Vasectomies are much less popular than they used to be, “down 64% in the past 10 years”. What a pity. It would be such a relief for women not to have all the bother, fiddling about and responsibility. But apparently “worrying myths” about pain and the end of sex as they know it frightens men, as does the word “snip”. That sounds a bit weedy. It isn’t even a snip. It’s just a bit of soldering “with a red-hot implement”, under anaesthetic, and probably two or three days swelling and resting.
A breeze compared with common proceedures for women: think episiotomy – ripping, cutting and sewing, lumps of rubber regularly stuffed up and pulled out, internal examinations, pokings and grovellings about for this that and the other, hormonal implants, with possible nasty side-effects and bleeding. Or coils – mine went through to my stomach. Not pleasant. The removal was also pretty grim.
Mavis’s didn’t work and she got pregnant again, so she had an abortion, which was no fun either. And then there’s childbirth – usually much tougher than a quick bit of soldering.
There are other cuts probably putting the dampeners on vasectomies – government cuts, because they cost £400 each. But to reassure anyone contemplating a vasectomy and egg them on: it only takes 15 minutes, it’s 99.9% effective, it’s reversible (sometimes), and afterwards you can be at it like the clappers, just as you always were. All right, you may meet a new partner and long for more children, but you could regard the vasectomy as your own voluntary biological clock. Just like women, but ours is mandatory, inescapable, panic-inducing and irreversible.
Fielding still doesn’t fancy one. Ever. Because he still has his dreams. What if he’s in Paris one day, goes into Scarlett Johanssonn’s gourmet popcorn shop for some truffle parmesan popcorn, and she’s actually in there herself, serving; she falls in love with him and longs for a baby. Then what? Pigs will fly. But we can all have our mad fantasies. Like mine: one day all men, worldwide, will take on the burden of contraception.