I’m not really a nudist kind of guy. The last nudist beach I visited primarily featured lots of curly hair, very unattractive gonads, and a disturbing volleyball game spectacle, so ever since, I've tended to stay away from nudist beaches and bars. But three months ago, while on a camping trip, I decided to sunbathe nude in the forest. I lay out in my hammock with my drawers tossed to the forest floor, my crotch proudly displayed to the bright, blue sky, basking in the glorious feeling of warmth on my balls. I pondered whether this was some kind of little-known biohack I was tapping into. After all, enough people expose their crotch to the warm rays of the sun that there must be some benefit to it, right? I had to find out.

As a man on a constant quest to optimize my brain and body (including my own balls), I decided to actually look into the health effects of UV light on the genitals. To my surprise, some studies have actually demonstrated that exposing the torso or the testes to light can potentially increase testosterone. In fact, studies on the effects of light on the testes go way back to 1939, when researchers exposed various parts of men's bodies to UV light. They found that men’s testosterone levels went up by 120% when the participants’ chests were exposed to UV light, and they went up by 200% with UV exposure to the genital area. (This was the same study former professional baseball player Gabe Kapler cited back in 2015, when he advocated for tanning your testicles in a blog post that later went viral.)

To be fair, the results of the 1939 study are nearly 80 years old, so it's possible that the effects of sunlight on your nuts have been overstated. But assuming it is good for you, there's one major problem with it: most dudes don’t have the time, desire, or year-round exposure to sunlight to step out into the backyard buck-naked. (Not to mention that most guys have something called “neighbors," many of whom have access to phones and can call the police.) Ultimately, moseying through the neighborhood on a sunny day with your pants jacked down isn’t a practical way of getting your daily dose of testosterone.

So I delved back into the research, and messaged the one guy I consider to be an expert in all things testosterone and sperm-count related: my Finnish friend and physician Dr. Olli Sovijarvi, who studied at the University of Helsinki. I originally met Dr. Sovijarvi when speaking at a biohacking conference he hosts in Finland. Turns out that since those initial sunshine studies, many more studies have investigated the effects of direct sunlight exposure to the torso, which increases a human male’s testosterone levels by anywhere from 25% to 160%, depending on the individual.

Sunlight exposure directly to the testes reportedly has an even more profound effect, boosting production in Leydig cells (the cells that produce testosterone) by an average of 200%. Olli went on to inform me that some animal studies have linked light, particularly a special form of light called “red light”, to increased testicular function. (It's important to note, however, that this is not exactly proven science: one red light study conducted on rams, for instance, was inconclusive.)

Is my Penis Normal?

If you haven’t heard of red light, or if your only experience with red light is a streetlight or strip bar, you're not alone. But basically the theory is this: while sunlight has many beneficial effects, such as vitamin D production and improved mood, it is not without its downsides. Too much exposure to sunlight, particularly to sensitive areas like the skin around your precious ball sac, can create sunburn, excess radiation, inflammation and damage. And let’s face it: you don’t want a shrunken, shriveled, dehydrated dick, no matter how impressive the tan.

Red light, however, is different than sunlight. Red light is comprised of light wavelengths in the range of 600-950 nanometers (nm). According to red light therapy proponents, red light works to stimulate ATP production, increase energy available to the cell and in particular, increase the activity of the Leydig cells in your testes, which are the cells responsible for testosterone production.

It's important to note that there are currently no light therapy devices on the market cleared by FDA for the enhanced production of testosterone LED-based therapy. That said, the treatment is generally considered low-risk, so the products like the one I tried do not require FDA clearance. (A few treatments like LED red-light beds, however, have been approved by the FDA for very narrow indications, like wrinkle reduction, etc.) It also should be noted that most (but not all) of the existing clinical research related to testosterone production and sperm mobility stems from animal studies, not studies involving humans.

There is also another caveat to this — and this is the part where Olli just about scared my pants off (or more appropriately, back on). Many types of lamps and bulbs sold for red light therapy (such as incandescents, heat lamps, infrared lamps that generate red light at greater than 1000nm) give off a significant amount of heat and can actually fry your testicles. So apparently, you have to be careful when you use red light therapy, unless self-castration with a red heating lamp from Home Depot is on your wishlist.

The good Dr. Olli then went on to inform me that each night he lays down on his couch, pulls down his pants, and hugs a big long panel of red infrared light from an LED source at 600-950nm. It sounded just like hugging a giant, warm teddy bear (a very hard and uncomfortable teddy bear, plugged into a wall outlet and generating enough red light to turn the entire room into a video arcade).

I was convinced. The morning after my conversation with Olli, I ordered something called a “JOOVV” (pronounced “Joove”) light. This was the red light he personally recommended and used himself, and I didn’t want to play around with frying my balls to a crisp with a cheapo knockoff, so I spent the big bucks (a grand total of $995) for what the website described as a “full body LED red light therapy device”.

Ben Greenfield

When my JOOVV arrived the next week, I hoisted it downstairs to my office, leaned it against my stand-up desk, pulled down my pants and flipped it on.

I jumped back as best I could with my underwear wrapped around my ankles. Holy hell. Not only was the red light panel itself as wide as my torso and nearly five feet high, but the light coming out of this thing was freaking blinding. I fumbled for the little sunglasses that were included with the light panel and slapped them on. There, much better.

No longer feeling like I was staring into the depths of a semi-truck’s red brake lights, I simply stood there, naked. I replied to a few emails, then checked my watch. Five minutes. That should be good. After all, according to good ol' Dr. Olli, five to 20 minutes is the sweet spot for red light exposure to your gonads, and I didn’t want to overtrain or excessively fry my little fellas on their first foray into the wonderful world of red light.

The rest of the morning, my crotch felt warm. Alive. So I did it again. Glancing out my office window to make sure the lawnmower guy wasn’t tooling around in the grass, I pulled down my drawers and bathed myself in the heavenly, warm, tingly glow, this time for eight minutes.

That night, my wife and I made love. Admittedly, I felt – well – a unique heavenly, warm, tingly glow in my crotch. Nice.

Two days later, I waited until the evening, then wandered downstairs. I rubbed my hands together, took a deep breath, and flipped my JOOVV on. I called my mom to see how her day was going mom (she had no clue what was going on below the phone). Ten minutes. I read a blog post. Fifteen minutes. My crotch grew more and more warm, but in a pleasant, day-at-the-beach sort of way. I finished an email. Twenty minutes. Mission complete.

That night was date night, and I was a rock star.

I sat at dinner, horny, my penis pulsing, staring across the table at my wife and feeling as though I’d popped a couple Viagra. Later, I blew the biggest load I could recall in recent memory.

And from that point on, for nearly the past seven months, I’ve stuck with twenty minutes of red light exposure on my crotch each day. Actually, I’m afraid to do more. I suspect there must be a law of diminishing returns, and I don’t desire to wind up with my dick looking like a leather handbag. But in the meantime, it is now a daily habit to pull down my pants at my desk, flip on my JOOVV and get my red light on.

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