'I stole my husband's sperm'

Women who want children so badly are prepared to lie about contraception in order to conceive. Some 42 per cent of them, if you believe the results of a 2001 survey that looked into just this. And if men think wearing a condom, is enough protection – it’s not.

Just ask Liz Jones. She stole her boyfriend’s sperm, and then later she stole her husband’s sperm. He didn’t want kids, but she didn’t really give  him a choice.

Of the first relationship, Liz wrote:

I called his bluff and told him there was no way I would want a baby with him, given he didn’t earn any money. Yet the truth was, I had hatched a plan that many will doubtless find shocking.

Because he wouldn’t give me what I wanted, I decided to steal it from him. I resolved to steal his sperm from him in the middle of the night. I thought it was my right, given that he was living with me and I had bought him many, many M&S ready meals.

The ‘theft’ itself was alarmingly easy to carry out. One night, after sex, I took the used condom and, in the privacy of the bathroom, I did what I had to do. Bingo.

I don’t understand why more men aren’t wise to this risk — maybe sex addles their brain. So let me offer a warning to men wishing to avoid any chance of unwanted fatherhood: if a woman disappears to the loo immediately after sex, I suggest you find out exactly what she is up to.

As it turned out, my attempts to get pregnant by Trevor failed, and shortly afterwards he and I split up.

But my dreams of motherhood persisted, and I resorted to similarly secretive methods to conceive in my next relationship. And given that I was in my early 40s by then, this was an even more urgent situation.

At least on this occasion we were married, which you might think would — should — give a woman every right to want to start a family. But my husband was 14 years younger than me, and he had told me he was not ready for children.

But I didn’t listen. 

Is this why  men are getting preventative vasectomies? Yes, such a thing exists. Some men are paranoid about women stealing their sperm. Paranoid enough to commit to their belief that there’s a rampant group of sperm stealers out there masquerading as – women who want to have sex with them. Why? So that she can get knocked up and have their babies.  And how are they dealing with this irrational fear? By ripping their  pants off and running to the doctor for a pre-emptive vasectomy in their twenties and thirties. Believe it, there’s a growing trend for young single American men to go the snip to protect their DNA. Read Mia’s column on that here.

Have you ever lied about contraception in your relationship? Have you deceived your partner in order to conceive?