Send to a Friend
			Printer Friendly Format
			Leave Feedback
			Read Feedback
			Hooksexup RSS

n the long, sordid history of male ejaculate, the late '90s was a watershed era. We had a nationally televised conversation about our president's semen stain and what it all meant. Seinfeld aired an episode about Kramer's sperm count. "How many sperm do I need?" he asked. "A lot," Elaine assured him. By the time the hair scene in There's Something About Mary rolled around, such a gag had become pedestrian.

It's difficult to believe what a recent phenomenon all this openness about sperm is,

promotion

a phenomenon Lisa Jean Moore explores in her new book, Sperm Counts. Moore traces the history of sperm up to this climactic point in history, where banks scrub it clean it before selling it for cash, women drink it from shot glasses on DVD and the FBI uses it to send men to jail. — Will Doig

Let's talk about porn. You have a theory as to why the rise of bukkake porn in America roughly coincided with the advent of AIDS.
This advent of bukkake, of getting sperm all over women's bodies, and this new notion that sperm is lethal and dirty — in some ways it was the perfect storm for the porn industry. What better thing to eroticize than something dangerous? Now there are all these videos — Sperm Guzzlers, Cum Guzzlers Volumes 1 though 27 . . .

Desperately Seeking Semen . . .
— and part of what's going on is that men are getting to experience the idea that their semen doesn't need to be blocked or sanitized.

Or something that needs to end up in a condom and get thrown away.
Or in a tissue after being spit out. Instead, women just can't get enough of it, and it's cherished and delicious and fabulous. The rise of bukkake porn is kind of like the organic food movement — it's getting back to the earth, back to the source. You don't have to go to a sperm bank and make sure your sperm is all sanitized and tested to make sure it's good to make a baby. It's saying, you're so wonderful that I want this from the source. I want your organic matter without any of this cultural manipulation.

Sperm banks are a big part of this sperm-sanitation industry you write about, and the sanitation process isn't just about washing and testing sperm — it's about filtering out undesirable donors. For instance, you write that in 2005 the FDA took steps to restrict gay men from donating. I'd be surprised if most sperm banks would accept gay donors anyway. With so much selection, why would anyone buy gay sperm?
Perhaps a small percentage, like the lesbian population or people who are highly educated, would see [gay] sperm as equivalent in value to any other sperm. But in terms of notions of genetic inheritance of homosexuality, many people would be concerned about having gay donors. If you're looking at it as a commodity to purchase, I don't think gay sperm would be flying off the shelves.

Who else's sperm is considered bargain basement?
Short sperm doesn't sell. Men under 5'8" are rarely accepted at sperm banks because no one will buy that sperm.

I guess if you have so much selection, why would you pick any sperm that wasn't absolutely ideal?
Right, and there we have this perfect recipe for showing what are the attributes of masculinity we desire: height, heterosexuality, Ivy League education, blond hair, blue eyes, etc. Obviously there are different ethnic preferences within there, but within each one of those groups there would be an ideal. And height seems to be the most profound indicator of whether semen will sell. That, and whether the donor is willing to have his identity released.

You mention the idea of women tricking men into "donating" their sperm by sleeping with them and trying to get pregnant. Is this real?
I think it's one of these cultural myths. I think it's rare that women, while they're ovulating, deploy themselves out there to capture sperm. What's interesting is the narrative of men who believe that it actually happens. It's part of that fear that fatherhood is something you can be tricked into, something that can be bought or sold on the reproductive-commodity market, and that actual fathers are a dying species and under attack. It's as if men are both duped and helpless because they can't control their semen.

The rise of bukkake porn is kind of like the organic food movement — it's getting back to the earth, back to the source.

We actually see this even more when we look at DNA forensics — the way men are confronted is that their sperm is basically going to narc on them.

It brought down a presidency.
Right, and I can imagine it must be a frightening time. It could give men the feeling that they don't have ultimate control over reproduction, over crime, over capitalism — things they've historically had a lot of control over.

