discomfort about their bodies. He accepts that, for a portion of participants, ballmaxxing is simply a fetish: a pursuit of intense sensation, extreme physical appearance or the thrill of seeing the scrotum stretched to a size that looks, in his words, 'very abnormal' and 'weird.'

He is careful not to condemn kink for its own sake. He explicitly says he does not 'kink shame.' But he draws a line when the pursuit of novelty becomes self-harm dressed up as self-improvement. A significant part of what he hears from men, he argues, is less about pleasure and more about performance, a conviction that a larger 'overall package' might make up for a smaller penis or that a woman will be more impressed if there is simply 'something big down there.'

Hovey links that impulse to what he calls a 'prehistoric' view of masculinity. Many men, he suggests, still assume that being attractive means being 'absolutely jacked,' 'insanely masculine' and having 'a giant di**,' rather than asking partners what they actually want. In his reading, the push to go bigger and more extreme is often about impressing other men and measuring up to a quietly brutal male beauty standard, particularly in gay communities where, as he puts it, the 'male gaze' is coming from every direction.

That internal pressure cooker, Hovey says, produces a 'whirlpool' of body anxiety in which 'bigger is better' becomes an unexamined rule, even if it leads people to needle their genitals with litres of fluid. He traces ballmaxxing back to what he calls 'toxic' or 'fragile' masculinity and an 'innate need to impress people' at almost any cost.

'Reckless' and Lasting Damage

If Hovey's criticism centres on culture and psychology, doctors are far more focused on anatomy. Aesthetic practitioner Dr. Baldeep Farmah, who runs a men's beauty programme for patients in their 20s and 30s, does not mince words. He describes ballmaxxing as 'one of the most reckless body modification trends to come out of male online communitie[s].'

The selling point for fans is that the swelling eventually goes down. Dr. Farmah argues that is a dangerously partial story. While the fluid is reabsorbed, he warns the stress placed on delicate blood vessels and reproductive tissue may not fully reverse. He raises the prospect of 'permanent reproductive and vascular damage from compromised testicular blood supply,' stressing that these are not theoretical worst-case scenarios but plausible outcomes when untrained people repeatedly inject themselves in an area that sensitive.

His advice is stark and stripped of caveats. 'If you take one thing from this, take this,' he says. 'Don't do it.'

Both Hovey and Farmah also worry about the role of online echo chambers. On Reddit and similar platforms, photos of dramatically enlarged scrotums can rack up praise, while stories of complications are easy to scroll past. Techniques and doses are shared between laypeople, not clinicians. There is no independent verification that the substances used are sterile or suitable for injection, and no agreed limit before participants cross from high-risk experimentation into outright medical emergency.

Hovey is realistic enough to accept that some men will carry on regardless of warnings. Rather than issuing a blanket ban, he urges them at least to seek proper information and to question why they feel compelled to alter their bodies this way. In his view, many would be 'better going to therapy than injecting liquid into [their] b*******.'

His forthcoming book No Fats, No Fems: A Guide to Queer Empathy and Unpacking Prejudice, due out on 21 May, picks up many of the same themes. These include the quiet damage done by rigid ideals of masculinity, how attraction is policed within queer spaces, and what it might look like to step back from a culture in which ever more extreme body modification is held up as proof of confidence rather than insecurity.

The long-term medical consequences of ballmaxxing have not been formally studied, leaving claims on both sides in a gray area. Since there are no clinical trials or regulated protocols, much of what we know is based on individual testimonies and practitioner caution until more robust evidence emerges.

For now, those most familiar with ballmaxxing — s** educators watching the trend unfold and doctors picking up the pieces — are unusually united. When a viral stunt reaches the point of two-litre scrotum injections, something is going badly wrong long before the needle goes in.