This will be the occasion to thank you for all the ressources and help you gave all around. Goldmine.
One issue I met not listed is that you can burn (in the literal meaning) your scrotum in the 6 o'clock area (where the ring meets the skin in a line).
My own diagnosis is: slightly too big of a ring, unprocessed Cherry Keeper ring and (no surprise there) a ball gap.
But I also cumulate the edge cases: girthy, uncircumcised and a slightly too small of a cage in length (personal preference) which when you add them, cause an excess of skin getting out of the cage's entrance (not helping for the ball gap either).
For some time I thought it was caused by the skin folding/pinching in this area when the ring moves a bit (and thus thinking the ring is too small) but it is bound to happen because of the ring size versus the diameter of the area involved.
My current best guess is the addition of the roughness of the ring and the movements of it caused by moving around or natural ... excitation. Ring itself alone wasn't exactly comfortable until I used sand paper on it but there is no way I can sleep with the cage on (ball gap). It's fine during the day though.
Lesson learned: unprocessed is very bad. Mistakes make us stronger.
Ring current size makes me barely veiny when I am ... At the peak of excitation and I can get in and out of it pretty easily without lubrication. So I assume going slightly smaller might help with the movement/scratching. Lot of assumptions there. And not forgetting about a smooth finish.
I'll also try a slightly longer cage to see if it helps with the extra folded skin at the cage's entrance and the ring pressure on it.
I do not think it's the dye because the shaft presented no issue. But we'll also do without next purchase. Troubleshooting and experimenting around can be fun.
To your issue, what you're describing, burning at the 6 o'clock position, is very likely due to your ball gap being too small. But then you mention that later on so sounds like you know that.
The excess skin – I'm not an expert on uncircumcised but in general, the shorter the cage is relative your your flaccid length, the wider the cage needs to be.
If you can take the ring off while erect, I'd say it's far too large – or your anatomy is significantly different than my own. But I need a very squishy penis to get my ring on or off. One reason I'm so excited about this new cage I'm doing with BAWR is the ring itself is just flat, no junction poking out, which means I can have sex with the ring on – no more waiting for me to return to flaccid :)
I realized I might have lacked of clarity in a poor attempt to be short.
Burns were not only sensations but marks on the skin that lasted for a good week with blister-like skin where ring met contact. Not recommended, keep your ring very smooth. Paying the price to try to be cheap for first attempt.
The cage is almost one of CK's widest, if I keep the extra skin in the cage it folds onto itself inside and pokes out of the holes. Very disgracious and uncertain about having skin constantly being pressured on by the bars. So out it goes at the entrance ... For now.
I can't put in or remove my ring if I am in a full exicted state. But at "half mast" I am flaccid enough to achieve that without hurting myself or using lubrication, which indicates me there are still some millimeters to remove without being a full-blown cock ring. Maybe I'm wrong, we might see in the future.
As for your new cage, it's impressive. It's one of those things I didn't realize before trying, how the lock junction "stands out" and can dig in the skin too.
Thank you for this very useful article and no you are not verbose, don't change your style , I enjoy reading your writings
On a side note in the "I keep having to re-align every time I go to pee" part you mention in the 1st sentence that "It’s very likely your cage is too short" shouldn't it be "too long" instead of "too short"?
Hello everyone, I have a few questions, haha: when you get erections in the cage (if you still do), is it because the cage is moving forward, or is it a sign that the ring is too big?
I feel like the skin under my testicles is wrinkling (and I often get severe irritation that makes wearing the ring very uncomfortable). Could this be related? Is the wrinkling of the skin underneath a sign that the ring size is too small?
And I'm not shaved. Could this be the cause of the irritation?
First of all, erections won't go away. And the ring will move forward as erectile tissue will grow behind it but the difference between a the right fit and too large ring is the too large ring won't return to where it started from.
I'm not really sure about the wrinkling of the skin but try just the ring and see if it's an issue. If it isn't, it's a good chance it's the ball gap.
Thank you for all the great content and advice. My wife and I are in the process of purchasing a custom made titanium cage and I've had a 3D printed prototype made according to some of your advice, in the hopes that I can rid myself of wearing a strap.
And the ball gap thing definitely improved things and I'm able to comfortably wear a smaller ring than I thought I could, however there is an issue and I think I'll forever be reliant on a strap anyway.
