"Blue balls"

[Joel S. Berson]

At 6/5/2009 10:19 AM, Laurence Horn wrote:
>At 1:36 AM -0400 6/5/09, Wilson Gray wrote:
>>When I was a freshman in high school, Harry Gleason, the asshole who
>>sat in front of me, used to use the just-for-the-hell-of-it phrase:
>>
>>"_Blue-balled_ bastard from Piss-Pot Creek"
>>
>>This, (9/1950) was the first time that I had heard "blue balls" or any
>>of its variations, combinations, permutations, or probabilities. The
>>phrase, in that context or any other, meant nothing to me and
>>continued to mean nothing till ca.1991. When a (white) friend happened
>>to use the phrase, "blue balls," for some reason, I finally felt like
>>asking what it meant. From the explanation, I divined that "blue
>>balls" was the white term for "lover's nuts."
>
>The self-diagnosis of "blue balls"--and the claim that it can be
>hazardous to a gentleman's health--was (so I was told) also a popular
>(if not necessarily successful) argument brought up by young men in
>their briefs (as it were) to their dates.

I heard "blue balls", and the above argument, in the summer of 1952
(in New England) or possibly as early as the summer of 1949.

Joel

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