Avia Collinder, Sunday Gleaner Writer

UNLIKE SOME of their counterparts in the Americas and the Caribbean, Jamaican men appear to be rigidly opposed to sterilisation as a birth control method. So valued is the role of fathering, and so strong is the male self-definition around fertility, that there appears to be little possibility of this changing soon here.

The Family Planning Worldwide data sheet released in the first week of June registered zero usage of sterilisation among men, compared to 11 per cent of women who chose sterilisation as their birth control method of choice in Jamaica.

fear of invasive procedures

The picture among Jamaican men is a different one, as there is no statistical data of any significance regarding sterilisation as a form of contraceptive. In explaining this, local medical and mental health experts point to a fear of invasive medical procedures and interference with their sexuality by local men.

The United States-based Family Health International is one research body which has provided evidence of the long-term safety of male sterilisation, or vasectomy.

A source in the urology department of the Medical Associates Hospital in St Andrew suggested that even with the safety of the procedure being assured, vasectomy will not be popular in Jamaica any time soon.

"Anything that has to do with men's virility and private parts is a no-no," said the medical source. "To touch their ability to have kids is troubling their manhood. With the vasectomy done, they won't be ejaculating sperm, but it will not affect their ability to get an erection. But if they can't have children, then something is wrong."

Clinical psychologist attached to the University Hospital of the West Indies, Dr Kai Morgan, notes vasectomy for men evokes "deathly" fear. "It's a threat to the way they define themselves, a threat to their ego."

defining themselves

According to Morgan, research on Jamaican men done by Heather Royes in 1999 has shown that, in terms of their sexuality, men conceptualise their ability to have children as one of the major ways in which they define themselves.

"If you take that away, in essence, at a subconscious level, you are taking away their sense of self/sexuality. A man with no child sends a clear message to others that he is less of a man," stated Royes.

A Sunday Gleaner informal poll confirmed her theory. All men interviewed expressed rejection when asked if they would opt for sterilisation as a birth control option.

There was uniformed opposition to the idea of getting a vasectomy as a birth control method. "Even when I have my two kids I will not sterilise," one 40-year-old Kingstonian stated. "I can see (getting sterilised) from a woman's point of view. But, a man is a perpetual machine. Sex is fun. When you trouble our equipment, something always goes wrong."

A 50-year-old manager said that he would not need to do a vasectomy: "I wouldn't need to ... other contraceptive methods work for me. Sterilisation is for people who can't or are unable to help themselves. Don't fix what's not broken."

According to Dr Heather Little-White, a sexual health consultant based in Kingston, education might change the attitude of Jamaican men to sterilisation.

"There has not been enough education on male sterilisation, so it is stigmatised as sapping a man's virility. In Latin America, sexual education emphasises birth control as an essential factor in family life and development."

avia.ustanny@gleanerjm.com

Vasectomy, a form of contraception, is not popular in Jamaica.