Stuff You Should Know - Vasectomies: Stop Being A Wimp

Episode Date: September 27, 2022

You can uncross your legs you big babies. Getting a vasectomy isn’t bad at all – recovery time is a breeze, pain is minimal, and you can consider it a gift to your partner. Learn the real deal on vasectomies (and get 20% off with our code: STUFF).See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. And a different hot sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life. Tell everybody, yeah, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. I'm Munga Chauticular and it turns out astrology is way more widespread than any of us want to

believe. You can find in Major League Baseball, International Banks, K-pop groups, even the White House. But just when I thought I had a handle on this subject, something completely unbelievable happened to me and my whole view on astrology changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, give me a few minutes because I think your ideas are about to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeart Radio. Hey and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh and there's Chuck and Jerry's here with us too and that makes this Stuff You Should Know with the Snip Snip Edition. Snip Snip A Dish.

Very nice. We're talking about getting the snip, a.k.a. a vasectomy, a.k.a. a vasotomy, if you really want to be smart about the whole thing. And Chuck, our buddy Dave Ruse helps us with this and I have to say Dave is a really big proponent of vasectomies and I get why, but he really is all about vasectomies. I suspect he would get a couple if he could. Yeah, it's funny now that I know about them, it is a remarkably basic thing that is being done. And sometimes that's sort of the beautiful simplicity of certain medical procedures is it's like, just cut that thing there and you're all good. There's a problem. That's not cut.

Yeah, there's your problem. So it is remarkably easy. The recovery time is really fast. It's relatively cheap, even if you don't have insurance covering it, which most people don't in the United States. And yet in the U.S. and a lot of other countries, it's really disproportionate, the number of men in reproductive age who have a vasectomy compared to the number of women who've undergone tubal ligation, getting your tubes tied. And both are basically equally effective, but getting your tubes tied is way more involved. It requires general anesthesia. The recovery time is much longer. And it seems to basically come down to men just being scared of some guy monkeying around their junk with a scalpel

and worrying about what the after effects will be. But it turns out totally unnecessarily and unfairly. Yeah, I mean, we'll get to some of the myths. And I would say it's equal parts being scared of those myths and quite simply the patriarchy. I mean, kind of full stop men saying like, you need to take care of that on your end. And then we can start having unprotected sex. And that's why a lot of people frame it as it's a real gift that a man can give to his wife or his spouse or his sexual partner, the person he's monogamously having sex with. Because we should point out vasectomy is going to handle pregnancy basically every time. It's not going to help with STIs. So if you're running around exposing yourself to monkey pox,

a vasectomy is not going to help with any of that. It's going to just help with the pregnancy part. Yeah. And I hope that counts as a blanket statement. So when we say things like, and now you can have all the sex you want without using a condom, without fear of getting pregnant, we don't mean like, hey, step right up. What we mean is, with your monogamous partner, you can now live and with your monogamous partner, you can get tested and you can know that that part is safe as well. But we are definitely not saying just, that means you can go around and spread your... Seed? Your biological material. No, that was even worse somehow.

Oh, it's terrible. Dave uses, well, we'll get to the material part, but it's such a gross way to describe anything that comes out of your body. But you mentioned the patriarchy. Here's a patriarchal stat for you. 39% of American women age 35 to 44 have had their tubes tied. 39%. Do you want to know how many men age 35 to 44 in America have had a vasectomy? Oh, it's got to be at least 25, right? 13%. That's it. So that means that more than about three times, right on the nose, three times more women have their tubes tied than men undergo vasectomy. And hopefully, as people are hearing about this stuff, it becomes less scary and maybe more men

will be prone to do it. Because if you're looking to stop having kids or never have a kid, this is a really good way to go. It's safe, it's effective, and again, it's relatively cheap and the recovery time is like nothing. Yeah. Some of those myths that we mentioned that are not true or is that the operation is painful, which is not true, that it affects sex, that it affects your erection, it affects your orgasm and ejaculation, it affects your sex drive and testosterone. It means you're not a real man. Like none of those things are true. And if any of those dudes, we're speaking to you, if any of those are reasons why you don't want to get a vasectomy, then you have no reason.

