i got a vasectomy. then i fell in love with someone who wants kids. | musing no. 128
what that decision actually meant, why i don't regret it, and the one thing that made me reconsider it anyway.
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the architecture of self → musing no. 101
the architecture of trust → musing no. 90
the architecture of control → musing no. 74
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my best mate asked me about my vasectomy.
we’ve known each other a long time.
he knew i’d had one.
we’d just never talked about it.
—
which is strange when you think about it.
men will talk about sex.
we’ll talk about getting hard.
staying hard.
testosterone.
the gym.
our balls.
apparently we draw the line
at what we’ve done with the plumbing.
—
but he’d been thinking about getting one.
and i’ve heard some version of that
from other men too.
they’ve thought about it.
they just haven’t done it.
and when i ask why,
the answers are rarely about wanting more children.
it’s usually something logistical.
i’m working out.
i can’t take the time off.
i don’t want to be limited physically.
maybe that’s all it is.
but i don’t think it always is.
—
i think there’s something about fertility
that gets tangled up with masculinity.
fertility.
the ability to get a woman pregnant.
even when you don’t want another child.
even when you’ve already decided
your family is complete.
some men still seem reluctant
to voluntarily give that ability up.
as if being able to create a child
they don’t actually want to create
makes them more of a man.
—
i never understood that.
if you’ve found your person,
had your children,
and you’re satisfied with the family you’ve built,
why should preventing another pregnancy
remain primarily her responsibility?
the pill.
the implant.
the iud.
the hormones.
the appointments.
the side effects.
the consequences if something fails.
we made the decision together
that there would be no more children.
but somehow she’s supposed to keep managing
the biology of that decision?
—
i wasn’t interested in that arrangement.
i knew i didn’t want more children.
so i did something about my body.
not hers.
—
and maybe women should start asking
a harder question of men.
not:
would you get a vasectomy?
but:
if we’re both finished having children,
why is preventing the next one
still my job?
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i wonder what would happen
if women stopped automatically accepting
that responsibility.
if access to their bodies
wasn’t accompanied by an assumption
that contraception was theirs to manage.
not as punishment.
not as leverage.
just as a boundary.
you don’t get to make a shared decision
and outsource your half of the consequences.
—
for me,
there was another reason.
i like sex without barriers.
i like what happens emotionally
when there isn’t one.
the trust.
the intimacy.
the fluid bonding.
so once i’d decided
i wasn’t having more children,
the vasectomy felt almost obvious.
i could have the kind of intimacy i wanted
without asking a woman
to carry the reproductive risk
that came with it.
—
if this is the part of the conversation
that's actually happening in your relationship right now —
the directive on what removing that barrier
actually proves, and what it costs her
if you're wrong about him —
is in the red room.
—
i’ve never regretted it.
not once.
but there is something i’ve had to admit.
there is one person
who could make me reconsider it.
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dabatha wants children.
badly.
and i love her.
those two facts changed the question.
—
it stopped being:
do i want more children?
and became:
if the woman i love wants to become a mother,
would i let a decision i made before her
decide that future for her?
no.
i wouldn’t.
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i don’t know what would be medically possible.
i don’t know what reversing that decision
would actually look like.
but i know i would explore it.
because i could never look at someone i love
who wants children that deeply
and tell her:
you don’t get to have them
because i decided something
before i knew you.
—
that’s the part i didn’t understand
when i got the vasectomy.
i thought i was making
a permanent statement about children.
maybe i wasn’t.
maybe i was making
a statement about responsibility.
i had decided i was done.
so i stopped requiring a woman
to carry the consequences
of my decision for me.
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and loving someone didn’t make me regret that.
it taught me something else.
intimacy isn’t just letting someone
into the life you’ve already built.
sometimes it’s discovering
which parts of that life
you’d be willing to rebuild
for them.
— author
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