0:01

Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production

0:04

of I Heart Radio. Hey,

0:11

and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh,

0:13

and there's Chuck and Jerry's here with us too,

0:15

and that makes this Stuff you Should Know. With

0:19

the snip snip addition, snip

0:21

snip a dish very

0:24

nice. We're talking about

0:26

getting the snip a k A. A vasectomy

0:30

a k a. A vast otomy if you really

0:32

want to be smart about the whole thing. Um

0:35

and Chuck, our buddy Dave Russ helps

0:37

us with this. And I have to say, Dave is a really

0:39

big proponent of vasectomies,

0:42

and I get why, but he really is all

0:44

about vasectomies. I suspect he

0:46

would get a couple if he could. Yeah,

0:50

it's funny now that I know about them.

0:52

It is a remarkably basic

0:55

thing that's being done. And

0:58

sometimes that's sort of the beautiful

1:01

simplicity of certain medical procedures

1:03

is it's like, just

1:05

cut that thing there and you're all

1:07

good. There's a problem that's not cut.

1:12

So it is remarkably easy. The recovery

1:14

time is really fast. It's relatively

1:17

cheap, even if you don't have insurance

1:19

covering it, which most most people don't in the United

1:21

States, and yet in the US and

1:23

a lot of other countries. Um. The

1:26

the it's really disproportionate the number

1:29

of men in reproductive age

1:31

who have a vasectomy um

1:34

compared to the number of women who have undergone

1:36

tubal ligation getting your tubes tied,

1:39

and both are basically equally effective,

1:41

but getting your tubes tied is way more

1:44

involved. It requires general anesthesia,

1:47

the recovery time is much longer, and

1:50

it seems to basically come down to men

1:52

just being scared of

1:55

some guy monkeying around their junk

1:57

with a scalpel um and

2:00

worrying about what the after effects will be.

2:02

But it turns out totally unnecessarily

2:04

and unfairly. Yeah,

2:07

I mean, we'll get to some of the myths, um

2:09

and I would say it's it's equal parts

2:12

being scared of those myths and

2:14

quite simply the patriarchy, I mean kind

2:17

of full stop men saying like,

2:20

uh, you need to take care of that on

2:22

your end. Uh, and

2:24

and then we can start having unprotected

2:27

sex and the And that's why a lot

2:29

of people frame it as it's a

2:32

real gift that a man can give to his

2:35

wife or his spouse

2:37

or his sexual partner, you know, the

2:39

person who's monogamously having sex with,

2:41

Because we should point out vasectomy

2:44

is going to handle pregnancy basically

2:46

every time. Um,

2:48

it's not going to help with S T I S. So

2:50

if you're running around exposing

2:53

yourself, the monkey pox of vasectomy

2:55

is not going to help with any of that. It's going to

2:57

just help with the pregnancy partner. Yeah,

3:00

and I hope that counts as a blanket

3:02

statement. So when we say things like

3:05

and now you can have, you know, all

3:08

the sex you want without using a condom,

3:10

without fear of getting pregnant, we don't.

3:12

We don't mean like a step

3:14

right up. What we mean

3:16

is is you know with your monogamous

3:19

partner you can now live,

3:22

and you know with your monogamous partner you can

3:25

get tested and you can

3:27

know that that part is safe as well. But we

3:29

are definitely not saying just that

3:31

means you can go around and

3:33

and spread your seed,

3:36

your your biological material.

3:40

It was even worse somehow. Oh

3:43

it's terrible, Dave us as well. We'll

3:45

get to the material part. But it's such a gross way

3:47

to describe any thing that comes out of

3:49

your body. But you mentioned the patriarchy. Here's

3:51

a patriarchal um stat

3:53

for you. Thirty of

3:55

American women age thirty five to

3:58

forty four have

4:00

their tubes tied thirty

4:02

nine percent. Do you want

4:04

to know how many men aged thirty

4:07

five to forty four in America have had

4:09

a vasectomy. I've

4:11

got to be at least twenty five right percent?

4:15

Percent? That's it. So that means

4:17

that, um, what more than about

4:20

three times right on the nose, three

4:22

times more women have their tubes side

4:24

than men undergo vasectomy. And

4:26

hopefully, like as people are

4:28

hearing about this stuff, um,

4:30

it becomes less scary and maybe

4:33

more men will be prone to do it, because if

4:35

you're looking to stop having kids

4:38

or never have a kid, this

4:40

this is a really good way to go. It's

4:42

safe, it's effective, and again it's

4:45

relatively cheap, and the recovery time is like

4:47

nothing. Yeah, some

4:49

of those myths that we mentioned that

4:51

are not true. Or is that the operation

4:53

is painful, which is not true. That

4:56

it affects sex, that

4:58

it affects your erection, it affects

5:00

your orgasm and ejaculation, it

5:02

affects your sex drive and testosterone.

5:05

It means you're not a real man, Like,

5:08

none of those things are true. And

5:10

if any of those dudes

5:12

were speaking to you, if any of those

5:15

are reasons why you don't want

5:17

to get a vasectomy, then

5:19

you have no reason to just like

5:21

that is a fact. Yeah, and we'll go into

5:23

those in more detail. But yes, all of those

5:25

are totally incorrect. Probably everything

5:28

you think or worry about vasectomes

5:30

is incorrect. That's that's a pretty good bet,

5:33

actually, Yeah. Or

5:35

if your reason is, well, I

5:37

don't know, I may want to have kids one day, that is

5:39

a very good reason because as

5:41

you'll see, there is a reversal surgery,

5:44

but it they definitely

5:46

haven't perfected it. It is expensive,

5:49

it's more invasive. Um, this

5:51

is something you really need to consider

5:55

very very strongly as a

5:57

long term life decision. Yeah. Like if

5:59

you were like, oh, it's one more kid,

6:01

and you're like, I regret having this third

6:03

kid, maybe it is time to talk

6:05

about getting a vasectomy. Or

6:07

if you're like, I think this world is grossly

6:09

overpopulated, we're treating it terribly.

