Some days you need to tone down the cultural criticism and just observe and appreciate the world on its own terms.

So don’t expect much commentary here as I bring you into the world of the latest truck accessory: Truck Nutz. That would be the technical term for the artificial male genitals hanging from the bottom of a 4×4.

Kudos to the Andrea Kelly at the Arizona Daily Star for not shying away from the story — which she approaches with just the right combination of humor and critical curiosity:

Dennis Crosby said his first thought, the first time he saw a truck decked out with them, was “you’ve got to be kidding.”

That invisible bar that measures what’s decent and acceptable is constantly being lowered, Crosby said. Things that initially shock you end up becoming part of society, he said.

He’s glad his kids are old enough so he doesn’t have to explain things like trucks with testicles. With kids, Crosby said, “you try to seize each moment and try to teach kids. How do you teach in that moment?”

Though graphic and shocking to some, the decorations are legal, and will likely stay that way for now.

A delegate to the Maryland General Assembly introduced a bill this year to outlaw them, but it didn’t even get a committee hearing.

Kelly does her due diligence in getting the academic perspective — but even someone like Celestino Fernandez, a sociology professor at the University of Arizona who has written about automobile culture, can’t help but make a fairly obvious point:

Fake testicles convey an image of alpha-male, an exaggerated sex drive, or a statement of masculinity, Fernandez said.

“We don’t see gun racks anymore but if you go back 10 to 15 years, all these pickup trucks had gun racks hanging inside the back window. ? The testicles are a new version of the gun rack.”

I’d say that’s about right — but the gun rack never left this much room for irony, however unintentional it may be.

I’m not much interested in giving them additional publicity, but it’s worth the trip over to the website of the main purveyor of Truck Nutz — who obviously is somewhat self-aware and milks the idea for all the laughs (and profit) they can get. In the “Dumb Ass Qs” — FAQs with an attitude, I guess — they respond to a question about what Truck Nutz are made of by admitting “1 Part Testosterone, 1 Part Color, 6 Parts Humor and 1 Part Hard Plastic.”

Much of the rest of the humor — and the images — you’ll have to check out for yourself.

Unfortunately, as with most of these artifacts of hyper-masculinity, the humor wears thin rather quickly. Yes, men might in some ways be laughing at themselves, but when very few alternative representations of manhood exist in American culture, there is nothing beyond the laughter.