Historically, when did sperm start to "narc" on men?
Prior to departments of coroners being created, midwives were asked to look at sheets and bedspreads to determine whether a rape had occurred. They said they could tell by the amount of sperm that was left whether someone was a pervert or not. A high volume was seen as an act of perversion.

What were some of the methods used to cure men who had too much volume?
There was the Stephenson Spermatic Truss [invented in 1876], a device that attached to the penis and had almost like a cock ring with prongs in it that would prick the penis if it became erect. And there was a device that had a hood that went over the penis to keep anything from coming out of it, although that seems kind of impossible.

You note that the earliest sperm theorists were religious scholars, and that for a time it was thought that sperm didn't even come from an internal organ, but was actually part of the soul leaking out.
Semen gets elevated and invested with things that it's not even doing, or with things that aren't, in material terms, really even there. One of those things has been divinity, and even the male interpretation of itself as being all-encompassing. "I am myself in God's image" sort of thing.

I thought it was interesting that you discovered secular sex-education books often depict sperm has having human traits, but Christian sex-ed books did not.
Secular sex-ed books use this notion of anthropomorphizing sperm — of making it into a friendly character, like an athlete or a soldier, that we can all identify with, that has speaking lines and forward action and some type of personality. And what I found in the Christian books is that there's no need to assign human traits to the cell because everything is about what God wants. Sperm do these things because God created the universe and wants it to work this way. In the secular books, it's actually much more complicated for the child because they have to identify with the sperm, see them as part of their dads, see them as men who are competitive with each other and who have a desire to get to this egg, which is usually sitting on a pedestal or a pillow and has long eyelashes.

It's as if the egg is a damsel in distress, and the hero sperm are coming to rescue it.
That's precisely what it's like. And because the sperm are portrayed as competing with one another, it shows boys and men constantly under the threat of other boys and men usurping their role. It's the narrative of the fastest one wins, you have to beat all the others.

But isn't it basically true that in reproduction, the fastest sperm is the one that gets implanted in the egg?
There's a great deal of research in both cellular and molecular biology that has demonstrated that the egg actually releases a substance that attracts particular sperm. But we don't have a children's book that says, "Let's say fifty sperm make it to the egg. The egg actually has a role in selecting which sperm gets in." It's, "Whoever gets there first wins." We preach this ideology of winner-take-all to these children, and when they don't win and take all in real life, they end up feeling like they're not good enough men.

You posit that if environmental trends continue, in the future we could be forced to rely on sperm banks to perpetuate the human race. A sperm black market would flourish. Men could be separated into two classes, fertile and infertile.
Not only could they separate, I think men are already are separated into many different statuses related to their sperm. Who would be a good father? Who's a good financial provider? Whose semen is in a criminal database? What I'm prognosticating there — and it's meant to be a little tongue in cheek — is if we rely more and more on reproductive technologies, and if these trends of greater environmental pollution continue, we could potentially have to rely on existing resources, or sperm could become an endangered species, and if that were to happen it would become another variable on which to evaluate men. You don't make enough money, you don't have a big enough dick, you're not smart enough, you haven't bedded enough women — and now, what's your sperm count? Is that motile sperm? What's the volume like? What's the morphology? We can see it becoming both more celebrated and more regulated to the point where it becomes its own protected citizenry. Maybe it wouldn't be in pornography anymore, because why would we waste this valuable sperm? Maybe the money shot would look completely different. Or maybe we would start to de-emphasize ejaculation as the sexual variable and begin to emphasize eroticism. That's a potentially positive outcome.  n°
 

To order Sperm Counts , click here.

RELATED ARTICLES

Whipping Boy by Will Doig Reviled author Eric Schaeffer insists he's not every single woman's worst nightmare. Confessional by Will Doig Ted Haggard's male escort speaks out. House Of High Repute by Will Doig The rise and fall of Chicago's most decadent brothel. Sex-Crazed Co-Eds! by Ann Emory If I read one more article about college girls gone wild, I really will go wild. All Access by Will Doig Former soupergroupie Pamela Des Barres reveals rock-god secrets and tricks of the trade.

©2007 hooksexup.com and Will Doig