By Milly G

"I’m going to have a vasectomy," Dennis said, matter-of-factly.

"Dennis, you are only 33. What if…" my words dried up in the mouth.

"What if…what? I want to have extramarital sex? I don’t," answered a resolute Dennis.

"Well, not really. Ok…What if your wife dies… and you marry another woman… and she wants a child with you… and you cannot sire one… and she thinks you are not man enough… so she starts moving out…?" My mind drew all possible pictures for him. I could not believe that a man would get the cut at that ‘tender’ age — the age of possibility. I stand corrected.

Dennis explained that as a Christian, he will always be faithful to his wife. Good, so far. Then he said he has always wanted one child and since he has a daughter, he does not need to keep gambling with his virility. I wouldn’t call it gambling, just saving for a rainy day — like if his daughter died. He said he does not feel the need to, pun intended, juggle his balls: if his wife died, he would not marry another woman. I thought this romantic, if bizarre and unrealistic.

But very few Kenyan men think like Dennis. Or like that guy in the recent Femiplan advert who is only too excited to participate in family planning. Unlike in the West, we still consider children the greatest and permanent bond between spouses. Men consider virility as the sign of bona fide manhood. Even when they are done with childrearing, they hold on to their ability to sire. They want to leave their options open till the age of 90.

Truth be told, many men have sidekicks; but only because they can take care of the women and the children that ‘legitimise’ these relationships. That is why many men are not interested in taking pills and injections or having their vas deferens cut.

Many men won’t go beyond the condom, which they hardly use as a contraceptive. It is for most just a screen between them and HIV and Aids. At its best, a man’s contraceptive is withdrawal. And even then, he gets out kicking and screaming.

shooting blanks

The choice is no longer limited to condoms and vasectomy. There are several forms of contraceptives for men. Some are reversible while others are not. They involve messing with anything from the apparatus to the potency of the fluids thereof. If the male reproductive system is a gun, which men say it is, contraceptive methods can alter the magazine, the barrel, the trigger, the gunpowder or the bullet — thus the expression ‘shooting blanks’.

Some are jabs and pills that last for between 24 hours and forever while others involve a ‘small’ operation to block the baby-supply system for a while.

Back to the issue of our readiness to have men bark without bite. It is not that I’m being archaic. Some of you would say that in this day of equality, men should also have their own forms of contraceptives. You see, nature has it sorted out. Safe days for women is nature’s own contraceptive. Women can engage in safe sex for half the days in the month without the risk of getting pregnant. Not so men. Men risk impregnating a woman every time they have sex.

Male contraception has its disadvantages, not all emotive and cultural. Usually, sex for enjoyment is a pastime, while sex for procreation is planned. If men knew that they could have sex and not father children, the sense of responsibility that comes with sex would be nil. This means a lot more men would be dipping into other men’s honey pots. After all, they will leave no trail.

I can think of many instances where the contraceptives should, indeed, be prescribed. Men who have a congenital deformity like Down’s Syndrome, which may be passed on to their children should have the injection that devitalises their sperm. Men who must have casual sex should take the pill that takes effect within 2-3 hours of ingestion, and wears off within 24 hours. I have a relative who has refused to have his wife get a tubal ligation and yet she has popped him 15 children living in abject poverty. For such men, the court should prescribe contraceptives with different levels of severity. As for rapists, they should just be castrated.

But I think the focus should be on educating women on safe and effective methods of avoiding unwanted pregnancy and not on bringing men on board. After all, men do not get pregnant.