A man will pour millions of sperms into a woman’s birth canal, turn on his left side, sleep for hours, wake up, pour another round of five hundred million or so sperms, and sleep like a baby. He will wake up a third time, pour another millions of sperms, then fall asleep and wake up three hours later to leave. And when this time comes, he will leave with hands in his pockets, chest puffed out and a stupid grin on his face. Another one will be whistling contentedly with hands in his pockets while his feet kick every pebble on the way (his way of telling the world he just had unprotected sex).

The woman will toss and turn, then wake up and rush to the chemist for the emergency pill, or she will wake up to count the number of used condoms on the bed side table and try to recall how many rounds you both went, or she will wake up, retrieve her oral contraceptives and confirm that she didn’t by any chance miss her pill yesterday. While she checks her calendar to reassure herself that it is not yet three months since she last had her shot of depo, he will be “hi fiving” and receiving pats on his back for being able to bed that “girl”. While the man goes on with his life without a care in the world, she will be waiting for her period anxiously. That is the only way she can know she is not pregnant for sure.

The same man will tend to react in three ways if by some ill luck that girl gets pregnant; one, he will deny that stomach, “everyone knows you are a hoe or ho, just go find the father of your child.” Two, he will accuse the girl of trapping her “you did this on purpose, kwani you were not on the pill?” Three, he will try to get the girl to abort, give them that little speech of I am not ready and neither are you, raise ten thousand shillings and lead them to some nasty back street clinic, have your baby yanked out of her womb and then avoid them forever. A few however accept and I have to give them that though it leads to unplanned parenthood but hey, the world is too full of dead beats we will take any who is ready to man up and admit that it was one out of the billions of sperms that fertilized that ova.

If there is a chance for men to decide when to have children and when not, by all means they should. If they won’t ‘wear’ the condom, then they can have that pill. Or better still, go for the safest of them all, vasectomy.

Vasectomy is a family planning method that is not for small boys. It is for men who have had their desired family size. During vasectomy, the vas deferens on both side are ligated and tied (done under anesthesia of course!!). This prevents sperms from entering the seminal stream.

Pregnancy is still possible shortly after vasectomy and therefore couples are advised to continue with another complementary family planning method until a semen analysis is done in which zero sperms are found on semen.

A man undergoing vasectomy

It is important to remember that vasectomy will not protect you from sexually transmitted diseases. It doesn’t affect your sex drive also! And the first human vasectomy was done in 1924!