July 2, 1988. Canada is one year into the nation-wrenching debate over the Meech Lake Accord. A new free trade agreement with the U.S. is on the horizon. Holland has just beaten the USSR 2-0 to win the European Football Championship. Wayne Gretzky is still — just — a member of the Edmonton Oilers. And 20-year-old Celine Dion has just won the Eurovision Song Contest (for Switzerland) with ‘Ne Partez Pas Sans Moi.’
Me, I’ve just landed in Canada for the first time.
Twenty years. Whoosh! Things have changed. There’s a lot more of me, but a lot less hair, too. Along the way, I’ve acquired a couple of degrees, a fistful of publications, a wife and two daughters, a mortgage I’ll never pay off, and a column in the best news and entertainment weekly in Canada.
So the question is, how best to celebrate this personal landmark? Perhaps a reunion of all the great people I’ve counted as friends down the years? Or maybe a day of quiet reflection, spent with my daughters as I tell them the tale of my life?
Better yet, how about a vasectomy? Yep, by coincidence or otherwise, July 2 (or 7/2 as I’ll come to think of it) is also scheduled to be the day that I let a strange man go to work on my testes to ensure that my daughters will never have a little brother to play with.
On one level, my wife and I came to this decision in a calm, calculated and rational manner. We didn’t plan on having any more children, and our record of unplanned pregnancies to date (two for two) suggested that other contraceptive methods were simply untrustworthy. There was also an element of peer pressure, in that a good friend had recently (and unexpectedly) become pregnant for a third time, providing us with a surrogate warning to do something about our own affairs.
On another level, well, I feel I should say that my ‘inner man’ resists the idea, that I see the looming operation as an end to my manhood, that my Darwinian survival instincts rebel against any tampering down below. However, I don’t feel any of that. Perversely, I’m even quite looking forward to the whole event. Here’s why.
First, there’s the doctor who’ll be performing the snip. Like some character out of Charles Dickens, he bears the improbable name of Dr. Robert Fallis. As in phallus. Richard would have been even better (“Dick to my friends”), but surely this man was fated to specialize in vasectomies? And who am I to challenge fate? In any event, I’d already passed over the options of Dr. Carver and Dr. Botchjob, so this was the man for me.
Second, I was happy to learn that there really isn’t an actual snip involved at all, at least not in the traditional sense. Nope, Dr. Fallis employs the new, non-invasive, no-scalpel method. Instead of cutting into my scrotum, he simply freezes the skin and the vas deferens below, and then makes the tiniest of incisions through which he tugs my tubes, cuts, cauterizes and clamps them with two titanium clips, before popping the whole lot back into the old ball bag. In and out within 20 minutes, I’m assured. Nice and easy.
I know this because the good doctor has already provided me with a wealth of fascinating information and advice about the whole procedure. As a result, my mind is at rest and my curiosity is sated.
The only thing I need to do in preparation is to shave the night before the operation. I asked the doc if a clean-cut appearance was really essential, only to be told he meant shave my scrotum and penis. Of course. I was about to mention that my penis wasn’t particularly hairy, anyway, but was struck by the doctor’s subsequent advice that I get my partner to shave me. I’m not too sure about this. After all, I share my office with a friendly enough colleague, but am not sure how he’ll respond to this request.
The information sheets given to me also advise that I should remove my pants and underwear for the operation, but should leave on “one shirt and your socks.” Are there really patients out there who’ve insisted on remaining fully dressed? What part of the vasectomy procedure did they not understand? (All of it, it would seem.) Mind you, the “one shirt” rule seems a bit specific to me, and to tell the truth I think I’d feel a bit of a fool lying there with my socks on while my dick’s hanging out.
Finally, I do appreciate the post-op advice. “Avoid all work and strenuous exercise,” I’m cautioned. No kidding, I thought, only to be told that some men “do stupid things like chopping wood, riding a bike, going for a jog, breaking concrete, roofing a house… or having jungle sex.” With this in mind, and needless to say, I’ve given my wife a full and extensive list of things I shouldn’t be doing for (well, to be on the safe side) six or seven months after the operation.
Ah, but what about sex? After all, the whole point of the vasectomy is to get back to having full and regular sex, jungle or otherwise, as soon and as frequently as possible. But wait. Although it’s physically safe to have sex as soon as comfort has been restored, it can take 30 to 40 ejaculations to clear sperm out of the system. This means, Dr. Fallis tells me, that I should go on using birth control (unreliable as it’s proven to be) for the next three to four months. That, or else wank like the devil for one long weekend.
July 2, 2008. So this, then, is how I plan to celebrate my 20 years in Canada: flat on my back with an ice-pack clutched to my groin. There’ll be no mass gathering, but I will spend some time in quiet reflection that day, thinking of and grateful to everyone who (knowingly or not) has made the last two decades the best years of my life.
Cheers.
David Bright has published widely on Canadian social, labour and criminal justice history. He teaches history and politics at Niagara College, Ontario.
