ABSTRACT
Male infertility accounts for up to 60 per cent of all cycles of ART (assisted reproductive technology) in the Western world today, yet little is said in public about it, which reflects the isolation and desolation experienced by those with a diagnosis of male infertility. Male infertility challenges how men think about themselves-shattering their own beliefs in male supremacy. Even in today’s world, being male is still all about male dominance, which means that men have a free rein over which roles they adopt, so long as they are manly ones: hunter, breadwinner, head of the family, and so on. Female roles are forbidden and inferior. Men do not cry, they are not allowed to love, or display love as women do; they rarely display their emotions in private and especially not in public. Men are men, which means that they are responsible, macho, virile and do not need help. They are rational and objective, but they are also afraid of their emotions. Through their emotional distance, men seek to have power and control, which is a key part of their value system whereby work, independence and dominance become all-important.
