Vasectomies can go wrong. But then so can crossing the road and eating cashew nuts. It’s a small thing, gents, let’s face it, a very small thing.



Mine took place in 2008. Yes, I had to wear two pairs of tight pants for a few days, and refused to stand in the wall at free-kicks for weeks. Yes, I took a couple of days off work and sat on the sofa watching movies and eating painkillers. But other than that, it was a rather unremarkable experience.

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I’d like to be able to report that my surgeon had a twinkle of irony in his eye as he said: “You may feel a little prick.” But he didn’t. He was a humourless fellow. I didn’t mind. A sense of humour is not important in a man who is soldering your vas deferens shut with a red-hot implement (actually the smell of burning is the least pleasant part of it all).



And what are the alternatives? I was never comfortable with my partner taking the pill year after year. Condoms are a drag. Other options seemed rather medieval by comparison. I’m not really one for airing details of my sex life in public, but I think it’s fair to report that things have been quite satisfactory ever since. You just don’t notice the difference. You still ejaculate, it’s still messy. There are so very many worse things that can happen to a man.

There may be good reasons to not opt for the snip. They’re pretty hard to reverse, apparently, even more fiddly than pushing out an elastic drawstring that has been pulled round the back of a pair of tracksuit bottoms. So if there is any notion lurking in the back of your mind that your fathering days might not be over, then think twice. With three kids under five, I knew my procreational phase had to come to an end. I just wanted someone to make it stop.

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Vasectomy is not totally infallible, but that’s no reason to procrastinate. It’s still better than any other birth control method - your chances of a surprise are less than 1%.

It’s not clear to me what aspect of having one’s testicles singed has become less appealing to men. Numbers have apparently fallen by two-thirds in a decade. Perhaps it’s a sociological thing. People are having children much later than they used to a couple of generations ago. Millennials who don’t have homes and jobs are eschewing children – and so are hardly likely to opt for the snip before they’ve even started. There are more cases of men having second families than there were 30 years ago, though I’m not sure about cause and effect here.

I’d like to think it’s not because we’ve suddenly become squeamish about this. Because, honestly, there’s nothing to be squeamish about. Trips to the dentist will cause you more discomfort than this. My tonsillectomy was far worse. Now that hurt.

Go on, men, grow a pair, and then have them surgically disconnected.