6:13

I don't want to introduce yet another human

6:15

into it and screwed up even more. Um,

6:18

that might be a good reason. I have a sectomy too,

6:20

and apparently that's an increasing um

6:22

the reason for gen z and

6:25

millennials getting vasectomies these

6:27

days. Yeah, Or

6:29

if you have already bore a couple of

6:31

children and you look at your partner and

6:33

say, hey, dude, I don't want any more

6:36

kids, how about you get a vasectomy, and

6:38

they give you a reason that equates

6:40

to I want to keep my life options

6:42

open. That's a

6:44

different conversation. Yeah, then you're

6:46

with the wrong person, right, you

6:48

know, But no, on down the road, I might meet someone

6:51

else. Right now, I guess

6:53

I should say, Chuck, we've we've been talking almost

6:55

exclusively about like men and

6:57

women, you know, like biological sex

7:00

um as far as vasectomies go. And

7:02

I actually looked. I was like, is this part of transitioning

7:05

in the trans community? And I saw that

7:07

probably isn't. I mean, you can imagine

7:10

like going from transitioning

7:12

from male to female.

7:15

Um, you might want to get a vasectomy.

7:17

But I saw specifically that

7:19

the hormone therapy renders

7:22

that like no and void, there's no point in getting

7:24

one from what I saw, right, So

7:26

that's why we're using the terms that we're using in the

7:28

words we're using so

7:31

um. One of the things about a vasectomy

7:34

One of the reasons why it is so great is

7:36

because it is basically

7:38

a hundred percent effective at

7:40

preventing pregnancy. And

7:42

like I said, tubal ligation is

7:45

is just as effective, um,

7:47

but as far as other stuff that men

7:50

can do to prevent to act

7:52

as birth control, I mean,

7:54

like vasectomy is far in a way superior

7:56

to all of them. Like you've got coitus

7:58

interrupt us a k a. The

8:01

pullout method. Yeah, that's

8:03

only seventy eight percent effective. I

8:06

am too. You can just ask the pullout

8:09

king if that works or not. Hey,

8:11

get in here, pullout king, and then

8:13

uh, condoms are eight

8:16

five percent effective. That seems high

8:18

to me too, but I guess actually

8:20

no, and on second thought, it's probably

8:22

pretty accurate. But even still, that's

8:25

a fifteen percent chance every time you have sex

8:28

that you're going to accidentally impregnate

8:30

your partner. That's

8:32

what's so great about vasectomy. You have no

8:35

worries whatsoever because there's a whole bunch of steps

8:37

that we'll talk about that say Okay, you're

8:39

good to go go forth and have sex

8:41

with your partner, that one partner

8:44

that you're monogamous with and is monogamous with you

8:46

as much as you like without a condom for the

8:48

rest of your life. Anytime you want, just

8:51

go ahead and do it. Do it in

8:52

a changing room at Target,

8:55

do it in your card at

8:57

the police station when you get arrested

8:59

for doing then changing room and Target,

9:01

none of these places you should do that.

9:04

But you could because you don't have

9:06

a condom on you and it doesn't matter in that

9:08

sense. Uh.

9:11

You mentioned it being relatively cheap. Did you

9:13

say the actual number, which is about a thousand

9:15

bucks? Yes? I did not. Okay,

9:18

okay, yes you did not. That

9:21

kind of episode, Chuck. A thousand

9:23

dollars is certainly nothing to sneeze at. But um

9:26

tubal ligation is about six times that

9:28

much. Um. Condoms aren't

9:30

cheap. So if you're if you're choosing to

9:33

have a lot of sex and were a lot of condoms and you're

9:35

going to run up a bill there. Uh.

9:37

And it doesn't take super long. It's a twenty minute

9:39

outpatient surgery, very

9:42

very low risk of complications. Uh.

9:45

It does not require general

9:47

anesthesia like tubal ligation does. It's

9:50

just local anesthesia, which that right

9:52

there is like there's your like

9:54

how much do you love me kind of thing? Are you going to let

9:56

me risk dying under general

9:58

anesthesia comp here to your local

10:00

anesthesia. That's the that's what makes

10:02

that kind of conversation hard when you're like, should

10:05

you get your tubes tied or should I get a vasectomy?

10:07

You know absolutely,

10:09

uh in recovery time, it's just a

10:12

couple of days later. Um for vasectomy

10:15

is you're kind of doing pretty well, and it takes

10:17

a few weeks or up to a few weeks

10:19

for recovery for tubal ligation. Yeah, because tubal

10:21

ligation is so much more invasive. You know, it's

10:23

it's a much greater surgical procedure.

10:26

Um. And then one other thing that

10:29

is really important is like, like I

10:31

said, it's considered a gift from

10:33

the guy to his wife because

10:36

you're saying like, hey, you don't have to worry about this stuff

10:38

anymore. You don't have to take the pill anymore, you don't

10:40

have to get an I U D, you don't have to

10:43

get injections. Um, you don't

10:45

have to get your tubes tied. Like I'll handle

10:47

this for both of us, and I'll

10:50

take one for the team. And that that really

10:52

is like a genuine gift that you can give

10:55

your partner. That I mean, like they

10:57

I imagine they will value you for it

10:59

at the very least to put it in a really

11:01

sta away Sure, no

11:04

pun intended, No, sadly,

11:07

no, I'm not that sharp today.

