What a load of b*ll*cks

Young men are being bullied into examining themselves for testicular cancer. It’s not very dignified, says Brendan O’Neill, and may do more harm than good

Why is New Britain so obsessed with its young men’s testicles? If, like me, you are aged between 15 and 34 you will almost certainly have been advised by a doctor or a magazine feature or a glossy poster in a GP’s waiting room to test yourself regularly for signs of testicular cancer (or the Big TC for short).

Health authorities and cancer charities are spending millions of pounds on ‘raising awareness’ of this disease, in order to keep us blokes on full alert for anything abnormal in the underwear department. They want us to subscribe to a regime of TSE, testicular self-examination, where you examine yourself once a month for lumps or bumps. And only 100 per cent compliance with TSE will do; there was much tut-tutting among the health apparatchiks at the end of May when a survey conducted by Macmillan Cancer Relief found that 50 per cent of young men never test themselves.