Right. So just like that is a fact. Yeah. And we'll go into those in more detail. But yes, all of those are totally incorrect. Probably everything you think or worry about vasectomies is incorrect. That's a pretty good bet actually. Yeah. Or if your reason is, well, I don't know, I may want to have kids one day, that is a very good reason because as you'll see, there is a reversal surgery, but they definitely haven't perfected it. It is expensive. It's more invasive. This is something you really need to consider very, very strongly as a long-term life decision. Yeah. Like if you were like, oh, what's one more kid? And you're like, I regret having this third

kid. Maybe it is time to talk about getting a vasectomy. Or if you're like, I think this world is grossly overpopulated. We're treating it terribly. I don't want to introduce yet another human into it and screw it up even more. That might be a good reason to have a vasectomy too. And apparently that's an increasing reason for Gen Z and millennials getting vasectomies these days. Yeah. Or if you have already bore a couple of children and you look at your partner and say, hey, dude, I don't want any more kids. How about you get a vasectomy? And they give you a reason that equates to, I want to keep my life options open. That's a different conversation. Yeah. Then you're with the wrong person. Right. You never know. On down the road,

I might meet someone else. I guess I should say, Chuck, we've been talking almost exclusively about men and women, like biological sex as far as vasectomies go. And I actually looked, I was like, is this part of transitioning in the trans community? And I saw that probably isn't. I mean, you can imagine going from transitioning from male to female, you might want to get a vasectomy. But I saw specifically that the hormone therapy renders that like null and void. There's no point in getting one from what I saw. Right. So that's why we're using the terms that we're using and the words we're using. Right. So one of the things about a vasectomy, one of the reasons why it is so great is because it is basically 100% effective at preventing

pregnancy. And like I said, tubal ligation is just as effective. But as far as other stuff that men can do to act as birth control, I mean, like vasectomy is far and away superior to all of them. Like you've got coitus interruptus, aka the pullout method. Yeah. That's only 78% effective. I'm surprised it's that high. I am too. You can just ask the pullout king if that works or not. Hey, get in here, pullout king. And then condoms are 85% effective. That seems high to me too. But I guess actually no. In second thought, it's probably pretty accurate. But even still, that's a 15% chance every time you have sex that you're going to accidentally impregnate your partner. That's what's so great about vasectomy. You have no worries whatsoever because there's a whole bunch

of steps that we'll talk about that say, okay, you're good to go, go forth and have sex with your partner. That one partner that you're monogamous with and is monogamous with you as much as you like without a condom for the rest of your life. Anytime you want, just go ahead and do it. Do it in a changing room at Target. Do it in your car. No. Do it at the police station when you get arrested for doing it in a changing room at Target. None of these places you should do that. But you could because you don't have a condom on you and it doesn't matter in that sense. You mentioned it being relatively cheap. Did you say the actual number, which is about a thousand bucks? Yes, I did not. Okay. Yes, you did not. It's that kind of episode, Chuck. A thousand

dollars is certainly nothing to sneeze at. But tubal ligation is about six times that much. Condoms aren't cheap. So if you're choosing to have a lot of sex and wear a lot of condoms, then you're going to run up a bill there. And it doesn't take super long. It's a 20-minute outpatient surgery. Yeah. Very, very low risk of complications. It does not require general anesthesia like tubal ligation does. It's just local anesthesia. Which that right there is like, there's your, like how much do you love me kind of thing? Are you going to let me risk dying under general anesthesia compared to your local anesthesia? That's the, that's what makes that kind of conversation hard when you're like,

should you get your tubes tight or should I get a vasectomy? You know? Yeah. Absolutely. And recovery time. It's just a couple of days later for vasectomies, you're kind of doing pretty well. And it takes a few weeks or up to a few weeks for recovery for tubal ligation. Yeah. Because tubal ligation is so much more invasive, you know? It's a much greater surgical procedure. And then one other thing that is really important is like, like I said, it's considered a gift from the guy to his wife because you're saying like, hey, you don't have to worry about this stuff anymore. You don't have to take the pill anymore. You don't have to get an IUD. You don't have to get injections. You don't have to get your tubes

tied. Like I'll handle this for both of us and I'll take one for the team. And that really is like a genuine gift that you can give your partner that I mean, like they, I imagine they will value you for it at the very least to put it in a really sterile way. Sure. No pun intended. No. Sadly, no. I'm not that sharp today. Well, let's take a break. I'm going to sharpen you up. Okay. And we're going to come back and talk about the procedure right after this. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. This, I promise you. Oh God. Seriously, I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS because I'll be there