11:09

Well, let's take a break. I'm gonna sharpen

11:12

you up, and we're gonna come back and

11:14

talk about the procedure

11:16

right after this. All

11:36

right, so we're back. We're

11:38

talking vasectomes. Keep

11:40

saying it like it's got an F in their vasectomese

11:43

vasectomies, And the

11:46

point of a vasectomy is to

11:49

keep your sperm away

11:51

from your semen. Uh. And this

11:53

is where Dave uses a word that just cracks

11:55

me up. It's that material. Uh.

11:58

He says that semen is

12:00

all of the material that comes

12:02

out of the penis during ejaculation. For

12:06

some reason, I don't know. It

12:08

just sounds like you're pulling a silk scarf out of a sleep

12:10

or something. That's that's great,

12:12

but when you add biological in front of it,

12:14

it gets even worse because you're like, for

12:17

some reason, you just imagine it everywhere for

12:20

as I do at least, but

12:22

sperm and semen are two different things, right, Yes,

12:25

sperm is just one tiny component

12:27

component of semen and um.

12:30

You could make a really good case that semen

12:32

exists if you're into intelligent design

12:35

and that kind of thing, as a vehicle for

12:37

sperm. But what humans

12:39

have cleverly figured out is you can

12:41

keep the semen, you can get rid of the sperm,

12:44

and you can do this you can spread

12:46

the biological material all

12:48

over the place without any worry of

12:51

getting pregnant because all

12:53

you're doing is removing the sperm

12:55

from entering the semen, and the semen comes

12:57

out like normal. It's just sperm free

12:59

after of a vasectomy,

13:02

that's right. Uh. It's

13:04

called a vasectomy, by the way, because of

13:06

the vase the A S deference

13:09

a k a. The sperm duct um

13:12

that is basically the target of this

13:14

operation. It is a tube

13:16

in the scrotum in the pelvis. It's called

13:18

the vast deference. There are two of

13:20

them because you have two testes

13:24

and so a vase difference. If

13:27

you well, we'll talk about what you actually

13:29

do, but it's called a vast ectomy because of that,

13:31

right, And you can remember that by saying a

13:34

vasectomy makes a vast deference

13:36

in your sex life. Very

13:39

nice those off the cuff. I do not have that

13:41

written down at least so um

13:44

with so with the with the vasectomy,

13:46

the vast deference is just cutting.

13:49

That's it. The vest difference from each testicle.

13:52

That's that's all there is to it. I mean there's a

13:54

little more to it, but it's really that basic.

13:56

You want to talk about the procedure. Yeah,

14:00

like I said, you've got these two vast deference each

14:02

one, uh is about twelve to

14:04

eight eighteen inches. But size isn't

14:06

important here from what I've been

14:08

told. Uh. And they run from

14:11

the base of your test e s up around

14:13

to the back of the bladder where your

14:15

seminal vesicles are. And

14:17

like you said, their their job is to take

14:20

your sperm mix it in with the rest

14:23

of your semanic

14:25

material. Which

14:27

I don't think we said what it was. It's fluids

14:30

from the seminal vessel, fluids

14:32

from the prostate, uh, and

14:34

from what's called the bulb I

14:37

had it earlier, the bulba erethoral

14:39

grands. No, I'm

14:41

afraid not go ahead

14:44

hit me. I think it's bulbo your rethroll.

14:48

Yes, it absolutely is so

14:50

bad to me, is one of the worst words I've ever

14:52

seen. It looks like what it

14:55

describes. In my imagination,

14:57

that word looks like it can't

15:00

you can't you just see it. But

15:02

you put all this stuff together, and you've got the biological

15:04

material that comes out of the penis during ejaculation,

15:07

Like Dave says, right, So the

15:10

vast difference its role is to move

15:12

sperm from the testies too. I

15:14

think the prostate um to deliver

15:17

this to your um,

15:19

to your semen. And again,

15:21

when you have a vasectomy, all you're doing

15:24

is cutting the vast difference, so you're removing sperm

15:26

from the equation um. And

15:29

now I think it's probably time to talk

15:32

about the surgery step by step, right, And I think

15:34

when we do this, most people who

15:36

don't know about this are going to be amazed because it

15:38

is wham bam, thank you, ma'am kind

15:40

of surgery. Considering what you're

15:43

doing and the effect that it has, the outcome

15:45

it has, it's incredibly simple

15:48

and fast. Yeah, maybe

15:50

we should cue up Yakety Sacks. That's

15:52

the perfect Did you ever see Dolly

15:55

Parton at um? Oh? I can't

15:57

remember what the glaston Bury I think

15:59

festival I did she said,

16:01

I can play yakety sacks backwards

16:03

and she turns around and plays

16:06

it. Oh my god. Still

16:09

after all this time, she is National

16:12

Treasure, International, Treasure Global.

16:15

So what they're gonna do is they're gonna numb the

16:18

area that they're going to be working on with

16:20

local anesthetic on either side

16:22

of the scrowtum. That may be the most

16:24

harrowing part for for people

16:27

listening to this. H They're gonna make

16:29

two small incisions at the top of the scuretum

16:31

so they have access to uh

16:34

each vast deference, and they're

16:36

going to I love that, he says. Gently. They're

16:38

going to do gently withdraw part

16:40

of it through the incision. They're gonna

16:42

snip it, and they're gonna seal

16:45

it up. Sometimes the stitches, sometimes

16:47

they cauterize it. Uh. Sometimes

16:49

it's a combination of things. But

16:51

they're basically just gonna seal up that tube and

16:54

they're gonna close those tiny incisions

16:56

up with stitches or maybe glue even that is

16:59

it. Whatever they have lying around exactly

17:02

a little sawdust and spit. But

17:05

that's it, man, that is it. And again, yes,

17:07

the guy is cutting into your scrowedum,

17:09

into your junk um, I should

17:11

say, I mean guy in a gender neutral way.