I'm a serious grower, is the thing. I go from funny (4-6cm depending on the weather) to average (13-14cm depending on how hard I get) from flaccid to hard, and without a strap, an erection will push the cage away from my body. I think the increased ball gap helped the fact that this doesn't crush my testicles as it used to, but... it kind of defeats the cage, doesn't look aesthetic (a major point for me and my wife), and gives me more access than it should.
Even with a fairly loose, elastic strap, the cage will instead push the erection inside the body, and the cage will stay snug against me. It makes a huge difference.
I don't think I can get a smaller ring - I have one that is (according to the manufacturer) only 3mm smaller in diameter and I'm completely unable to get into that one, the second ball just won't go through no matter what I tried over several months. And would that even help?
Did you ever encounter anything like this, or have you in your research stumbled upon something that could help my conundrum? The wife and I really want the custom cage to be the forever cage. And I'm OK with it if that means a forever-strap as well, I guess, but I'm now chasing the idea of not needing it. What do you think?
I'm glad you got the ball gap figured out. That damn thing is why I do what I do. You working with BAWR or Evotion? (The two people doing 3D printed test cages).
Anyway, early in my journey and like many people, I wore a pretty large ring. And when I'd get erect it would push the cage away as you describe. When I'd return to flaccid, I'd need to pull the cage back into place by pulling my scrotum back through the cage.
Now when I get erect, the cage still moves away a bit but when I return to flaccid, the cage is back against my body. So, what's happening is the ring isn't getting pushed down my shaft but rather erectile tissue is growing behind my shaft. In other words, if I were to mark my shaft with a marker when flaccid where the ring sits, when erect, the ring would still sit on that mark.
Now, my scrotum will still slide through the ring a bit and I'll often need to pull it back through but I'm no longer waking up with the ring low on my shaft.
I think a person's ring size is broadly determined by their erect girth. I am 53 mm erect (shaft-only) and I wear a 48 mm ring. So yes, my ring is slightly smaller than my erect girth. And it's tight when erect. I recently got a cage that allows leaving the ring on during sex and wow, with that thing on, I can hammer a 6" railroad spike with my erection (Real Genius reference). But critically, I can return to flaccid without climaxing.
Does that describe your fit? And are you needing a strap to hold the cage up or is it just for aesthetics while erect?
Anyway, a few things – I understand that the cage being pushed away doesn't live up to what we think about and what some people's bodies do. But our anatomy doesn't care about our kinks or aesthetics. I would be slightly about forcing the erection internally. There's a video on YouTube where the an Australian doctor suggests that doing so may stretch the penile suspenatory ligament. This is a ligament that's responsible for making our erection point the right direction.
Thinking about this and experimenting more with my beta-BAWR cage, I have a sneaking suspicion that you might be (unintentionally, through your experience) conflating two issues in your ball gap analysis.
Mind you, I think you're still correct - the ball gap has definitely alleviated my main, nearly constant, comfort issue. But I think in that there are two problems, and your solution works for one, but not necessarily the other.
What you've recently been referring to is a nerve-pitch of some sort usually extending the pain to different areas than just under the scrotum, and people describe it as burning. And I think the community as a whole is perhaps experiencing two different issues - one is a pinched nerve, and the other might be just friction on the underside of the ballsack.
And I think the friction stems not so much from the ball gap, but from the cage being held slightly upwards - instead of junk hanging freely, as intended. I decided to test out the 3D print cage for a few days with the strap on, primarily to test if I would push through the front opening (like a mushroom) when erect, and occasionally started feeling the burn downstairs again. It was the same as most of my pain with the old cage, though I could finally discern the difference between the pinch and the friction burn. I feel like this is caused by the strap being held by the hip (in my case, slightly above it) and pulling the whole package upwards. The "old wives tale" of a bit of lube or in my case lotion on the underside actually alleviates that completely (until it dries up), which it doesn't and wouldn't far the ball gap inducided nerve pinch.
I'm working off of my singular hands-on (or off, heh) experience and reading others, much like you, but I think it's worth exploring whether there are two issues there. I can definitely tell the difference between the position of the package with the strap on and off, and I can now finally tell the two pains apart (I think in the past, they were often happening together). So what I'm saying is that the balls gap advice is sound, but it's not as universal as you might sometimes make it seem to be - maybe - I say that not to criticize, but to give you an insight to explore.
Back to my current fit, strapless, the 42mm ring on its own acts as a super strong cockring to the point of being barely comfortable when at full mast. With the cage, it never quite reaches that point (I suspect it's because it then does not sit so close to the base of the penis).