for you. Oh man. And so my husband, Michael, um, hey, that's me. Yep. We know that Michael and a different hot sexy teen crush boy band are each week to guide you through life step by step. Oh, not another one. Kids, relationships, life in general can get messy. You may be thinking, this is the story of my life. Just stop now. If so, tell everybody, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen. So we'll never ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts. I'm Mangesh Atikular and to be honest, I don't believe in astrology, but from the moment I was born, it's been a part of my life. In India, it's like smoking. You might not smoke, but you're

going to get secondhand astrology. And lately, I've been wondering if the universe has been trying to tell me to stop running and pay attention because maybe there is magic in the stars if you're willing to look for it. So I rounded up some friends and we dove in and let me tell you, it got weird. It got weird fast. Tantric curses, major league baseball teams, canceled marriages, K-pop. But just when I thought I had a handle on this sweet and curious show about astrology, my whole world came crashing down. Situation doesn't look good. There is risk to father. And my whole view on astrology, it changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, I think your ideas are going to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive and the I Heart Radio app,

Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right. So we're back. We're talking vasectomies. I keep saying it like it's got an F in there, vasectomies, vasectomies. And the point of a vasectomy is to keep your sperm away from your semen. And this is where Dave uses a word that just cracks me up. It's that material. He says that semen is all of the material that comes out of the penis during ejaculation. For some reason, I don't know. It just sounds like you're pulling a silk scarf out of a sleeve or something. That's great. But when you add biological in front of it, it gets even worse because you're like, for some reason, you just imagine it everywhere. I do at least.

But sperm and semen are two different things, right? Yes. Sperm is just one tiny component of semen. And you could make a really good case that semen exists if you're into intelligent design and that kind of thing as a vehicle for sperm. But what humans have cleverly figured out is you can keep the semen, you can get rid of the sperm, and you can do this. You can spread the biological material all over the place without any worry of getting pregnant because all you're doing is removing the sperm from entering the semen. The semen comes out like normal. It's just sperm-free after a vasectomy. That's right. It's called a vasectomy, by the way, because of the VAS-VAS deference,

aka the sperm duct. That is basically the target of this operation. It is a tube in the scrotum and the pelvis. It's called the VAS deference. There are two of them because you have two testes. And so a VAS deference, if you... Well, we'll talk about what you actually do, but it's called a vasectomy because of that. Right. And you can remember that by saying a vasectomy makes a VAS deference in your sex life. Very nice. That was off the cuff. I do not have that written down at least. So with the vasectomy, the VAS deference is just cutting, that's it, the VAS deference from each testicle.

That's all there is to it. I mean, there's a little more to it, but it's really that basic. You want to talk about the procedure? Yeah. Like I said, you've got these two VAS deference. Each one is about 12 to 18 inches, but size isn't important here from what I've been told. And they run from the base of your testes up around to the back of the bladder, where your seminal vesicles are. And like you said, their job is to take your sperm, mix it in with the rest of your semenic material, which I don't think we said what it was. It's fluids from the seminal vesicle, fluids from the prostate, and from what's called the bulb, I had it earlier, the bulborethral glands. No, I'm afraid not.

Go ahead, hit me. I think it's bulborethral. Yes, it absolutely is. So that to me is one of the worst words I've ever seen. It looks like what it describes in my imagination. That word looks like it. Yeah. Can't you just see it? I can. But you put all this stuff together and you've got the biological material that comes out of the penis during ejaculation, like Dave says, right? That's right. So the VAS deference, its role is to move sperm from the testes to I think the prostate to deliver this to your semen. And again, when you have a vasectomy, all you're doing is cutting the VAS deference. So you're removing sperm from the equation. And now I think it's probably time to talk about the

surgery step by step, right? And I think when we do this, most people who don't know about this are going to be amazed because it is Wham-Bam, thank you, ma'am, kind of surgery. Considering what you're doing and the effect that it has, the outcome it has, it's incredibly simple and fast. Yeah. And maybe we should queue up Yakety Sax. That's perfect. Did you ever see Dolly Parton at, oh, I can't remember. Was it Glastonbury, I think festival? I did. She said I can play Yakety Sax backwards and she turns around and plays it. Oh my God, that lady is unbelievable. Still, after all this time. She is national treasure, international treasure. Global. So what they're going to do is they're going to numb the area that they're going to be working on with local

