Unplanned pregnancies are something it's best to not have, I think we can all agree on that. And birth control does awful things to a woman, (and yes, some women take it for things other than preventing pregnancies, but that's not the point of this blog) so that should be avoided if at all possible. Yes, condoms are helpful, as are a variety of other options like IUDs and whatnot, but they all have their downfalls. Don't even get me started on the rhythm method or the popular but stupid "pull, pray and spray". While abstinence is 100% effective, since you're not having sex there's no pregnancy to avoid, so we'll skip that one.
No, to really be confident that a pregnancy is prevented you need to go the surgical method. And yes, either the man or the woman could have the procedure done, but here's why it should be the man that does it. I had one done over 8 years ago, so I can speak from experience.
First, unlike with the woman, the man's procedure is an outpatient one, with only a couple days of recovery. It's much less invasive. Second, if you get the reversible one instead of the irreversible one (the one I got), then it's much easier to do that (less invasive, remember?); maybe you want kids now that you're older, or you have a partner you want to have kids with instead of the partners in the past, your reasons are your own. Third, freezing sperm is much cheaper than freezing an egg, so even if you don't want to reverse it, you can still bank on having kids down the road if you so choose.
I won't lie, getting it done was one of the smarter decisions in my life but it's definitely not something I would go through again. Having that long needle jabbed into the base of my dick to administer the anesthesia and knowing what my balls smell like when they burn as he cauterized my cut and tied tubes is not something worth repeating. But I was 37 at the time and I already had 3 kids; I had no desire to be changing diapers in my 40s or 50s (that last one might happen with grandkids one day, but no time soon I hope).
But there are a couple things to take into consideration. Just because you can't get someone pregnant doesn't mean you can't catch a disease, so unless/until you are in a committed and safe relationship condoms should still be worn. (That's one of the reasons I have no desire to sleep around; I hate wearing condoms and I can't maintain an erection in one; I much prefer the comfort of knowing I have no diseases and knowing my partner has none either and is faithful to me like I am to her). And, unless you get the irreversible one, there's still a very slim chance that your body could reverse the procedure on its on, or that the procedure wasn't done fully correct.
So men, if you don't want to worry about unplanned pregnancies, having a vasectomy would just add to your piece of mind. And not making a woman go through the same-but-harder procedure shows you take being responsible just as seriously as she does.