The cage definitely "shuffles down" during the day and I find myself in need of readjustment every now and then. It's not too bad, but when I think about a 600USD device that should last me a lifetime, annoying. I'm thinking that since I can still fit a strap in on each side, I can probably move down from 42mm to 41 or even 40mm, and I just might ask BAWR to make three rings, but in the past, with different steel cages, I could not get inside a 40mm ring. And I'm worried that without the cage, the ring right now makes erections a bit too bloody dark and barely comfortable - what happens with an even smaller ring? That feels like a non-problem if I never get hard with just the ring on, but yeah.
Watching the video, I feel like the doctor does not necessarily suggest it stretches the ligament, rather, constricts it - I'm not sure where you hear the worry in there, did I miss a segment?
All in all, I'm super happy about several things with BAWR - we've made the peeing hole a bit smaller to prevent "mushrooming" and that seems to be working. The head is also a bit smaller than in a Cobra knockoff, so things stay in place and aligned 99% of the time. Foreskin no longer protrudes through the pee opening. And with the bigger ball gap, the majority of my comfort issues are gone. So it's an upgrade in many, many ways.
The question now is how to solve the sliding down - it's annoying even when it doesn't defeat the purpose, and I'm worried that a heavier, titanium cage is going to make that even worse than with the 3D printed model. And it does slightly defeat the purpose when getting an erection - not just the fantasy, but also the purpose. Ideally, I'd want the cage snug against the body for esthetics, hiding as much of my penis as possible at all times, and also, my wife and I don't want stimulation to be easily achieved (which it is - the base of my penis is, in my case, they key to orgasms).
Oh well. I think the only possible next step is to test out a smaller ring, and perhaps that will result in the possibility to go strapless, but I might ask for two rings anyway to avoid having to wait for a 2nd delivery just in case.
Apologies – substack's notifications don't really point out new comments very well. Yes, your cage should be pretty close to your flaccid girth. A little larger is okay but a whole finger? That's far roomier than you want.
This will be the occasion to thank you for all the ressources and help you gave all around. Goldmine.
One issue I met not listed is that you can burn (in the literal meaning) your scrotum in the 6 o'clock area (where the ring meets the skin in a line).
My own diagnosis is: slightly too big of a ring, unprocessed Cherry Keeper ring and (no surprise there) a ball gap.
But I also cumulate the edge cases: girthy, uncircumcised and a slightly too small of a cage in length (personal preference) which when you add them, cause an excess of skin getting out of the cage's entrance (not helping for the ball gap either).
For some time I thought it was caused by the skin folding/pinching in this area when the ring moves a bit (and thus thinking the ring is too small) but it is bound to happen because of the ring size versus the diameter of the area involved.
My current best guess is the addition of the roughness of the ring and the movements of it caused by moving around or natural ... excitation. Ring itself alone wasn't exactly comfortable until I used sand paper on it but there is no way I can sleep with the cage on (ball gap). It's fine during the day though.
Lesson learned: unprocessed is very bad. Mistakes make us stronger.
Ring current size makes me barely veiny when I am ... At the peak of excitation and I can get in and out of it pretty easily without lubrication. So I assume going slightly smaller might help with the movement/scratching. Lot of assumptions there. And not forgetting about a smooth finish.
I'll also try a slightly longer cage to see if it helps with the extra folded skin at the cage's entrance and the ring pressure on it.
I do not think it's the dye because the shaft presented no issue. But we'll also do without next purchase. Troubleshooting and experimenting around can be fun.
Thank you – I love hearing that.
To your issue, what you're describing, burning at the 6 o'clock position, is very likely due to your ball gap being too small. But then you mention that later on so sounds like you know that.
The excess skin – I'm not an expert on uncircumcised but in general, the shorter the cage is relative your your flaccid length, the wider the cage needs to be.
If you can take the ring off while erect, I'd say it's far too large – or your anatomy is significantly different than my own. But I need a very squishy penis to get my ring on or off. One reason I'm so excited about this new cage I'm doing with BAWR is the ring itself is just flat, no junction poking out, which means I can have sex with the ring on – no more waiting for me to return to flaccid :)
I realized I might have lacked of clarity in a poor attempt to be short.
Burns were not only sensations but marks on the skin that lasted for a good week with blister-like skin where ring met contact. Not recommended, keep your ring very smooth. Paying the price to try to be cheap for first attempt.
The cage is almost one of CK's widest, if I keep the extra skin in the cage it folds onto itself inside and pokes out of the holes. Very disgracious and uncertain about having skin constantly being pressured on by the bars. So out it goes at the entrance ... For now.