anesthetic on either side of the scrotum. That may be the most harrowing part for people listening to this. They're going to make two small incisions at the top of the scrotum. So they have access to each VAS deference and they're going to, I love that he says gently, they're going to gently withdraw part of it through the incision. They're going to snip it and they're going to seal it up. Sometimes it's stitches, sometimes they cauterize it, sometimes it's a combination of things, but they're basically just going to seal up that tube and they're going to close those tiny incisions up with stitches or maybe glue even. That is it. Whatever they have lying around. Right, exactly. Little sawdust and spit. Sure. But that's it, man. That is it. And again,

yes, the guy is cutting into your scrotum, into your junk. I should say, I mean guy in a gender neutral way. Sure. Who knows who your urologist is, but they are cutting into it. They know what they're doing. It's really just cutting through a little bit of skin that, again, has been anesthetized locally. And I mean, that's it. It's almost like cutting a rope and then taking a lighter and burning each end so that it doesn't fray any longer. That's pretty much analogous to a vasectomy, except the rope is in your scrotum and they don't use it like a big lighter. They probably use something else to cauterize it. Yeah. And then you're riding your horse the next day. Actually, you probably don't want to be doing that the next day. You want to wait a week to

ride your horse, but the point taken, you know? There are also what's called no scalpel vasectomies, which are not completely no scalpel, but there are no incisions made in a technical sense. They use a, this sounds even worse actually, they use a punch tool to punch a small hole in the skin of the scrotum and then they withdraw the section of the vas deference that way. You still have to use a scalpel to cut the tube, but apparently you heal up a little bit faster with this method. Yeah, because there's no actual incision. It's just a puncture wound, basically. So yeah, I mean, it's a smaller surface area to recover, I guess. Yeah. And if you're thinking, Josh, Chuck, or Doctor, Doctor, what about all that sperm?

I got so much sperm, where's it going to go? Isn't it just going to build up and that, you know, that's a problem. That is not what happens. Your body absorbs the sperm, you don't get some big, like, massive sperm buildup. Let me tell you about your sperm and where it matures over 70 days and then also it's in the epididymis and your epididymis is 18 feet long and it's coiled up in your testes. Each testicle has an epididymis that's 18 feet long if you stretched it out and this is where the sperm kind of gathers and grows and gets ready for action. And apparently after your vasectomy and the sperm has nowhere to go, it stays in the epididymis, which naturally absorbs it

back into the bloodstream because if you, you know, don't see any action for a while, your sperm can get kind of old and your body wants new, fresh, good sperm to be used. So the old stuff gets absorbed anyway. So that's already happening. Yes, exactly. This isn't like some new thing that your body has to do. It's just, that's all it does now is absorbs sperm. It doesn't ejaculate it anymore. Right. You mentioned the term vasectomy earlier. Technically, that's probably what it should be called. Ectomy is usually when you are removing something and you're really not removing anything in this case. So if you want to get super technical, you could call it a vasectomy.

And your doctor might just say, yeah, yeah, yeah, I got you. Or they might be like, oh, I'm going to give you a nice volume too, because you impressed them so much. There was one other thing about the sperm. There's a kind of vasectomy called an open end vasectomy, where they just cauterize the tube leading to your prostate and the tube that's coming right out of your testicle is left open so that the sperm actually just does flow out into your scrotum and it gets absorbed in there as well. Yeah. And is it like one of those spaghetti sprinklers that kids run through when you turn it on? No, it's like one of those air blow guys that like tire stores use to bring in the customers.

I think it's more like that. Okay. Or either one, because they're both delightful. This, like we mentioned, takes about 20 minutes. It doesn't even have to take that long. Sometimes I can get you in another in as little as 10 minutes. You might get a little bit of pain meds, but, and you know, this is from Dave sort of telling his first hand that after the first day or so, it's really not that big of a deal. But you're going to be resting for 24 hours. You'll be chilling out in bed basically. You want to wear, and this is pretty funny, you want to wear tidy whiteies, very tight underwear or a jockstrap for 48 hours.