17:14

You know, who knows who your erologist is.

17:16

But they like they they are cutting

17:19

into it. They know what they're doing. It's

17:21

really just cutting through a little bit of skin that again

17:23

has been anesthetized locally. And

17:26

I mean that's it. Like this, it's almost like cutting

17:29

a rope and then taking a lighter and

17:31

burning each end so that it

17:33

doesn't fray any longer. That's

17:35

pretty much analogous to a vasectomy,

17:38

except the rope is in your

17:40

your scrowed them and they

17:42

don't use it like a big lighter. They probably

17:44

use something else to cauterize it. Yeah,

17:47

and then your riding your horse the next day.

17:49

Actually, you probably don't want to be doing that next day.

17:52

You want to wait a week to ride your horse.

17:54

But the point taken, you know. Uh.

17:56

They're also what's called no scalpel vasectomes,

17:59

which are not completely no scalpel,

18:02

but there are no incisions

18:04

made in a technical sense. They use

18:06

a this sounds even norse. Actually they

18:09

use a punch tool to punch a small

18:11

hole in the skin of

18:14

the scrotum, and then they withdraw the section of

18:16

the vast difference that way. Um,

18:18

you still have to use a scalpel to

18:21

cut the cut the tube, but

18:23

apparently you heal up a little bit faster with this method.

18:26

Yeah, because there's no actual incision.

18:28

It's just a puncture wound basically. So

18:30

yeah, I mean it's smaller surface area

18:32

to to recover, I guess. Yeah.

18:35

And if you're thinking, Josh Chuck

18:38

or doctor, doctor, well

18:40

what about all that sperm? I got

18:42

so much sperm? Where is it gonna go? And

18:44

it is gonna build up? And that you know that's

18:46

a problem. Uh, that

18:49

is not what happens. Your body absorbs the

18:51

sperm. You don't get some big, like

18:53

massive sperm build up. Let me tell you about

18:55

your sperm and where it matures over

18:57

seventy days. And then also it's

19:00

in the epididymus. And your epididymus

19:03

is eighteen feet long, and

19:05

it's coiled up in your testies. Each

19:08

testicle has an epididymus

19:10

that's eighteen ft long if you stretched

19:12

it out, and this is where the sperm kind

19:14

of gathers and grows and and gets ready

19:17

for action. And apparently after

19:19

your vasectomy and the sperm has nowhere

19:21

to go. It stays in the epididymus,

19:24

which naturally absorbs it back into

19:26

the bloodstream because if you, you know,

19:28

don't see any action for a while, your

19:30

sperm can get kind of old and your body wants

19:33

new, fresh good sperm to

19:35

be used, so the old stuff gets absorbed

19:37

anyway happening, Yes

19:39

exactly. This isn't like some new thing that your

19:41

body has to do. It's just that's

19:44

all it does now is absorbs sperm. It doesn't

19:46

ejaculate it anymore. Right,

19:49

Um, you mentioned the term bestotomy

19:51

earlier. Technically that's probably what it should be

19:53

called. Uh ectomy is

19:55

is usually when you are removing

19:57

something, and you're really not removing anything in this So

20:01

if you want to get super technical, you could call it a bestotomy

20:04

and your doctor might just say yeah, yeah, yeah,

20:06

I got you, or they might be like, oh, I'm

20:09

going to give you a nice valium too, because

20:12

you impressed them so much. There's

20:14

one other thing about the sperm. There's

20:16

a kind of vasectomy called an open end

20:18

vasectomy, where they just caught

20:20

or eze them the

20:23

tube leading to your prostate and

20:25

the tube that's coming right out of your testicle

20:29

is left open. So that the sperm actually just does

20:31

flow out into your scrotum and it gets

20:33

absorbed in there as well. And

20:35

is it like one of those uh spaghetti

20:38

sprinklers that kids run through when you turn it on. No,

20:41

it's like one of those um those

20:43

like air blow guys that like tire

20:46

stores used to bring in the customers.

20:48

I think it's more like that or

20:51

either one, because they're both the life. Um,

20:54

this, like we mentioned, takes about twenty minutes, doesn't

20:56

even have to take that long. Sometimes they can get you in another

20:59

and as little as ten minutes you

21:01

might get a little bit of pain meds. But um,

21:04

and you know this is from from Dave

21:06

sort of telling his firsthand that

21:08

after the first day or so, it's really not that big

21:11

of a deal. But you're gonna

21:13

be resting for twenty four hours you

21:15

meet chilling out in bed. Basically,

21:18

Um, you want to wear this is

21:20

pretty funny. Um, you want to wear tidy

21:23

whitey's very tight underwear or

21:25

a jock strap for forty eight hours?

21:28

Right, Probably the tidy whities is

21:30

preferable. I don't know,

21:32

jock strap is pretty good. Look, you just don't want to think

21:35

swinging around because you have two incisions

21:37

on your scrotum that have been stitched

21:39

up, and you don't want to, you know, loosen

21:41

the stitches, I think is the point. Yeah,

21:43

what else you gonna do? Cold pack? No,

21:46

no, no doubt, like actual frozen bag

21:48

of frozen peas could work, um,

21:51

because it could become inflamed.

21:53

Your body has been insulted and it's

21:55

going to react with inflammation. That helps with

21:57

it. Um. Again, you're gonna

21:59

have pain, and you probably won't need them after the

22:01

first day. You might need like advil or tail

22:03

and all or whatever. Your regular analgesic

22:06

is. Um. But like we're

22:08

saying earlier, you can't ride

22:11

a horse for a week, right, Yeah,

22:13

in a couple of days, you can do desk work

22:16

and stuff like that and you're off your feet, but um,

22:19

no sports and and uh

22:21

no sexual activity for a week. So here's

22:24

the sort of trick is you're

22:26

gonna still have sperm

22:28

in your system after a vasectomy.

