NY Men Have the Biggest Balls

Living in New York City has taught me things I never imagined in Pennsylvania. For example, I've learned that New York men have the biggest balls of guys anywhere. They must: look how far they have to keep their legs spread when they sit down on the subway.

I'd seen my fair share of balls. During my teenage years growing up in the Poconos (take 80 East to the Scotrun?not "scrotum"?exit), I saw tender young testicles tucked away in tighty-whities. My college years at Penn State University provided plenty of drunken gonads and taught me what free-balling really meant.

Then I graduated from country cojones to city ballsac?I moved to Brooklyn, where I found family jewels in a rainbow of colors. I've seen nuts snug in bike shorts, caressed by silky boxers, encased in fruit-smugglers. I've seen them shaved, even pierced. I'm not really into balls, though I don't have anything against them. They're nice, a familiar side dish next to the main course. It's taken time and a few late-night informational chats with a dear gay friend to figure out what to do with them, and I'm still not 100 percent sure.

Men seem to be a little hung up on them, and not just in the soccer cup-your-crotch way. My ex-boyfriend Carl, in a moment of candor, held his penis to the side to showcase his wares. "Pretty tight balls for a 39-year-old, huh babe?" It never dawned on me that balls mattered. Apparently they did.

As a woman, I didn't pay much attention to testicles, unless I wanted to sit down on the Brooklyn-bound F train. Never in my life have I witnessed balls the size of the ones that rest between the far-flung legs of subway-riding men. When I mentioned my big-ball theory to my friend Pablo, a born-and-bred Brooklynite, he immediately knew what I was talking about. "Just working- to lower-class men do it. It's more prevalent with minorities, and note that I'm a minority," he said. "It's macho. Some guys tell me that they do it so that no little fucking Asian sits down in the seat next to them. There's always an Asian who thinks he can fit into that seat. Three seats does not necessarily mean that three people can sit."

Apparently Pablo had given the matter some thought. "Middle- to upper-class guys, they don't do it?for them it's considered acceptable to cross your legs. And not the ankle on-the-knee cross, I mean a gentleman's cross?the one women do. Upper-class guys are allowed to do that. For working-class and poor people, that's gay."

I wanted the opinion of my ex-roommate, Rich, a fellow transplanted Pennsylvanian. Rich had a poster of a dog lying on its back in front of a fan with its rear legs spread, so I trusted that he was in tune with testes. He had a simpler explanation: "That's just the way guys sit. You don't want to sit all squeeze-legged with your nuts in a vise." So did he think that the subway spread was due to big balls? "Probably not... It's more about a certain degree of comfort."

My buddy Brian offered his own take. "It has nothing to do with balls. It has to do with them being assholes. Certain degree of comfort? Nope. It's called being rude. They do it purposely, so you know what I do? I sit down right next to them, cross my leg with my foot facing them, and it's like my foot's in their face, the bottom of my shoe, all dirty from the streets of New York, and until they move their legs it's what they're gonna see."

Remembering Carl's smile as I confirmed the tightness of his twins, it hit me. It isn't about big balls at all. It's about personal pride. Maybe these spread-eagle sitters simply need boundaries for their balls. Or they're just seat hogs.