Right. Probably the tidy whiteies is preferable. I don't know. Jockstrap's pretty good look. You just don't want anything swinging around because you have two incisions on your scrotum that have been stitched up and you don't want to, you know, loosen the stitches, I think is the point. Yeah. What else are you going to do? Cold pack, no doubt like actual frozen bag of frozen peas could work because it could become inflamed. Your body has been insulted and it's going to react with inflammation that helps with it. Again, you're going to have pain meds. You probably won't need them after the first day.

You might need like Advil or Tylenol or whatever your regular analgesic is. But like we were saying earlier, you can't ride a horse for a week, right? Yeah. In a couple of days, you can do desk work and stuff like that and you're off your feet, but no sports and no sexual activity for a week. So here's the sort of trick is you're going to still have sperm in your system after a vasectomy. So there's a chance if you had unprotected sex with your partner right away that you could get them pregnant, you need to clear the system. So it takes up to 15 to 20 ejaculations to clear the system out. So if you want to go back to having sex that, you know, like literally one week after you've had this operation without getting pregnant with your partner, you know,

do the math, you're welcome back to seventh grade basically. Yes. So like for a good three months, they're basically like you need to really be careful and they're going to get you in there afterward as part of this postoperative care about, you know, anywhere from like a month and a half to three months later to say, okay, give us a sperm sample and we're going to see if you have any guys swimming around in there. And if you pass, they will say you got no sperm, go forth and have fun. And if you don't pass, they'll say, okay, well, we need to, you know, keep safe a little longer and then come back and give us another sample. And they'll keep doing that until there's just no sperm found like zero, 100% no sperm. So zero percent sperm, I guess is what I'm trying to say.

Yeah. Am I reading this correctly though? Because you can have sex seven days later. It takes 15 to 20 ejaculations. Right. Yet they check you out six to 12 weeks later. Yeah, they're saying like you behave as if you did before your vasectomy for six to 12 weeks. Like if your wife or your partner was on the pill, she should probably stay on the pill for six to 12 weeks until you get the all clear. If you use condoms, keep using condoms. And during that time, when you have sex, there is that risk that you will still get pregnant until you get that all clear from a sperm test that finds no sperm. Right. But is that because they assume it will take six to 12 weeks to have those 20

ejaculations? I got you. I got you. I don't know because that does seem like a really long time, doesn't it? Well, I mean, that's why I said, welcome back to seventh grade. If you want to knock that out in a week. I'm glad you went back and explained that. I thought you were saying like you were worried about getting someone pregnant. I can say this in a grown-up way. Does that mean you can masturbate 20 times in a week and clear out your system and you'll be good to go? Or is it really like you really need to think about this six weeks later to 12 weeks later? I don't know. I would guess if you boasted to your urologist that 20 ejaculations is not going to take you six weeks, they might say, okay, we'll schedule this for three weeks from now or four weeks or

whatever. I would think so. Yeah, I would guess so. All right. Kids, yes. They have like a wall of fame in the office. It's just covered. Clear in two days. So yeah, 15 to 20 ejaculations and ejaculation is an ejaculation, right? It doesn't have to just be through intercourse or coitus, I think is what the kids call it. That is true. How many times have we said ejaculation in this episode? More than 10. I would say so. You want to take another break and then come back and talk about some of the risks involved? Because there are risks. It's true, but they're just fairly small. Yeah, let's get, let's do that and get back to it. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass.

The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough, or you're at the end of the road. Okay, I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. This, I promise you. Oh, god. Seriously, I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS because I'll be there for you. Oh, man. And so, my husband, Michael, um, hey, that's me. Yep. We know that Michael and a different hot, sexy teen crush boy band are each week to guide you through life step by step. Oh, not another one. Kids, relationships, life in general can get messy. You may be thinking, this is the story of my life.

Just stop now. If so, tell everybody, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen. So we'll never ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. I'm Mangesh Atikular, and to be honest, I don't believe in astrology. But from the moment I was born, it's been a part of my life. In India, it's like smoking. You might not smoke, but you're going to get secondhand astrology. And lately, I've been wondering if the universe has been trying to tell me to stop running and pay attention. Because maybe there is magic in the stars, if you're willing to look for it. So I rounded up some friends and we dove in and

let me tell you, it got weird fast. Tantric curses, major league baseball teams, canceled marriages, K-pop. But just when I thought I had to handle on this sweet and curious show about astrology, my whole world came crashing down. Situation doesn't look good. There is a risk to father. And my whole view on astrology, it changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, I think your ideas are going to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive and the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Okay, so when you cut into a scrotum, when you cut a part of an internal network of tissues, and seal it back up and cauterize it, there are risks. Even though you're not under the