22:31

Uh. So there's a chance if you had unprotected

22:34

sex with your partner right

22:36

away, uh, that you could get

22:38

them pregnant. Uh. You need to clear

22:41

the system. So it takes up the fifteen

22:43

to twenty ejaculations to

22:45

clear the system out. So if

22:48

you want to go back to having sex that you

22:50

know, like literally one week after you

22:54

have had this operation without getting pregnant with

22:56

your partner, you're you know, do the math,

22:58

You're you're welcome back to seven grade. Basically,

23:01

yes, So like for a good

23:04

three months, they're basically like, you

23:06

need to really be careful and

23:08

they're going to get you in there um afterward

23:11

as part of this post operative care about

23:14

you know, anywhere from like a month and a

23:16

half to three months later to say,

23:18

okay, give us a sperm sample and we're gonna see if

23:20

you have any any guys swimming around in there,

23:23

and uh, if you pass,

23:26

they will say you've got no sperm,

23:28

go forth and have fun um.

23:31

And if you don't pass, they'll say,

23:33

okay, well we need to to you know, keep

23:35

safe a little longer and then come back and give us another

23:37

sample. And they'll keep doing that until there's just

23:39

no sperm found, like zero no

23:43

sperm, so zero percent sperm,

23:45

I guess is what I'm trying to say. Yeah,

23:48

am I reading this correctly? Though? Because you

23:50

can have sex seven days later, it

23:53

takes fifteen to twenty ejaculations yet

23:56

they check you out six to twelve

23:58

weeks later. Yeah, they're saying, like

24:02

you behave as if you did before

24:05

your vasectomy for six to twelve

24:07

weeks. Like if your wife or

24:09

your partners on the pill, she should

24:11

probably stay on the pill for six to twelve weeks until

24:13

you get the all clear if you use condoms,

24:16

keep using condoms, and during that

24:18

time when you have sex, there is that risk

24:20

that you will still get pregnant until you

24:22

get that all clear from a sperm test that finds

24:24

no sperm. Right, But is that

24:26

because they assume it

24:29

will take six to twelve weeks to have those

24:31

twenty ejaculations. I got you,

24:33

I got you. I don't know, because that

24:35

does seem like a really long time, doesn't it.

24:38

Well, I mean that's why I said, welcome back to seventh

24:40

grade. If you want to knock that out in a week, I'm

24:44

glad you went back and explain that. I

24:47

thought you were what you were saying, like you're worried about getting

24:50

someone pregnant. I can say

24:52

this in a grown up way. Does that mean you

24:54

can masturbate twenty times in a week and

24:57

clear out your system and you're you'll be good?

24:59

To go or is it really like you

25:02

really need to think about this six weeks later

25:04

to twelve weeks later. I don't know. I would

25:06

guess if you boasted to your urologist

25:09

that twenty ejaculations is not going to

25:11

take you six weeks, they might

25:13

say, okay, well, schedule lists for three weeks

25:15

from now or four weeks or whatever. You know. I

25:17

would think, so, yeah, yeah, I would guess,

25:20

so all right, because they have

25:22

like a wall of fame in the office. Right,

25:25

it's just covered here in two days.

25:27

Um, so yeah, I fifteen to twenty

25:30

ejaculations and ejaculations and ejaculation,

25:32

right, it doesn't it doesn't have to just be through

25:35

intercourse or coitus, I think, is

25:37

what the kids call it. That

25:39

is true. How

25:42

many times have we said ejaculation in this episode?

25:45

More than ten? I would say, So you

25:48

want to take another break and then come back and talk about

25:50

some of the risks involved, because there are

25:53

risks, it's true, but they're just fairly small.

25:55

Yeah, let's get let's do that and get back to it. M

26:17

Okay. So when you cut into

26:19

a scrotum, when you cut a part

26:21

of an internal network of

26:23

tissues, um and steal

26:25

it back up and called it as it. There are risks UM,

26:28

even though you're not under the risk of general

26:30

anesthesia. UM,

26:32

you could conceivably get an infection

26:35

at the incision site. UM

26:37

that you can get blood clots um

26:39

inside of the scrotum, Blood can

26:41

show up in your semen, your scrotum

26:44

can become bruised. All of these

26:46

things, at least the first few that

26:48

I mentioned are stuff that you

26:50

probably will get as a result of a vasectomy,

26:53

but they're going to clear up fairly quickly.

26:55

And again that bag of frozen Peace can really help

26:58

with the inflammation the tile and all or

27:00

advil come and help with everything else. There

27:02

are some some actual possible

27:05

longer term complications that you should

27:07

be aware of though. Two. Yeah,

27:10

there's a very small percentage I think one

27:12

to two people who have chronic

27:14

pain after the surgery. UM.

27:17

And these are the people

27:19

in this category or the part of

27:21

the percentage of people who one day might want

27:23

to get this reverse because of that chronic

27:25

pain. UH. An abnormal

27:27

cyst called a UH

27:30

spermato seal, Yeah, I think so. Yeah,

27:33

that could develop UH in the coiled

27:35

tube located at the upper part of the

27:37

testicle UH that collects

27:40

and transports that sperm. But these

27:42

are, like we said, these are down. If you're

27:44

down in the low single percentage

27:47

points, it's you know, considered very

27:49

low risk UM. And

27:52

you know, the the upshot of her

27:54

the UM. The upside of it, I should

27:56

say, is that again, UM, you

27:58

actually will probably experience,

28:01

at least as far as some studies have

28:03

found, UH, an increase in sexual

28:05

satisfaction. Because cutting your

28:07

vast difference has nothing to do with hormones.

