
TikTok. The sexy new(ish) social network filled with healthy memes, viral dances, and people dipping their balls to soy sauce to find out if they can taste it.

Recently, a study from 2013 resurfaced and proceeded viral on Twitter. The analysis, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, revealed that – how to put this delicately? – your balls have taste receptors.

BALLS HAVE TASTEBUDS!

BALLS HAVE TASTEBUDS! pic.twitter.com/xDaBZC4JI0 — images that might be cursed (@mightbecursed) January 12, 2020

It’s true. In actuality, taste receptors are found elsewhere in the body, such as your gut, lungs, brain and – oh god – your anus.

“[The] role of taste receptors and signaling proteins beyond taste process remains unclear… [in certain areas] they appear to be a part of this chemical sensing of sugars or amino acids,” Bedrich Mosinger, a researcher involved in the research told Business Insider in the time. “For the most part, however, the complete function of these extra-orally found taste receptors is unknown.”

The research found that taste receptors, including taste proteins for sweet and umami flavors, exist in the testicles of mice and also have a part in their fertility. Without these receptors – if they had been taken from the mice the rodents became sterile. Their sperm fought to swim and their testicles became malformed.

So, that is your science (more to come later), let us proceed to the question of why people are currently teabagging condiments.

Well, it seems to have come from 1 consumer of TikTok – Regan – that demanded some goddamn answers.

“Did you know that if a guy puts his testicles in soy sauce that he can taste it? HE CAN TASTE IT,” she said in the movie. “I wish I was kidding but I’m not. For those who have testicles, please dip your balls in something – it is for science and I have to know.”

Men – it doesn’t surprise you – obliged.

I saw this Tik Tok saying people can taste with their testicles so I made my fiance test this theory with a bowl of soy sauce. IT WORKS 🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯 — juliet 💛🌿 (@youngblondemom) January 15, 2020

Look what you made me do to my husband💀😂 pic.twitter.com/sr6TwbETBw — Viveca Albarran (@VivecaAlbarran) January 15, 2020

YouTube – the first home of people putting their balls in materials for views – weren’t to be outdone by TikTok and got in on the action.

“I can completely taste this, this is so bizarre,” YouTuber GayGod told his followers, before putting it off his testicles as fast as he could. “I will taste like I’d soy sauce, like when you burp up soy sauce. It will kind of sting after, I am not going to lie.”

Many TikTok users and Tweeters agreed they may taste the flavor. “Hold on now, oh my god I can taste the salt,” said one user whose cojones were covered in soy sauce at the moment. “That is ridiculous.”

So, are they actually tasting the soy sauce they are so delicately teabagging? No. They have been squatting over / slathering upon themselves perfectly good soy sauce for no great reason whatsoever.

“The analysis (or any that have followed) has not proven that any creature can in fact’taste’ through these receptors like we had tasted something from the mouth. There’s absolutely not any medical or scientific evidence to back up any claims that men (of any species) can actually taste things through their crap,” Dr Kieran Kennedy advised Men’s Health Australia.

“So while the fact that there may be taste receptors in the testicles is pretty damn interesting, it sadly doesn’t mean (at least sadly for TikTok soy sauce consumers) there is any evidence they can taste things.”

This is why you never see the judges plonk their testicles in the pudding on Masterchef.

The taste receptors analyzed in the study, we should add, were found in the testicles rather than the scrotum. What these dippers are doing is like trying to taste soy sauce by dabbing it on the outside of your cheek.

While we are here, I want to add that nobody appears to notice that these receptors can also be found in the anus, and you do not walk around tasting sh*t on your mouth the entire time, which makes your scientific”tests” pretty redundant really.

The ones that claim they do taste it are likely getting a whiff of it splashes against their scrotum, and mistaking this for odor. After all, around 80% of what we taste really comes from odor .