I can't put in or remove my ring if I am in a full exicted state. But at "half mast" I am flaccid enough to achieve that without hurting myself or using lubrication, which indicates me there are still some millimeters to remove without being a full-blown cock ring. Maybe I'm wrong, we might see in the future.
As for your new cage, it's impressive. It's one of those things I didn't realize before trying, how the lock junction "stands out" and can dig in the skin too.
Thank you for this very useful article and no you are not verbose, don't change your style , I enjoy reading your writings
On a side note in the "I keep having to re-align every time I go to pee" part you mention in the 1st sentence that "It’s very likely your cage is too short" shouldn't it be "too long" instead of "too short"?
Thanks for catching that. And I won't be changing my style but I thought something clear and concise would be helpful.
Hello everyone, I have a few questions, haha: when you get erections in the cage (if you still do), is it because the cage is moving forward, or is it a sign that the ring is too big?
I feel like the skin under my testicles is wrinkling (and I often get severe irritation that makes wearing the ring very uncomfortable). Could this be related? Is the wrinkling of the skin underneath a sign that the ring size is too small?
And I'm not shaved. Could this be the cause of the irritation?
First of all, erections won't go away. And the ring will move forward as erectile tissue will grow behind it but the difference between a the right fit and too large ring is the too large ring won't return to where it started from.
I'm not really sure about the wrinkling of the skin but try just the ring and see if it's an issue. If it isn't, it's a good chance it's the ball gap.
Do you think the ball gap could be the cause of the irritation? I admit I read the article but I didn't understand everything 😅.
As for the erection, the cage is back in place I think but it's not as stuck to my pubis as when I put it in. I'll have to see that next time haha
The only way to know is to try. Wear the ring by itself for a day and see if it causes any issues.
And besides needing to pull your scrotum back through, yeah, the ring should be right back where it started from.
Thank you for all the great content and advice. My wife and I are in the process of purchasing a custom made titanium cage and I've had a 3D printed prototype made according to some of your advice, in the hopes that I can rid myself of wearing a strap.
And the ball gap thing definitely improved things and I'm able to comfortably wear a smaller ring than I thought I could, however there is an issue and I think I'll forever be reliant on a strap anyway.
I'm a serious grower, is the thing. I go from funny (4-6cm depending on the weather) to average (13-14cm depending on how hard I get) from flaccid to hard, and without a strap, an erection will push the cage away from my body. I think the increased ball gap helped the fact that this doesn't crush my testicles as it used to, but... it kind of defeats the cage, doesn't look aesthetic (a major point for me and my wife), and gives me more access than it should.
Even with a fairly loose, elastic strap, the cage will instead push the erection inside the body, and the cage will stay snug against me. It makes a huge difference.
I don't think I can get a smaller ring - I have one that is (according to the manufacturer) only 3mm smaller in diameter and I'm completely unable to get into that one, the second ball just won't go through no matter what I tried over several months. And would that even help?
Did you ever encounter anything like this, or have you in your research stumbled upon something that could help my conundrum? The wife and I really want the custom cage to be the forever cage. And I'm OK with it if that means a forever-strap as well, I guess, but I'm now chasing the idea of not needing it. What do you think?
I'm glad you got the ball gap figured out. That damn thing is why I do what I do. You working with BAWR or Evotion? (The two people doing 3D printed test cages).
Anyway, early in my journey and like many people, I wore a pretty large ring. And when I'd get erect it would push the cage away as you describe. When I'd return to flaccid, I'd need to pull the cage back into place by pulling my scrotum back through the cage.
Now when I get erect, the cage still moves away a bit but when I return to flaccid, the cage is back against my body. So, what's happening is the ring isn't getting pushed down my shaft but rather erectile tissue is growing behind my shaft. In other words, if I were to mark my shaft with a marker when flaccid where the ring sits, when erect, the ring would still sit on that mark.
Now, my scrotum will still slide through the ring a bit and I'll often need to pull it back through but I'm no longer waking up with the ring low on my shaft.
I think a person's ring size is broadly determined by their erect girth. I am 53 mm erect (shaft-only) and I wear a 48 mm ring. So yes, my ring is slightly smaller than my erect girth. And it's tight when erect. I recently got a cage that allows leaving the ring on during sex and wow, with that thing on, I can hammer a 6" railroad spike with my erection (Real Genius reference). But critically, I can return to flaccid without climaxing.
