Chances are you’ve encountered some concept with the suffix “maxxing” attached to it. Maybe your terminally online friend starts referring to playing video games all day as “unemploymentmaxxing,” or their own extensive knowledge of internet culture as “onlinemaxxing.” Adherents to this concept take a hobby, preference, or just an activity to its practical maximum. This has spawned entire communities dedicated to one-upping each other and spreading strategies. “Looksmaxxers” are one example, a group of (typically) young men who believe that in order to succeed, they have to devote themselves to a nigh-impossible body goal. For some, working out, skincare and even abstaining from touching yourself is supposedly enough to help them with their body image. This less intense approach, is generally called “softmaxxing.” However, communities like this inevitably become competitive, with their members trying to outdo each other, striving to “mog” others through superior looks. The goal of an alpha looksmaxxer is to “mog” their fellow man, that is, to appear more physically attractive. The result is a community taking more and more extreme measures to beat out the competition. This may involve rampant steroid use, skin whitening, and even plastic surgery to achieve sharper jaws and more shapely noses. A new escalation, one so on-the-nose that it almost sounds like parody, is ballmaxxing, where men will inject liquids like saline into their privates in order to make them expand. Some reportedly “grow” their testes to be the size of grapefruits, believing that it demonstrates their masculinity and gives them an edge in “mogging” other looksmaxxers. Why go to such extremes, and is there a world where this can be called "safe"? hryshchyshen (not the actual photo) To start with, no, it’s not safe. Saline and Surgilube, another substance some use to “enhance” the size of their testicles, were never meant to be injected this way. It’s important to note that, unlike a lot of cosmetic surgery, ballmaxxing tends to be done at home by regular people "operating" on themselves. Inevitably, they end up in the hospital, having to explain why their testicles have doubled or tripled in size. As much as it seems like a bizarre internet niche, enough ballmaxxers end up seeking medical attention that doctors and health outlets are having to actually spend time publishing articles telling people not to inject random fluids into their scrotum. Healthline published an interview with a New York Doctor and professor explaining in detail that “the scrotum was not built for this.” Nebraska Medicine, an outlet for the University of Nebraska Medical Center, also put out a piece reminding grown adult men of the various risks of doing this sort of unnecessary and dangerous body modification at home. Some ballmaxxers then go on to share their experience and get advice from a dedicated subreddit with nearly ten thousand weekly visitors. Users have a variety of reasons why they might alter their testicles. Some claim they enjoy how transgressive it is. Others see it as a way to properly “expand” their masculinity. At the same time, it seems unlikely that any of them would have done it if there wasn’t a group of like-minded men cheering them on. The recent, growing interest in looksmaxxing appears to have injected a lot of new enthusiasts into the subgroup of folks who randomly make some part of their body bigger. For a demographic obsessed with the aesthetic of masculinity, larger balls seem like the most obvious choice. evabonda32 (not the actual photo) This procedure isn’t permanent in the sense that the testicles will shrink back to their pre-saline size after a few days, requiring more injections. Even a temporary increase in scrotum size seems to be enough for some ballmaxxers to report feeling more masculine. Some see it as a way to take control of their bodies after years of, presumably, feeling trapped in an appearance they no longer like. There is a competitive nature to it as well. Perhaps feeling unable to "compete" with more traditionally attractive men or even other looksmaxxers, ballmaxxing enthusiasts may see it as a field where they can finally be on top. The subreddit is full of posts bragging about the size they’ve achieved, which suggests that for some, it’s not about the aesthetic but about somehow “mogging” another man. Traditionally, looksmaxxers have emphasized that they go to extreme lengths to look handsome in order to compete with other men for women’s attention. However, mogging itself appears to be entirely about one’s position in relation to other men. The word itself comes from the acronym AMOG, Alpha Male of the Group. Typically, the men in these subcultures would argue that the alpha “mogs” the “lesser” men, and then is, naturally, able to attract more female attention. But it would appear that for many looks/ballmaxxers, just the first step is enough. While many online health trends are typically scams run by wellness influencers to sell unsuspecting people supplements and procedures that are, at best, placebos, the users of the subreddit are more candid about their experiences. Their official guide to saline injection even states that there are risks, although it places the blame on any arising issues on the person, not the fact that they are doing this procedure at home. Some report getting infections and encountering nonplussed medical staff who didn’t know what to do. In one thread (thankfully without any images), a ballmaxxer asked whether infections were common, and another user told them it was just a "normal" part of injecting things into their testicles. The male scrotum was not designed to be filled with multiple liters of fluid. That's about 0.66 gallons The blood vessels and an ample amount of nerves are all sensitive structures. Just the act of injection can be a risk, as non-professionals using store-bought equipment in a non-sterile setting always is. The worst-case scenario involves sepsis, frequent infections, and permanent scarring. One user, when asked about infections, shared that “I had an infection, it became inflamed and at the hospital they didn't know what to do,” but didn’t provide details. Given that a driving motivation seems to be competition, it’s not surprising that men don’t share when things go wrong. In a different Reddit thread covering this topic, a netizen stated that “When working in cardiology in the hospital I would see guys with balls the size of melons bc of congestive heart failure. They were not happy about it, it’s painful and they could barely move around. Stupidest trend ever.” Because the saline injection subreddit is a dedicated space to showing off one’s bulge, there is little room for dissent or horror stories, so new visitors might be under the impression that, if done "correctly," there might be no lasting damage. At a certain point, saline, which still comes with considerable risks, isn’t enough. The idea that ballmaxxing can be dangerous is common sense, so trying to educate ballmaxxers might be futile. They know there are risks, and they speak about them openly. The dynamics of really any sort of “-maxxing” mean that there is always a fresh frontier. Ballmaxxing might seem subversive and extreme; indeed, it seems to be what attracts some men to it, but in this sort of escalatory cycle, there will be another trend. Looksmaxxing didn’t start with bone smashing; it evolved naturally in a space where men are in constant competition to out-mog someone else. It seems that the need to “win” or at least the fear of publicly losing is powerful enough that some are willing to use store-bought needles to inject liquids into their own testicles. It’s easy to hear about any of these trends and immediately wonder how these men don’t understand the health risks, but that’s missing the point. They have been socialized to internalize the idea that if they weren’t born conventionally attractive (although ballmaxxing really stretches the definition of conventional, pardon the pun), then they will just lose in the dating market. A better way to look at it is to assume they have accepted the risks and are willing to put their bodies on the line for a shot at whatever they think will make them feel better about themselves, be that female or male validation. This lack of self-confidence or self-acceptance is the root cause of all these new maxxing trends that have emerged and, importantly, will continue to emerge. Hitting your face with a hammer or competing with random men on the internet to see who has a larger scrotum are not the key to happiness. All of these trends thrive and evolve in the same online environment that suggests you have to change to find any success in life. Maybe the real fix is something far less marketable: stepping away from a screen. Research backs this up too. One study found that reducing social media use produces short-term positive effects on people’s body image, including among young adults who were struggling emotionally. Putting the phone down, meeting a friend or just picking up a hobby are all ways to find fulfillment that these trends will never actually provide. As corny as it sounds, it might be the only maxxing worth doing.
