Your testes are critical for testosterone production, so you might worry that a procedure in the area — like a vasectomy — could impact that important task.
But a vasectomy actually cuts and seals the vas deferens tubes, which carry sperm from the testes to the penis. This doesn’t affect testosterone production by the testes, and it’s well established that vasectomy has no effect on men’s testosterone levels.
Online anecdotes, older poor-quality studies (like one suggesting minor long-term shifts after 20+ years) and “post-vasectomy pain syndrome” stories fuel anxiety about energy, erections or loss of “manhood”.
Vasectomies are safe and effective. There were 36,371 vasectomies performed in Australia in 2025 (according to Medicare data). That’s about the same as the number of tonsillectomies. Most of the vasectomies (21,608) are in males aged 35-44, which is around one for every 90 Australian men in this age group.
Among the things that surgeons discuss with patients before performing a vasectomy is that the procedure should be considered permanent. It is possible to reverse a vasectomy, but it’s not always successful. They will explain that there’s a small risk of the procedure not working, so it’s necessary to have a semen test two or three months after the procedure to confirm that there’s no sperm in your ejaculate. They will also run through the usual risks of any surgical procedure, like infection, pain and possible complications.
The American Urological Society has just published a new version of its Vasectomy Guideline, which provides evidence-based information about the procedure. They state that vasectomy does not cause prostate cancer, cardiovascular disease or kidney stones.
Tim Moss
Healthy Male Health Content Manager
Dr Tim Moss has PhD in physiology and more than 20 years’ experience as a biomedical research scientist. Tim stepped away from his successful academic career at the end of 2019, to apply his skills in turning complicated scientific and medical knowledge into information that all people can use to improve their health and wellbeing. Tim has written for crikey.com and Scientific American’s Observations blog, which is far more interesting than his authorship of over 150 academic publications. He has studied science communication at the Alan Alda Centre for Communicating Science in New York, and at the Department of Biological Engineering Communication Lab at MIT in Boston.
