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Infertility, impotence, and emasculation – psychosocial contexts for abandoning reproduction

From a Darwinian perspective we live to reproduce, but in various situations genetic males elect not to reproduce by choosing medical treatments leading to infertility, impotence, and, in the extreme, emasculation. For many men, infertility can be psychologically distressing. However, for certain ge...

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Autores principales: Wibowo, Erik, Johnson, Thomas W, Wassersug, Richard J
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Medknow Publications & Media Pvt Ltd 2016
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4854090/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26924280
http://dx.doi.org/10.4103/1008-682X.173937
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author Wibowo, Erik
Johnson, Thomas W
Wassersug, Richard J
author_facet Wibowo, Erik
Johnson, Thomas W
Wassersug, Richard J
author_sort Wibowo, Erik
collection PubMed
description From a Darwinian perspective we live to reproduce, but in various situations genetic males elect not to reproduce by choosing medical treatments leading to infertility, impotence, and, in the extreme, emasculation. For many men, infertility can be psychologically distressing. However, for certain genetic males, being infertile may improve their quality of life. Examples include (1) men who seek vasectomy, (2) individuals with Gender Dysphoria (e.g., transwomen, and modern day voluntary eunuchs), (3) most gay men, and (4) men treated for testicular and prostate cancer. Men who desire vasectomy typically have a Darwinian fitness W >1 at the time of their vasectomies; i.e., after they have their desired number of offspring or consider themselves past an age for parenting newborns. In contrast, prostate and testicular cancer patients, along with individuals with extreme Gender Dysphoria, do not necessarily seek to be sterile, but accept it as an unavoidable consequence of the treatment for their condition undertaken for survival (in case of cancer patients) or to achieve a better quality of life (for those with Gender Dysphoria). Most gay men do not father children, but they may play an avuncular role, providing for their siblings’ offspring's welfare, thus improving their inclusive fitness through kin selection. In a strictly Darwinian model, the primary motivation for all individuals is to reproduce, but there are many situations for men to remove themselves from the breeding populations because they have achieved a fitness W ≥1, or have stronger medical or psychological needs that preclude remaining fertile.
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spelling pubmed-48540902016-05-10 Infertility, impotence, and emasculation – psychosocial contexts for abandoning reproduction Wibowo, Erik Johnson, Thomas W Wassersug, Richard J Asian J Androl Invited Review From a Darwinian perspective we live to reproduce, but in various situations genetic males elect not to reproduce by choosing medical treatments leading to infertility, impotence, and, in the extreme, emasculation. For many men, infertility can be psychologically distressing. However, for certain genetic males, being infertile may improve their quality of life. Examples include (1) men who seek vasectomy, (2) individuals with Gender Dysphoria (e.g., transwomen, and modern day voluntary eunuchs), (3) most gay men, and (4) men treated for testicular and prostate cancer. Men who desire vasectomy typically have a Darwinian fitness W >1 at the time of their vasectomies; i.e., after they have their desired number of offspring or consider themselves past an age for parenting newborns. In contrast, prostate and testicular cancer patients, along with individuals with extreme Gender Dysphoria, do not necessarily seek to be sterile, but accept it as an unavoidable consequence of the treatment for their condition undertaken for survival (in case of cancer patients) or to achieve a better quality of life (for those with Gender Dysphoria). Most gay men do not father children, but they may play an avuncular role, providing for their siblings’ offspring's welfare, thus improving their inclusive fitness through kin selection. In a strictly Darwinian model, the primary motivation for all individuals is to reproduce, but there are many situations for men to remove themselves from the breeding populations because they have achieved a fitness W ≥1, or have stronger medical or psychological needs that preclude remaining fertile. Medknow Publications & Media Pvt Ltd 2016 2016-02-26 /pmc/articles/PMC4854090/ /pubmed/26924280 http://dx.doi.org/10.4103/1008-682X.173937 Text en Copyright: © Asian Journal of Andrology http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0 This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License, which allows others to remix, tweak, and build upon the work non-commercially, as long as the author is credited and the new creations are licensed under the identical terms.
spellingShingle Invited Review
Wibowo, Erik
Johnson, Thomas W
Wassersug, Richard J
Infertility, impotence, and emasculation – psychosocial contexts for abandoning reproduction
title Infertility, impotence, and emasculation – psychosocial contexts for abandoning reproduction
title_full Infertility, impotence, and emasculation – psychosocial contexts for abandoning reproduction
title_fullStr Infertility, impotence, and emasculation – psychosocial contexts for abandoning reproduction
title_full_unstemmed Infertility, impotence, and emasculation – psychosocial contexts for abandoning reproduction
title_short Infertility, impotence, and emasculation – psychosocial contexts for abandoning reproduction
title_sort infertility, impotence, and emasculation – psychosocial contexts for abandoning reproduction
topic Invited Review
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4854090/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26924280
http://dx.doi.org/10.4103/1008-682X.173937
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