Did you know that you can actually arrive to your vasectomy appointment in an Uber Black, enjoy some cocktails, eat a nice steak dinner, and bring your buddy along for the fun? Guys getting vasectomies together—or brosectomies—is like the new golf of sterilization.
“It’s almost like a fraternity mentality, where one guy says they may do it,” urologist Ernest Sussman, of Las Vegas Vasectomy in Nevada, told The Wall Street Journal. That then piques the interest of “the other guys who’ve been contemplating it. All of a sudden they have the energy or courage.”
Friends Rob Ferretti and Jeb Lopez arrived at Obsidian Men’s Health in Tysons Corner, Va. for a day of joking around, watching sports and taking turns going into the operating room to get a vasectomy. “We thought it was going to be painful,” said Mr. Lopez, who described the procedure as feeling like the sting of a rubber band. “After that, we were just laughing, I guess it’s from the alcohol, but we had such a great time.”
According to Fox 5 DC News, guys can have alcohol— provided it doesn’t interfere with any medication. After the procedure at the Virginia clinic welcoming men in luxury and style, guys get to hang out on couches and watch a game while doctors monitor them for any pain or swelling after the procedure. But the fee for this high-end approach to sterilization is way more than the average $500 bill. According to Business Insider, the Obsidian’s brosectomy package costs $3,250 and includes a consultation before the procedure, transportation to and from the doctor’s office, as well as food and alcohol while they recover afterwards.
Urologist Paul Turek is kind of the father of the brosectomy, as he coined the term for this vasectomy party when he pioneered the party procedure in 2013 in his California clinic. He told The Atlantic he came upon the idea while surfing when he realized he felt more comfortable out in big water and riding serious waves when he was surrounded by his friends. “Things are better when someone’s got your back,” he says. “I think the same feeling is present in brosectomies: Good friends sharing a potentially uncomfortable or anxiety-provoking situation make things better.”
Turek points to a study of paired rats that showed when placed under duress, the rats exhibited “social support-seeking behavior” towards their bro. “Neuroscientists feel that it involves changes in cortisol release governed by the brain’s paraventricular nucleus,” he writes on his website. “How’s that for cocktail conversation!”
Turek has also observed that men seem to experience less pain—and require less medication—when they go the brosectomy route. “My men average two pain pills after the procedure,” he says of his patients, “and brosectomy patients average zero to one pill in total afterward.”
For men who get together and schedule a brosectomy party at one of Turek’s clinics, the day includes getting the space all to themselves, food and alcohol, anything they would like to watch on HDTV, and either a car detailing or massage while they wait post-procedure.
And the procedure itself is fast. Turek told the Wall Street Journal that a group of biotech employees arrived for the brosectomy experience and he quickly moved through the men, while jazz played in the background. “I move like the wind,” Dr. Turek said, finishing each man after a song or two, about eight minutes.
Of course, even though the brosectomy can be a pretty fancy sterility experience, in the end all men are still required to wait about three months before having unprotected sex, to make sure all sperm have left the building and avoid an unplanned pregnancy. If you’re not a fan of supplying a sample at the doctor’s office, you can check your sterility status at home with SpermCheck, an over-the-counter test kit.
If you’re on the fence about getting a vasectomy—even though about 500,000 men do in the U.S. each year—maybe talking a friend into taking a day off and making a weekend of it, is the way to go. There really is safety in numbers.