risk of general anesthesia, you could conceivably get an infection at the incision site. You can get blood clots inside of the scrotum. Blood can show up in your semen. Your scrotum can become bruised. All of these things, at least the first few that I mentioned, are stuff that you probably will get as a result of a vasectomy. But they're going to clear up fairly quickly. And again, that bag of frozen peas can really help with the inflammation. The Tylenol or Advil can help with everything else. There are some actual possible longer term complications that you should be aware of though too. Yeah, there's a very small percentage, I think one to two percent of people who have chronic pain after the surgery. And these are the people in this

category or the part of the percentage of people who one day might want to get this reversed because of that chronic pain. Yes. An abnormal cyst called a spermatosil, yeah. I think so, yeah. That could develop in the coil tube located at the upper part of the testicle that collects and transports that sperm. But these are, like we said, these are down, if you're down in the low single percentage points, it's considered very low risk. Right. And, you know, the upshot of her, the upside of it, I should say, is that again, you actually will probably experience, at least as far as some studies have found, an increase in sexual satisfaction. Because cutting your vas deferens has nothing to do with

hormones. It has nothing to do with your ability to get an erection, your ability to ejaculate. There's another one. Instead, again, it's just removing sperm from the equation, and that's it. That's right. Testosterone, don't worry about that. That is produced in the testes, like the sperm. But there's a different kind of cell. It's called the lateleidig cell or the leidig cell. I like the second one better. Let's go with that. The leidig cell. But it has a one-way trip. It goes directly from the testes into the bloodstream. Right. It does not go through the vas deferens. There is no impact whatsoever on your testosterone and sex drive. And in fact, it may actually increase your sexual desire. They've done studies. They did one in Germany

that said that if you've had a vasectomy, you have a greater or at least a reported greater satisfaction than the control with orgasm, with sexual desire, with satisfaction of intercourse, with erectile function. Spontaneity. That's a big one. Yeah. I mean, a lot of it may just be psychological like, all right, I'm free. I don't have to worry about this anymore. So that'll probably increase all kinds of happiness. Yeah, exactly. I get the impression that that is from this German study from, I think, 2017. They surveyed both men with vasectomies and their partners and found that the partners were like, yeah, actually, it's a little more rousing. The actual act of sex didn't change for me at all. But there's something going on here. And I think I would

chalk that up to spontaneity and not having to stop to put on a condom or feeling freer because you didn't have to take a pill that day, that kind of thing. It wasn't like, doc, I got to tell you, we started doing some crazy stuff. Have you ever done it in a target changing room? Don't tell your doctor that. So we said it's $1,000, which is like you said, nothing to sneeze at at all. But compared to tubal ligation, which is $6,000 at least, it's much cheaper. The thing is, in the United States, insurance companies don't have to cover vasectomies. They do have to cover tubal ligation procedures. And it's probable that that accounts, in addition to the patriarchy that you mentioned, full stop. In addition to that full stop,

some people just being cheap and saying like, no, I mean, like we can get a tubal ligation for like $50 and, you know, rather than vasectomy for $1,000. And if there's any man out there who does not want to get a vasectomy, he's going to hammer that point home every chance he gets until he gets his way. Yeah, maybe. We mentioned people wanting these reverse, about 6% of people who get a vasectomy end up wanting that reversal. Like we said, some of those come from the chronic pain category. And other people, you know, want to have kids and decide, oh, I've made a grave mistake. That'll cost you between five and 15 grand. And it'll take four to six hours. And even when you

do, if it's considered, you know, quote unquote, successful, your pregnancy success rate is between 30 and 90% moving forward. So some people say, just go IVF then, if you want to do that and get that sperm directly from the testicles, because as a much better success rate, you can do that if you want, that'll still cost you a bundle though. IVF is not cheap. Yeah, but it's a lot less invasive and permanent than reversing your vasectomy. Right? That's right. Remember how we said that vasectomies are like 99% effective or something like that? They have like a 1% failure rate. I think we said that that failure rate comes very often from something called recanalization. Did you see that part? I don't think I saw that part. So recanalization is where the vast deference

grows back together. It creates new tissue that basically go around the stitches or the clamps or the cauterization and grows new tubes that seek out and connect with the other end of the vast deference and reconnect. It's, which is just goes to show you that nature finds a way. Yeah, life finds a way. But again, oh man, is it life? I almost had it. But again, this is really, really rare. And apparently the positioning of the separate ends of the vast deference has a huge effect on that too. You don't want to leave them anywhere near each other. Like, oh, I see you over there. And one of the things about that reversible vasectomy, apparently that's a holy grail in urology. And they're looking at ways to basically temporarily create a vasectomy.

