Deep shame, guilt, emasculation and anger caused by infertility in men

I have been following the debate on Jackline Mwende and Stephen Ngila Thenge with some apprehension. Stephen Ngila was the man accused of chopping off the hands of his wife, Jackline Mwende in a spate of rage that shocked the nation in mid-2016. Stephen was charged in court and the case is ongoing.

A week ago, fresh details emerged that pointed an accusing finger at Jackline Mwende, when she announced that she was pregnant with another man’s child.

The online tabloids went to town with the story and it became a heated topic of discussion on Maina Kageni and Mwalimu King’ang’i’s popular breakfast show on Classic FM.

A disturbingly large number of male commentators seemed to think that extreme violence is a justified response to infidelity. Stephen was a ‘good guy’ who was provoked and his ex-wife’s recent confession was an unforgivable violation of trust that warranted the brutality she experienced, they argued.

A few reached for scripture, to emphasize the severity of the sin of adultery and the damnation that follows anyone who breaks the sanctity of marriage. The hypocrisy of our society is that men in the same shoes, caught philandering get away with a slap on the wrist.

In our patriarchal set up, the man does not lose face for sleeping around. When you talk to women in the spaces where their voices are suppressed, you will often hear the notion that “My man is good, as long I do not make him angry”. So the women are socialised not rattle the snake or they will be bitten.

Adultery is not a criminal offence and sometimes I wish some of the outrage expressed against those caught up in extra marital affairs would be directed at grand theft suspects. The big pink elephant in the room, however, is impotency and its importance in framing masculinity.

The revelation of male infertility leads to deep shame, guilt, feelings of emasculation and anger that if not managed can deteriorate to a visceral violent act.

In the list of grave wrongs that a man can be subjected to, few things can match up to having another man’s baby behind your husband’s back. Sadly, it happens fairly regularly. How does a man get beyond the righteousness of anger and betrayal?

In an ideal relationship, where a couple is unable to conceive naturally, adoption or a surrogate parent becomes the obvious choice. Even in the traditional African set up, it was common knowledge that a certain level of extra marital discretion was permissible as long as the children born out of an affair were considered the children of the legal father.

Impotency is no disease

The biological father was merely a surrogate and who was expected to remain anonymous, a secret taken to the grave, between the mother and the sperm donor. Therefore infidelity or cheating is merely the consequence of a deeper problem. The problem of male infertility or impotency.

Culturally it is viewed as a character damaging slur, to accuse a man of shooting blanks. In cases of childless marriages, the woman is blamed because admittance of impotency is admitting failure in your primary role as a man.

In a world where men are judged by sexual performance this level of anxiety can become debilitating. Sexual dysfunction can cause personal and psychological distress. The good news is that most of the problems around impotency are as treatable as malaria. Health experts have shown that impotency is purely psychological 10 percent of the time, or physical or organic 90 percent of the time.

The ignorance around impotency is about as alarming as what we witnessed in the early years of STDs. Our society needs to start addressing the stigma of impotency in its varying degrees of manifestation in a marriage. The challenge of sexual intimacy is the norm rather than the exception.

People will have conversations about managing finances, but on issues related to sex, we prefer to bury our heads in the sand.

Any couple that has been together for a long stretch will experience some level of imbalance in their pursuit of sexual intimacy. Sexual performance as the primary goal of intimacy is tearing couples apart. But the remedy is not outside the marriage or the relationship and it takes a more concerted effort than pointing an accusing finger at one’s partner.

Intimacy concerns

Impotency is a health issue and not a character flaw. The causes must be understood, diagnosed and treated because they are treatable. But the conspiracy of silence compounds the problem of impotency. For most couples, it is a catch-22 situation.

Lack of cultivated trust in a relationship, leaves partners feeling vulnerable and afraid to talk about their sexual problems.

Raising such intimacy concerns creates an atmosphere of stress yet ignoring them is a ticking time bomb that comes to head when one of the partners feels betrayed and snaps.

Silence, ignorance and shame, kills intimacy slowly. In the absence of honest communication and knowledge, anger takes over as compensation, escalated by daily irritations and disagreements that eventually end up in a blow-out.

Sexual performance problems are changeable and treatable. Understanding the nature of the problem is the first step to acceptance and only with acceptance, can a man find recovery.