Has vasectomy become common? More and more men are turning to this contraceptive method. In ten years, the number of vasectomies has increased twelvefold in France. This is the case for Thomas (who wished to be introduced by his first name only), a 41-year-old resident of Montpellier who recently made this decision.
“It was obvious”
“I already have two children from a first union, my partner too,” she explains to BFMTV.com, who is responsible for commercial relations in blended families. There is no doubt that the couple will give birth to a fifth child. So, after an early unwanted pregnancy and an abortion, the couple is looking for a new contraceptive method.
But Thomas’s partner no longer wants to take the pill or use an IUD. A midwife evokes tubal ligation – “but it seems too complicated, too invasive,” judges the forty-year-old. The health professional also talks about the vasectomy.
“It’s just a little channel to cut. It was obvious. I met an andrologist who explained everything to me, it seemed very simple to me, ”he explains.
Vasectomy is a permanent, definitive and irreversible contraceptive method: after a vasectomy, the semen is therefore devoid of sperm. The health insurance specifies, however, that this operation “does not modify the quality of sexual life (erection, ejaculation and sexual pleasure)”. but “it does not protect against sexually transmitted infections.”
Specifically, this intervention consists of “cutting or blocking the vas deferens that start from the epididymis (at the height of the testicle, editor’s note) and go to the prostate,” the Health Insurance also explains. It is minimally invasive: the surgeon accesses it through a small incision in the skin of the bags and is performed on an outpatient basis.
And the techniques are less and less so: Antoine Faix, urologist and andrologist, former head of the andrology and sexual medicine committee of the French Association of Urology, practices vasectomy without a scalpel. A “painless” technique, according to the French Association of Urology.
“The opening is finer, we incise more easily and quickly with small tweezers, the gesture is more precise”, specifies for BFMTV.com this specialist doctor on the subject.
“It’s really not a big deal”
In 2010, when this contraceptive surgery was authorized in France, some 1,908 vasectomies were performed, according to data from the Health Insurance. In 2021, they were 23,306.
“It has been steadily increasing for three or four years and will continue to increase in the coming years,” predicts urologist and andrologist Antoine Faix. He himself performs between 10 and 20 vasectomies a month.
Thomas, for his part, has no regrets about his vasectomy at all, saying, a year later, “completely satisfied.” “It’s a very minor operation, it’s really not a big deal and I didn’t have any pain at all, but God knows I’m a queer.” He even recommended it to his friends.
Among Antoine Faix’s patients, three profiles: men in a relationship who already have children whose partner no longer wants to take contraceptives, single men who already have children but no longer want to have them, and finally men without children, sometimes very young. Around twenty years for some.
“It is a new profile and its motivations are often ecological. They tell me that they do not want to have children in this world, that there are already too many of us on Earth. And even if they are in a couple, I don’t have this project, “she says.
For this urologist and andrologist, the increase in the use of vasectomy can be explained by a combination of factors. Firstly, it is being presented more frequently in gynecology consultations as an alternative to female contraceptive methods as women increasingly move away from the pill (in 2010, 41% of women aged 15-49 were taking this contraceptive method, only 33% had been using it for six years). later, according to Public Health France).
Antoine Faix also evokes a social factor and a “change of mentality”. While contraception has long been considered a women’s issue (tubal ligation was authorized in 2001, almost 10 years before vasectomy), “more and more men want to share contraception with their partners,” he said.
Is it still a negative image?
Is vasectomy on the road to democratization? Pierre Colin, co-founder of the Association for the research and development of male contraception (Ardecom), is more measured.
“France is late on the subject,” he laments for BFMTV.com.
In the United States, nearly 350,000 vasectomies are performed each year. In Australia, one in four men over the age of 40 have used it, official data shows. And in the United Kingdom, where it is sometimes necessary to register on the waiting list, warns the British health agency, the prevalence is around 20%, according to a study published in the lancet – around 10% for Belgium or Spain, much less for France.
For Pierre Colin, vasectomy still suffers from a negative image. “Men don’t have the reflex to go see a urologist or an andrologist, unlike young women, and wait until they’re 80 or have postpartum problems.” And he laments that we “still too often” view contraception as “a women’s issue.”
“Take my share”
But that is precisely why Simon Leboeuf, 34, resorted to a vasectomy. This physiotherapist based in the Hérault, already the father of three children, wanted “(s) to take part in this mental load”, he confesses to BFMTV.com.
“My wife gave birth three times, she was on the pill for years, I thought I had held up pretty well so far. I was wondering what I could do. Symbolically, it was important.”
It was also at the birth of his daughter two years ago that this thirty-year-old wondered about gender inequalities. He fears that she will suffer from it later and wants to educate her children without imposing the “norms of patriarchy” on them. “It’s also a message for my daughter and my two sons. I don’t want them to become big men. I had to set an example.”
Source: BFM TV