There's stuff called reversible inhibition of sperm under guidance. It's a type of gel that you can put into the vast deference. And then it has to be flushed out later on to remove it. And then all of a sudden it's like your vasectomy was reversed. Yeah, this falls into the same category of like simplicity. Like, I imagine they were trying to think of an easy way to reverse this and somebody was like, hey, you have any gum? You have any chewing gum? Right. We could clog up that tube. And that's basically all they're doing. They're clogging the tube with a gel to implant. And yeah, it makes a lot of sense. You should better make sure that that clog is pretty tight. Yes. Apparently that has a failure rate from one Indian study in 2009 of 4%, where again,

a vasectomy has 1%. Yeah, I think safety is the concern there, right? Absolutely, right. So I saw it explained as with a pill with women, the control group in when you're figuring out safety is pregnant women. And pregnancy is riskier than the side effects or complications from taking the pill. So the pill wins out. It's safer. It's justified. And that's how it gets the green light for use. With a male pill, the control group is just healthy men. There's no pregnancy. So the male pill has to stop sperm production without side effects, like any side effects, because if you go beyond a healthy male, which is the control group, then all of a sudden it's less safe and it probably won't get approved.

So there actually is, although I don't know how hard they're working on a male pill. Probably not so hard. Although you never know. Why is that funny? I'd rather not say. Come on. All right, we'll finish up with a little bit of talk on eugenics. We did an episode many, many years ago about sterilizing addicts specifically, which is, let me go back and listen to that episode. It's pretty interesting. Yeah, please forgive our viewers. Probably somewhat outdated at this point, but who knows. Yeah, just the use of addicts I think is outdated. But it's still, it's pretty interesting episode. But this is a notion that started out all the way back in the mid-1800s. Veterinarians started

experimenting with dogs, giving dogs vasectomies instead of castrating them. And in the 1880s, started performing them on men. And in 1899, of course, it didn't take very long for eugenicists to get involved and say, hey, this is a great thing because we can just essentially neuter criminals. We can neuter people who are mentally ill. We can neuter people who are poor. And that'll solve a lot of the world's problems. Yeah. And so the eugenics movement really took this up. There was a guy named Dr. Harry Sharp in the United States. He was a leading performer of vasectomies among eugenicists, among anybody, I would guess. He actually performed the first vasectomy for non-medical reasons.

It was on a 19-year-old inmate at a reform school in Indiana who had complained of excessive masturbation. And so Sharp gave him a vasectomy and said that he, quote, became more of a sunny disposition, brighter of intellect, and ceased to masturbate, end quote. And he kind of went from there within a decade on just a tear where anybody who he deemed or the eugenics movement deemed undesirable to the gene pool should receive a vasectomy. Yeah. Alongside him was an American named Albert Oschner, published a book or I guess at least a pamphlet called Surgical Treatment of Habitual Criminals that advocated for exactly what it says, making criminals sterile. And it was just sort of a time in the world and especially in the

United States where they thought that, like I said, if you were in an almshouse, if you were in an asylum, if you were certainly, if you were in prison, then it was a good option to force a vasectomy on somebody. And this happened to an alarming degree. I think through the end of World War II, they estimated about 320,000 forced sterilizations without consent. I did not see a racial breakdown, but you can bet that it affected people of color more than others. It just wouldn't make sense because that's how it's kind of gone in this country. Yeah. And it wasn't, I mean, America was definitely an early proponent and leader of eugenics, but if all this sounds ghastly familiar, that whole thread was picked up by the Nazis in the

early 1930s and they sterilized countless people, both through vasectomies and through tubal ligation. And apparently, I didn't realize this, Switzerland had an early eugenics law, apparently the first eugenics law, and they targeted the Roma. And the Roma were still subject to involuntary vasectomies up until 1972 in Switzerland. Isn't that insane? Yeah. That's shameful. And by the way, when I said it made sense that they forced sterilization probably on people of color more, you know how I'm in it, right? Everyone? Sure. It didn't mean that made sense in any kind of ethical way. It made sense because that's how