28:10

That has nothing to do with UM, your

28:12

ability to get an erection, your ability

28:14

to ejaculate. There's another one UM

28:17

instead. Again, it's just removing sperm

28:20

from the equation. That that's it. That's

28:22

right. UH. Testosterone, don't

28:25

worry about that. That is produced

28:27

in the test is like the sperm. But there's

28:29

a different kind of cell. It's

28:31

called the late late egg cell or

28:34

the lighting cell. I like the second one

28:36

better, let's go with that, the lighting cell

28:39

UM. But it goes it

28:41

has a one way trip. It goes directly

28:44

from the tests into the bloodstream.

28:46

It does not go through the vast deference.

28:48

There is no impact whatsoever

28:51

on your testosterone. UH. In

28:53

sex drive and in fact, it may

28:55

actually increase your sexual

28:57

desire. Um. They've done studies.

28:59

It had one in Germany that said

29:01

that, uh that if you've

29:03

had a vasectomy, you have a greater or at

29:06

least they reported greater satisfaction than

29:08

the control with orgasm,

29:10

with sexual desire, with satisfaction

29:13

of intercourse with erectile function.

29:15

Spontaneity, that's a big one. Yeah.

29:17

I mean a lot of it may just be psychological, like

29:20

all right, um, I'm free,

29:22

I don't have to worry about this anymore, so that

29:24

that'll probably increase all kinds

29:26

of happiness. Yeah, exactly. I get the impression

29:28

that that is um from this German

29:30

study from I think two thousand

29:33

and seventeen. Um. They

29:35

they surveyed both men

29:37

with vasectomies and their partners, uh,

29:40

and found that the partners were like, yeah, actually

29:42

it's a little more arousing. The actual act

29:44

of sex didn't change for me at all, but there's

29:47

something, there's something going on here, And I think

29:49

I would chalk that up to spontaneity and not

29:51

having to stop to like put on a condom or

29:54

you know, feeling freer because you didn't

29:56

have to take a pill that day. That kind of thing. It

29:59

wasn't like, doc, I gotta tell you. We

30:01

started doing some crazy stuff. Have

30:04

you ever done it in a target changing?

30:06

Oh no, no, no, don't

30:08

tell your doctor that. So

30:11

um, well, we said it's you know,

30:14

a thousand dollars, which is, like you said, nothing

30:16

to sneeze at all. But compared

30:18

to tubal ligation, which is six thousand

30:20

dollars at least, um,

30:22

it's much cheaper. The thing is,

30:24

in the United States, insurance companies

30:27

don't have to cover vasectomies. They do have

30:29

to cover tubal ligation procedures. And

30:32

it's probable that that accounts

30:34

in addition to the patriarchy that you mentioned

30:36

full stop. Um, in addition to

30:39

that full stop some people just being

30:41

cheap and saying like no, I mean like we can get

30:43

a tubal ligation for like fifty bucks and

30:46

you know, rather than vasectomy for a thousand dollars.

30:48

And if there's any man out there who does

30:50

not want to get a vasectomy, he's going to hammer

30:52

that point home every chance

30:54

he gets until he went he gets his way.

30:57

Yeah. Maybe, uh,

31:00

we mentioned people getting wanting these reverse

31:02

About six percent of

31:05

people who get a vasectomy end up wanting that

31:07

reversal. Like we said, some of those

31:09

come from the chronic pain category,

31:11

and other people you know, want to have kids

31:13

and decide, oh I've made a great mistake. Um,

31:16

that'll cost you between five and fifteen

31:18

grand and it'll take

31:21

four to six hours. And even

31:23

when you do, uh, if it's considered you

31:25

know, quote unquote successful, your

31:27

pregnancy success rate UM

31:30

is between thirty and moving

31:33

forward. So some people say,

31:36

just go I v F. Then if you want to do that

31:38

and get that sperm directly from the testicles,

31:41

uh, because as a much better success rate,

31:44

you can do that if you want. That'll

31:46

still cost you a bundalow IVF. It's not

31:48

cheap, yeah, but it's a lot less invasive and permanent

31:50

than reversing your vasectomy. Right,

31:52

that's right. Um, Remember how we said that vasectomes

31:55

are like effective or

31:57

something like that, they have like a one percent fail

32:00

your rate. I think we said that

32:02

that failure rate comes very often

32:04

from something called reconalization.

32:07

Did you see that part? I

32:09

don't think it's all that part. So reconalization

32:11

is where the vast deference grows

32:14

back together. It creates

32:16

new tissue that basically

32:19

go around the stitches or the clamps

32:21

or the cauterization and grows

32:24

new tubes that seek out and connect

32:27

with the other end of the vast difference

32:30

and reconnect. It's

32:32

which is it just goes to show you that nature

32:34

finds a way.

32:36

But again, O, man

32:38

is it? Life almost had it? Um.

32:40

But again this is really really

32:43

rare. And apparently the positioning

32:45

of the to the separate ends of the vast

32:48

difference has a huge effect on that

32:50

too, Like you don't want to leave them anywhere

32:52

near each other, you

32:54

know, Oh, I see you over there. And

32:57

one of the things about that reversible vasectomy

32:59

UM, like apparently that's a holy grail

33:01

in neurology. Uh, And they're

33:04

looking at ways to to basically temporarily

33:07

UM create a vasectomy. There's stuff

33:10

called reversible inhibition of sperm

33:12

under guidance. It's a type of gel

33:15

that you can put into the vast deference and

33:17

then it has to be flushed out later on

33:19

UM to remove it, and then all of a sudden, it's

33:21

like your vasectomy was reversed. Yeah.

