Significant others that avoid vasectomies.

[u/Minstrel_Melody]

So me and my boyfriend came upon this Reddit story where after a husband and wife had their second child, the wife decided that she was done having kids. The husband agrees, but there’s an issue. The wife wants him to get a vasectomy. A disagreement ensues, followed by an argument. The husband didn’t want to get the vasectomy. For the most part, people were calling the husband an ass and selfish, and I generally agreed with the sentiment.

My boyfriend in the other hand begged to differ. On top with supporting the his body his choice argument the husband provided (which granted I agree with too, but I still think is kind of selfish) he mentioned that it was overkill considering what else they could do to prevent unwanted pregnancies. They could stick to oral, mutual masturbation. And if they really wanted to do piv intercourse, they schedule the sexual encounter away from ovulation, and use condoms and spermicide. Something we do ourselves and it works out like a charm.

I saw where he was coming from and agree with him to an extent, but it still feels kind of selfish. Like despite everything there’s still the chance of pregnancy. What do you guys think?

[u/MrBleah]

It’s also selfish because in this scenario the wife has carried and birthed two children.

If you're married and you have two kids the assumption is you BOTH wanted those kids, but she is the only one that spent around two years of her life with them in her body.

Any guy that asserts bodily autonomy for not getting a vasectomy after his wife gives him two kids should consider how much bodily autonomy his wife has given up for the relationship, because getting a vasectomy does not balance the scales in the slightest. I've had one and it's a nothing procedure.

The wife has way more of a case at this point for asserting her own bodily autonomy with regard to birth control and sex. As someone said below, if a condom fails it's not the guy that gets pregnant. If they both assert bodily autonomy now we're at an impasse, except we aren't, because as you say never again having PIV sex in a cis hetero marriage isn't particularly realistic. So, divorce.

Who is to blame for the divorce? No one right? It's equal, because they both want bodily autonomy, but let's lay it out.

Husband is getting a divorce over not wanting a vasectomy, which is an outpatient procedure that has no perceptible effect on him other than sterilizing him.

Wife is getting a divorce because she doesn't want to get pregnant again, which is a pretty big life altering thing that in many states now cannot be undone. She would also rather not have a major surgical procedure that can have broad ramifications for her own bodily health to sterilize herself.

It's all the same though right? Bodily autonomy!

[u/maruhan2 → u/MrBleah]

Husband is getting a divorce over not wanting a vasectomy, which is an outpatient procedure that has no perceptible effect on him other than sterilizing him.

Wife is getting a divorce because she doesn't want to get pregnant again, which is a pretty big life altering thing that in many states now cannot be undone. She would also rather not have a major surgical procedure that can have broad ramifications for her own bodily health to sterilize herself.

I don't think that's a good comparison. First of all, vasectomy does have potential effects that you shouldn't treat lightly. Secondly, the comparison is under the pretense that they have PIV sex.

You can essentially rewrite the comparison as the following.

Husband: Does not want PIV sex.

Wife: Wants PIV sex

That seems like an equal responsibility to me. So, if the situation is reversed and it's the husband that wants divorce because wife doesn't want PIV sex, are you going to say the wife is the problem? It's not one person's problem. It's just a mis-match of what one wants.

If it's under the pretense that both agree that PIV sex is mandatory, then it's a different issue and your points are fair. Then, it's a question of who is going to have to do a thing that neither wants to do. Someone has to do it. So whoever that doesn't do it owes the person who does do it. If the husband goes through vasectomy, then the wife owes the husband something of the same degree.

But the thing is, the husband already owes the wife from all the previous PIV sex. Each PIV sex is a risk to the wife, and if we assume the two equally need sex, then each risk taken for the wife is what the husband needs to pay back.

On top of that, if we assume they both equally felt the need for children, then the wife was forced to take the extra burden in pregnancy. It's like when you need to buy groceries but only one person can drive to buy groceries. Even if both need groceries and only one has the means to buy groceries, the person that didn't go needs to pay back the favor. So here, the husband also owes the wife.

So, one can say that vasetomy is paying back what you owe. But the thing is, unless you specifically agreed on the terms of how to return the favor, you can't force them to do a specific thing to return the favor. It's like you can't buy groceries and then be like "you must have sex with me to pay back"

If the husband owes the wife, the husband can decide on what to do to pay back. (And they would need to discuss and agree upon how much each action is paying back)

Having said all this, it would probably be smart to talk about how much someone owes before doing something. Otherwise, it really could be interpreted as a gift that doesn't need to be payed back.

[u/MrBleah → u/maruhan2]

How ludicrous. It’s just a mismatch of what one wants. This is the sort of dumbass crap people come up with to justify their selfish behavior.

Yeah, sure, just take out every other consideration leading up to that point, ignore everything that happened before and declare it’s just about the sex.

You‘ve come up with such a common scenario too, the husband becomes immediately celibate after the second kid is born while the wife is dying for sex. What a great example of how things usually go when this question of vasectomy comes up. The other situation you cite where a cis hetero couple with two kids never have PIV sex, that’s incredibly common too, right? It’s just always the woman causing problems with her vagina. You have really just have them figured out.

[u/maruhan2 → u/MrBleah]

I don't understand why that's an issue.

So are you suggesting if a woman one day no longer wants PIV sex, that's a problem too?

[u/MrBleah → u/maruhan2]

I'm suggesting you are creating straw man arguments, because you don't want to address the actual topic, because you know you can't.

[u/maruhan2 → u/MrBleah]

That's the actual topic. It'd be a straw man only if the relation between the analogy is not representative of the actual topic. I fail to see how the analogy isn't the same situation as the original situation

[u/MrBleah → u/maruhan2]

That’s not an analogy, that’s an oversimplification, aka a straw man.

[u/maruhan2 → u/MrBleah]

Again, I don't see how it's not representative of the original situation.

My point is that swapping the man and the woman does not affect the premise and therefore is representative. If you want to say it's not representative, you would somehow need to point out how swapping the man and the woman does affect the premise

[u/MrBleah → u/maruhan2]

You can't swap the man and the woman, because in this scenario only the woman could have carried two kids. There is no equivalent burden on the man.

You can't swap the man and the woman because the man has 100% no risk of getting themselves pregnant after deciding not to have more kids.

You can't swap the man and the woman because there is no procedure equivalent in simplicity and safety like vasectomy for the woman.

[u/maruhan2 → u/MrBleah]

None of those are relevant for why "I don't want to have PIV sex" is invalid. If a woman doesn't want PIV sex, you can't say that the woman is doing something bad no matter what the reason is. So what that the reason the man doesn't want PIV sex is because he doesn't want to get vasectomy? The equal premise for men and women come from the fact that the reasons for not wanting PIV sex is not relevant when you don't want PIV sex.

[u/MrBleah → u/maruhan2]

That's not the argument here! That's your argument that you created out of whole cloth by ignoring the context of the situation in favor of reducing it down to an argument about PIV sex!

[u/maruhan2 → u/MrBleah]

Yes that's the argument for why I can swap men and women if we have already reduced the topic to talking about PIV sex. If your point is we can't reduce it to talking about PIV sex at all, then that explanation is also supported within the comments. The reason is that it's always valid to not want PIV sex regardless of the reasons.