people of color have been treated in this country. Like the person who thought that, this had to have been like their first episode, and now you explained it to that one person. Just want to clear that up. All right, good. Everybody knows Chuck. So ending it on eugenics is kind of a sour note. So let's talk about one more old-timey thing. It's just pretty great. Medical procedure? It is misguided, but it's not nearly as bad as vasectomies for eugenics. There's an Austrian endocrinologist named Eugene Steinach, and he said, I've got this great idea. If I cut just one vas deference, the other one will still be able to contribute sperm to the

semen, but the severed vas deference will give up on sperm and go into overdrive for producing hormones like testosterone, which will give men just this huge boost of virility. And he started going crazy performing it on everybody who would step up. Yeah, basically, if you want to increase your sex drive, you can have this elective procedure, and people like Sigmund Freud and writer William Yates use this procedure and went this procedure to boost their sex drive. Yeah, and apparently they were like, well, actually testosterone works totally differently, and what you just did to all these people doesn't work at all. So I guess Steinach retired in disgrace. And if you thought that was a pretty fun factoid, prepare for this one, Chuck. I think

you should take us out with this. Okay. They found a statistic because, and who knows if this is correlation or not, but there is a statistic because you're supposed to lay around for a couple of days. When you're laying around for a couple of days, maybe you're reading a book, educating yourself, or maybe you're just watching a lot of television. But didn't they find that, I think the finding was that the procedure went up a lot during March Madness NCAA basketball tournament time, so men could have an excuse to lay around and watch it. Is that right? A 30% increase in vasectomy procedures in the US during the first round of the NCAA basketball tournament. They call it Vas Madness. I gotta know if that's true, if that's why. Gotta know.

Well, the only way to find out, Chuck, is to undergo vasectomy procedure and ask your urologist during the middle of it because you won't be under general anesthesia. It'll be local. You got anything else? I got nothing else. Okay. Well, Chuck said he's got nothing else, which means, of course, it's time for Listener Mail. That's right. This is from our buddy Mark Koontz. Mark and Gail Koontz are longtime listeners and real life pals of mine. They came to our show in Cleveland and Gail is a longtime movie crusher, but Mark wrote us an email about Suicide Awareness Month, which it is right now. Oh, yeah. Mark is out there doing the tough work. Great dude. September is back to school season, guys, in Suicide Prevention Month,

which means youth suicide prevention is on my mind more than usual. As you know, I'm a licensed art therapist at Clark County Educational Service Center in Springfield, Ohio, helps schools meet the mental health needs of thousands of students. Most people think of suicide prevention with youth means focusing on trauma and handling and handing out hotline information. And of course, sometimes you do those things, but my favorite suicide prevention program and the reason I'm writing is called Sources of Strength. That is a youth led suicide prevention program that has been used in schools across the U.S. and Canada and Australia. Sources of Strength are things like positive friends, mentors, and mental health. These are some of the protective factors that we can rely on

when we're stressed or to help us get through a crisis. And for the past year, I've been trying to get sources of strength in every single one of my county schools and with funding and support from the Ohio Suicide Prevention Foundation and Prevention First, with an exclamation point, schools in Ohio can implement sources of strength at no cost. So if you're listening, he just want a grant for like 10 grand or something like that, which is a genius grant. He's won it before, I think. But he says, if you're listening to this and you're in Ohio, you can learn by visiting sources ofstrengthohio.org. Even if you're not in Ohio, you should still visit the sources of strength.org website and learn about the source's eight protective factors. Also, adults need protective

factors, too. I'd like to thank both of you for always advocating for mental health, as well as spreading useful and beneficial information to all of us and for being positive people in the world. Your voices mean so much to so many. Greatest thanks from your old pal, Mark Coons. So, hey, Mark and Gail and your cute pets. I appreciate the work you're doing. Yeah, same here, Mark. That's magnificent stuff. Thanks for writing in to let everybody know. If you want to write in like Mark did and just basically say, I'm a hero without saying I'm a hero, we would love to hear from you and tell everybody about that. You can wrap it up, spank it on the bottom, and send it off to StuffPodcast at iHeartRadio.com.

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