That was what I discovered when I was first told my doctors thought I had KS. They didn’t tell me I had no sperm, I told them.
You know, believe it or not, XXY men are not the only infertile men on the planet. And it makes my feelings on my infertility no less important, but when I was diagnosed being infertile was just another of a long line of disasters. My life was not a joy to have at that time, it wasn’t like everything was going swimmingly then this crap happened.
So then I have this added thing to get over, how do I convince a girl to be interested in me when I know I can’t have children? I’m going to have to tell her, I’m going to have to talk about it! For me, at that time, talking was not a strong point.
And when was I going to mention it, at the start before anything is even there? Later when things are getting serious, or never? Can I just keep it all a secret and pretend it’s a surprise when she’s told I can’t have children?
How do I start a relationship on the basis of a lie? Obviously I can’t keep it a secret. Not start a relationship. Now that was appealing. And that’s what happened, for many many years.
Nobody on my family was going to be pressurising me to get married, they all knew I couldn’t have children. After all I was only 17 when I was diagnosed! The information about my diagnosis wasn’t just mine to pass on, not at 17, at 17 I was family property. My parents made sure everybody knew about it before I could choose to say “No!” Actually my dad told his mother, my Grandmother, and that was like making a public broadcast on the radio News. I suppose that can be seen as sort of a good thing, at least I didn’t have to talk about it myself.
My brother and several cousins did offer to let me have their sperm, when they were single. By the time they were married their wives had other ideas. No sperm was going to be forthcoming from them. My brother and cousins meant well, they just never thought I’d take them up on their offer, I suppose, and they never thought their wives would protest? As far as the wives were concerned, their husbands sperm was their children, and they were not going to be shared with me. These quite intelligent women didn’t view sperm as just genetic material, it was in fact their property. I wonder if those very same women had problems letting their children go when they wanted to leave home, or where they still “mummies property?”
In New Zealand you’re pretty much screwed if you’re infertile, male or female. The government has passed a law that compels people who have children by “Human Assisted Reproductive Technologies” (HART) that they must tell their children of their genetic origins, in other words sperm donors cannot be secret! That of course has the immediate effect of making sperm donations virtually nil! Not that the donors would ever be held financially responsible for any resultant children, just that their offspring would know who they are. Which all sounds lovely for the children, only no such law exists to compel the vast majority of people who produce children of unknown genetic origin, the fertile! Can you imagine how that would play out?
By the time I had found someone to love me and whom I loved to, we decided all on our own to make the knowledge of who provided the genetic material to produce our children, known to the children. And we decided to make that information available from a very young age, 5 or something, I don’t recall exactly. I don’t need any law to compel me to do anything I think is right. Our children were born before the law came into effect. Sensible people from the fertile majority don’t need to be compelled, why do the infertile minority?
Anyway, here’s another account from another XXY man you might like to read?