33:24

That this falls under the same category of

33:26

like simplicity, Like

33:29

I imagine they were trying to think of an easy way to

33:32

reverse this, and somebody was like, hey,

33:35

you have any gum, You have any chewing gum? Right,

33:38

we could, we could clog up that

33:40

tube. And that's basically all they're doing. They're clogging

33:42

the tube with a gelled implant,

33:45

and uh, yeah, it makes a lot

33:47

of sense. Better make sure that

33:49

that clog is pretty tight. Yes,

33:52

apparently that has a failure rate from one

33:54

Indian study in two thousand nine of

33:57

four percent, where again of vasectomy

33:59

as one percent. Yeah, I think safety

34:01

is the concern. They're right, absolutely right.

34:04

So I saw it explained as with

34:06

a with a pill with women UM,

34:09

the control group in when you're figuring

34:11

out safety is pregnant women and

34:14

UM pregnancy is riskier

34:16

than the side effects are complications

34:19

from taking the pill. So the pill wins out.

34:21

It's safer, it's justified, and that's

34:23

how it gets um UM the

34:25

green light for use UM. With

34:27

a male pill, the control group

34:29

is just healthy men. There's no pregnancy,

34:31

so the male pill has to stop

34:34

sperm production withoutside

34:36

effects, like any side effects. Because

34:38

if you go beyond a healthy male um

34:41

as the which is the control group,

34:43

then all of a sudden it's less safe and it

34:46

probably won't get approved, so

34:49

they're actually, yeah, there actually is. I'll

34:51

though I don't know how hard they're working on a mail

34:53

pill. Probably

34:55

not so hard, although

34:59

you never know. Is that funny? I'd

35:01

rather not say. Come on, um,

35:03

all right, we'll finish up with a little bit of talk on

35:06

eugenics. We did an

35:08

episode many, many years ago about

35:11

sterilizing addicts,

35:14

specifically uh,

35:16

which is you go back and listen to that episode.

35:19

It's pretty interesting, probably somewhat

35:21

outdated at this point, but who knows. Yeah,

35:23

just the use of addicts I think is outdated, so

35:26

but it's still it's a pretty interesting episode. But

35:29

this is a notion that started out all

35:31

the way back in the mid eighteen

35:34

hundreds. Veterinarians started experimenting

35:37

with dogs, giving dogs

35:39

vasectomys instead of castrating

35:41

them, and in the eighties

35:44

started performing performing them on

35:47

men. And of

35:50

course it didn't take very long for eugenicists

35:53

to get involved and say, hey, this

35:55

is a great thing because we can just essentially

35:59

nouter crim pinals, we

36:01

can neuter people who are mentally ill, we

36:03

can neuter people who are poor, and

36:05

that will solve a lot of the world's problems. Yeah,

36:08

and so the eugenics movement really

36:10

took this up. Um. There was a guy named Dr

36:12

Harry Sharp in the United States. He was a

36:14

leading performer of vasectomys

36:17

among eugenicists, among anybody. I would

36:19

guess he actually performed the

36:22

first vasectomy for non

36:24

medical reasons. Um. It was

36:26

on a nineteen year old inmate at a reform

36:28

school in Indiana who had complained

36:31

of excessive masturbation, and

36:33

so Sharp game a vasectomy and said that he

36:35

quote became more of a sunny disposition,

36:38

brighter of intellect, and ceased to masturbate

36:40

end quote. And um, he

36:42

kind of went from there within a decade

36:45

on just a tear where anybody

36:48

who he deemed or the eugenics movement

36:50

deemed undesirable to the gene pool

36:53

should be should receive a vasectomy.

36:57

Yeah. Alongside him was an

37:00

American named Albert Osner published

37:03

a book, or I guess at least a pamphlet called

37:05

Surgical Treatment of Habitual Criminals,

37:08

Uh that advocated for, uh,

37:10

you know exactly what it says, making criminals

37:13

sterile. Um. And

37:15

it was just sort of a time in

37:18

the world, and especially in the United States

37:20

where they thought that like

37:22

I said, if you were in an almshouse, if

37:24

you were in an asylum, um,

37:26

if you were certainly if you were in prison, then

37:29

it was a good option to force

37:32

a vasectomy on somebody. And this happened

37:35

to an alarming degree. I think through

37:37

the end of World War Two they estimated

37:39

about three hundred and twenty thousand UH

37:42

forced sterilizations without

37:45

consent. I did not see

37:47

a racial breakdown, but you can bet that

37:49

it affected people of color more than

37:52

others. It just would make

37:54

sense because that's how it's

37:56

kind of gone in this country. Yeah, and it wasn't.

37:58

I mean, America was deaf really an early

38:00

proponent leader of eugenics. But if

38:02

all this sounds, you know, ghastly

38:05

familiar, that whole thread was

38:07

picked up by the Nazis in the early nineteen

38:09

thirties and they sterilized

38:12

countless people, both um through

38:14

vasectomys and um through

38:16

tubal ligation. And apparently

38:18

I didn't realize this. Switzerland

38:20

had early eugenics law, apparently

38:22

the first eugenics law, and they targeted

38:25

the roma, and the roma could

38:27

were still subject to involuntary

38:30

vasectomys up until

38:33

nineteen seventy two in Switzerland, isn't

38:35

that insane? Yeah,

38:38

that's uh, that's shameful. And

38:40

by the way, when I said it made sense

38:42

that they forced sterilization

38:44

probably on people of color more you

38:46

know how I meant it? Right? Everyone Sure,

38:49

it didn't mean that made sense in any kind of ethical way.