Does that describe your fit? And are you needing a strap to hold the cage up or is it just for aesthetics while erect?
Anyway, a few things – I understand that the cage being pushed away doesn't live up to what we think about and what some people's bodies do. But our anatomy doesn't care about our kinks or aesthetics. I would be slightly about forcing the erection internally. There's a video on YouTube where the an Australian doctor suggests that doing so may stretch the penile suspenatory ligament. This is a ligament that's responsible for making our erection point the right direction.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQuqlAC_k4k
Thinking about this and experimenting more with my beta-BAWR cage, I have a sneaking suspicion that you might be (unintentionally, through your experience) conflating two issues in your ball gap analysis.
Mind you, I think you're still correct - the ball gap has definitely alleviated my main, nearly constant, comfort issue. But I think in that there are two problems, and your solution works for one, but not necessarily the other.
What you've recently been referring to is a nerve-pitch of some sort usually extending the pain to different areas than just under the scrotum, and people describe it as burning. And I think the community as a whole is perhaps experiencing two different issues - one is a pinched nerve, and the other might be just friction on the underside of the ballsack.
And I think the friction stems not so much from the ball gap, but from the cage being held slightly upwards - instead of junk hanging freely, as intended. I decided to test out the 3D print cage for a few days with the strap on, primarily to test if I would push through the front opening (like a mushroom) when erect, and occasionally started feeling the burn downstairs again. It was the same as most of my pain with the old cage, though I could finally discern the difference between the pinch and the friction burn. I feel like this is caused by the strap being held by the hip (in my case, slightly above it) and pulling the whole package upwards. The "old wives tale" of a bit of lube or in my case lotion on the underside actually alleviates that completely (until it dries up), which it doesn't and wouldn't far the ball gap inducided nerve pinch.
I'm working off of my singular hands-on (or off, heh) experience and reading others, much like you, but I think it's worth exploring whether there are two issues there. I can definitely tell the difference between the position of the package with the strap on and off, and I can now finally tell the two pains apart (I think in the past, they were often happening together). So what I'm saying is that the balls gap advice is sound, but it's not as universal as you might sometimes make it seem to be - maybe - I say that not to criticize, but to give you an insight to explore.
Back to my current fit, strapless, the 42mm ring on its own acts as a super strong cockring to the point of being barely comfortable when at full mast. With the cage, it never quite reaches that point (I suspect it's because it then does not sit so close to the base of the penis).
The cage definitely "shuffles down" during the day and I find myself in need of readjustment every now and then. It's not too bad, but when I think about a 600USD device that should last me a lifetime, annoying. I'm thinking that since I can still fit a strap in on each side, I can probably move down from 42mm to 41 or even 40mm, and I just might ask BAWR to make three rings, but in the past, with different steel cages, I could not get inside a 40mm ring. And I'm worried that without the cage, the ring right now makes erections a bit too bloody dark and barely comfortable - what happens with an even smaller ring? That feels like a non-problem if I never get hard with just the ring on, but yeah.
Watching the video, I feel like the doctor does not necessarily suggest it stretches the ligament, rather, constricts it - I'm not sure where you hear the worry in there, did I miss a segment?
All in all, I'm super happy about several things with BAWR - we've made the peeing hole a bit smaller to prevent "mushrooming" and that seems to be working. The head is also a bit smaller than in a Cobra knockoff, so things stay in place and aligned 99% of the time. Foreskin no longer protrudes through the pee opening. And with the bigger ball gap, the majority of my comfort issues are gone. So it's an upgrade in many, many ways.
The question now is how to solve the sliding down - it's annoying even when it doesn't defeat the purpose, and I'm worried that a heavier, titanium cage is going to make that even worse than with the 3D printed model. And it does slightly defeat the purpose when getting an erection - not just the fantasy, but also the purpose. Ideally, I'd want the cage snug against the body for esthetics, hiding as much of my penis as possible at all times, and also, my wife and I don't want stimulation to be easily achieved (which it is - the base of my penis is, in my case, they key to orgasms).
Oh well. I think the only possible next step is to test out a smaller ring, and perhaps that will result in the possibility to go strapless, but I might ask for two rings anyway to avoid having to wait for a 2nd delivery just in case.
I can easily fit my.finger into the cage alongside my penis.
I assume I need a narrower cage
Apologies – substack's notifications don't really point out new comments very well. Yes, your cage should be pretty close to your flaccid girth. A little larger is okay but a whole finger? That's far roomier than you want.