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'Snip-snip! Hooray!': TikTok trend dispels vasectomy myths
A TikTok trend is helping dispel misinformation about vasectomy, a procedure whose demand has soared following US upheaval over abortion rights.
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Photo illustration created March 8, 2023 in Washington, DC shows an editor looking at online information about vasectomy procedures. (AFP/STF)
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queezing his eyes shut, a man breaks into song while filming himself getting a vasectomy -- a TikTok trend helping dispel misinformation about the procedure whose demand has soared following US upheaval over abortion rights.
Men across the United States have chosen to get snipped since the Supreme Court scrapped the federal right to abortion when it overturned Roe v. Wade last June, according to multiple urologists and reproductive health experts.
Myths about vasectomy -- a contraception method popularized as the "male pill" -- have long flourished on the internet, fueling what experts describe as negative attitudes about the procedure that has often been used as a punchline for emasculating jokes.
Viral TikTok videos packed with buffoonery and mirth seek not only to demolish some of the myths, but to also promote the procedure as an option for men in solidarity with women robbed of basic reproductive rights.
Some men have gone as far as filming themselves, from the waist up, while undergoing the surgery.
"You're getting neutered" was the title of one such video by Las Vegas-based comedian Jimmy McMurrin, which garnered over five million views.
The common misconceptions include that vasectomy is akin to castration or that it affects the libido and hormonal production, said Texas-based influencer Keith Laue, who created multiple TikTok videos about his procedure.
