Couple of thoughts about the first study there. First the overall picture:

They present a table that looks like this:

From that table they notice that most of the complainers are lower class or illiterate, and they conclude that this variable is explanatory in terms of who complains about their vasectomy. Supposedly men who are ignorant or have false notions about vasectomy have psychosomatic problems and complain about them.

I haven’t gone over this study with a fine tooth comb, but one thing I didn’t see was any kind of evidence that the authors understand how statistics works. Looking at the raw numbers tells you really nothing about what is important – you at a bare minimum need to take into consideration the relative proportions of high/middle/low class and educated vs uneducated people.

Just as a rough cut at this, using what is available, and normalizing everything to percentages, this is the same information that is presented in that table:

Looking at the data from that angle, one could say that the different classes and education levels are actually reporting a similar ratio of mild/medium/severe. It’s also worth noting that these are pretty small sample sizes to cut up this way. You only have 1 or 2 people with higher education complaining. It’s hard to know what that means if you don’t know how many people with higher education got a vasectomy.

In the tale of the Emperor’s New Clothes, the con-men fooled everyone for so long by telling them that wise men could see the clothes, while idiots could not. In fact, there were no clothes, but no one wanted to admit that they could not see the clothes because that would signal to others that they were idiots.

There is a similar game I see a lot which you could call the “Emperor’s Awesome Vasectomy”. That’s where, sure, admittedly 15% of guys complain that they had a bad experience, but we are going to find a way to make it signal something unflattering about the man. We are going to ascribe the problem to some flaw which the man has.

Maybe he’s uneducated. He’s lower class. He’s a weakling. He’s a whiner. (I pushed a baby head out of a hole the size of a lemon and he is complaining about a little snip?) He’s misinformed. He has out-dated views on masculinity. He is worried about a zombie-apocalypse and want to be able to repopulate the earth. He thinks he won’t be able to ejaculate anymore. He is prone to psychosomatic problems. He has psychological issues. He’s getting older and blaming his vasectomy for all the stuff that everyone else his age doesn’t feel the need to broadcast to everyone in earshot. He consulted “Dr. Google” and freaked himself out by reading too many horror stories beforehand and now suddenly every normal twitch is the end of the world. He didn’t ice his balls enough. He couldn’t keep it out of his hands and masturbated too early. He tried to walk to the top of the Empire State building the day after his vasectomy. He got a vasectomy in a third world country. He did it because his wife told him to but didn’t really want to.

Etc. etc.

Yes. Some guys complain about their vasectomy. Can’t dispute that.

But don’t worry, because you’re not like them. You’re a strong guy. Mentally strong. Physically tough. You’re an upper-class, high-education guy. You’re secure in your masculinity. You’re going to follow the post operative instructions. You’re going to wear this magic crystal on this necklace and nothing bad is going to happen to you so hop up on the table and let’s do this!

And if you do have problems, well… you need to think carefully about who you tell. After all, if you have problems we will make sure that everyone believes that you have only yourself to blame. You know who had a bad vasectomy? Clowns like Michael Scott. I don’t see how you could possibly be taken seriously if you try to blame the vasectomy. Vasectomy is a very safe procedure, as everyone knows.