38:51

It made sense because that's how people of color

38:53

have been treated in this country. I like the person

38:56

who thought that this had to have been their

38:58

first episode and now explained it to that

39:00

one person. Just want to clear that up. Alright, good, everybody

39:03

knows chuck. So ending

39:05

it on eugenics is kind of a sour note. So let's

39:07

talk about one more old timey thing, um

39:12

medical procedure. It is misguided, but it's

39:14

not nearly as bad as vasectomys for

39:16

eugenics. Um. There's an Austrian

39:18

andrew chronologist named Eugene Steinuk,

39:21

and he said, I've got this great idea.

39:24

If I cut just one vast difference,

39:26

the other one will still be able to contribute

39:28

sperm to the seamen, but the

39:31

severed vest difference will give up on sperm

39:33

and go into overdrive for producing

39:36

hormones like testosterone, which will

39:38

give men just this huge boost of virility,

39:41

and he started going crazy performing

39:43

it on everybody who would step up. Yeah.

39:46

Basically like, if you want to increase your

39:48

sex drive, you can have this elective

39:50

procedure. Uh. And people

39:52

like Sigmund Freud and writer

39:55

William Yates use this uh

39:58

procedure and under went this procedure

40:01

to boost their sex drive. Yeah. And apparently,

40:04

um, they were like, well, actually testosterone

40:06

works totally differently and that what

40:09

you just did all these people doesn't work at all.

40:11

So I guess Steinock went retired

40:14

in disgrace. Um. And if

40:16

you thought that was a pretty fun factoid, prepare

40:18

for this one, Chuck. I think you should take us out

40:20

with us. Okay.

40:23

Uh, day found a statistic because

40:26

and who knows that this is correlation or not, but

40:29

there is a statistic because you you're

40:31

supposed to lay around for a couple of days. When you're laying

40:33

around for a couple of days, maybe you're reading a book,

40:35

educating yourself, or maybe you're just watching

40:37

a lot of television. But didn't they

40:39

find that. I think the finding was that the

40:42

procedure went up a lot

40:45

during March Madness in c double

40:47

a basketball tournament time, so

40:49

men could have an excused to lay around and watch

40:52

it. Is that right? A thirty percent increase

40:54

in vasectomy procedures in the US during

40:56

the first round of the n c

40:59

a A A basketball tournament. They

41:01

call it vast madness. I

41:03

gotta know if that's true.

41:05

If that's why, gotta know? Well, the

41:07

only way to find out, Chuck, is to undergo of a

41:09

sectomy procedure and ask your eurologists

41:11

during the middle of it, because you won't be under

41:14

general ESTI anesthesia, it'll be local

41:17

mhm uh do

41:19

you got anything else? I've got

41:21

nothing else? Okay, well, Chuck

41:23

said he's got nothing else, which means, of course it's time for

41:25

a listener mail. That's

41:28

right. Uh. This is from our buddy Mark

41:31

Koontz. Mark and Gayl Counts are longtime

41:33

listeners and and real

41:35

life pals of mind. They came to our show in Cleveland, and

41:38

Gayl is a longtime movie crusher. But Mark

41:41

wrote us an email about suicide

41:44

Awareness Month, which it is right now. Uh.

41:47

And this is a Mark is you know he's out

41:49

there doing like the tough work. Great

41:51

dude. Uh. September is back to school

41:53

season, guys in Suicide Prevention Month, which

41:56

means you. Suicide prevention is on my mind more

41:58

than usual. As know. I'm a

42:00

licensed art therapist at Clark

42:02

County Educational Service Center in Springfield,

42:04

Ohio, helps schools meet the mental health

42:06

needs of thousands of students. Most

42:09

people think of suicide prevention with

42:11

youth means focusing on trauma

42:13

and handling and handing out hotline information,

42:16

and of course sometimes you do those things. But my

42:18

favorite suicide prevention program and

42:20

the reason I'm writing is called Sources

42:23

of Strength. That is a youth led

42:25

suicide prevention program that has

42:27

been used in schools across the U. S and Canada

42:30

and Australia. Sources

42:32

of Strength are things like positive

42:34

friends, mentors, and mental health. These

42:36

are some of the protective factors that we

42:38

can rely on when we're stressed or

42:41

to help us get through a crisis. UH

42:43

And for the past year I've been trying to get sources of strength

42:45

and every single one of my county schools and

42:48

with funding and support from the Ohio Suicide

42:51

Prevention Foundation and Prevention First

42:53

with an exclamation point, schools

42:56

in Ohio can implement sources of Strength at

42:58

no cost. So if your list some

43:00

thing he just want to Grant for like tin

43:02

Grand or something like that, which is genius grant.

43:05

He's won it before, I think, but he says.

43:07

If you're listening to this and you're in Ohio, you

43:10

can learn by visiting Sources of Strength

43:12

Ohio dot org. Even if you're

43:14

not in Ohai, you should still visit the

43:16

Sources of Strength dot org website

43:18

and learn about the sources eight protective

43:21

factors. Also, adults

43:23

need protective factors too. I'd

43:26

like to thank both of you for always advocating for mental

43:28

health as well as spreading useful and be official

43:30

information to all of us, and

43:32

for being positive people in the

43:34

world. Your voices mean so much to so

43:37

many. Greatest thanks from your old pal Mark

43:39

Counts. So hey Mark and Gale and your

43:42

cute pets. I appreciate the work

43:44

you're doing. Yeah, same here at Mark. UM.

43:46

That's magnificent stuff. Thanks for writing

43:48

in to let everybody know. UM,

43:50

if you want to write in like

43:53

marketed and just basically say I'm

43:55

a hero without saying I'm a hero, we

43:57

would love to hear from you and tell everybody about

44:00

out that you can wrap it up spanking on

44:02

the bottom and send it off to stuff podcast

44:04

at iHeart radio dot com.

44:09

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44:12

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