Humpjones

No Business Like Sperm Business

Posted Nov 30, 2011

Redhead Sperm Donor

When my friend told me that the sperm bank rejected him because he was a redhead, I’ll admit it, I laughed at him. Of course, that’s when I still thought he was kidding...once I realized he was serious, I nearly had a cardiac event because I was howling so hard.

The business in question was Cryos International, one of the largest Spooge Repositories in the privatized world. Their founder and media man, who has the curious name Ole Schou, claims that they’re currently sitting on a stock of redhead donors and the only demand for that product comes from Ireland. “There are too many redheads in relation to demand,” says Schou—a quote heard round the world.

Ole Schou | Cryos International

Like any catchy story, once you examine the details it all falls apart. Debunking is cheap, though, and my interests lie elsewhere, as always. So let’s get the objectivity out of the way quick: like most news stories in 2011, The Great Ginger Sperm Scandal is 100% bullshit. Despite being picked up by every major news service, there’s basically nothing to it. Everything we read and talk about is cheap lies from dumb publicists, though...hopefully that’s not news to you.

As it turns out Cryos International does want redheads, especially in their United States division—Schou was merely talking about his native Denmark. Naturally, he was quoted out of context by a lazy writer and the claim was sensationalized into catchy headline by a lazy editor, and the fabricated story was repeated, thousands of times over, by lazy websites and newspapers. As Cryos New York spokesmammal Ty Kaliski enthuses: “We want diversity. I want redheads, I want Asians, Hispanics, African Americans, Caucasians...” You can almost hear Kaliski trailing off and half-heartedly adding the afterthought of “Caucasians” even though he knew nobody would believe him.

From the global empire of Cryos to the darkly hilarious scam known as Sperm Direct Limited, one thing that nobody in the sperm business wants at this point is more Caucasian juice. There’s a universal shortage of black and asian donors, and although Uncle Hump is far too wise to stoop to trying to analyze that, feel free to take that little factoid and go hog wild, kids. I present it simply as business advice: whoever figures out how to change that is gonna get rich.

You see, “Fertility Industry” is one of the last Wild West autonomous zones in American capitalism and it has been evolving with terrifying speed. The sheer free market momentum of it all is about to carry us from consumer wonderland straight into sci-fi dystopia territory. In all likelihood, we are already there.

Infinitely Weird

The Human Project

Let’s start with one of the most interesting numbers, the foundational fact that keeps all this money changing hands: 15% of all couples under 50 are infertile. Almost 50 years after the publication of Silent Spring, it’s no secret that this is thanks to processed foods, industrial pollution and environmental toxins. (Feel free to argue otherwise in the comments section.) When you look at world population through this lens, you might realize that we’re actually quite lucky that our current numbers are hovering at only seven billion. There is a certain terrible beauty to the self-regulating nature of Nature, even when the blade is aimed directly at you and me.

Why dwell on the past, though? Given the accelerating pace and density of our technological suicide, a 15% infertility rate will be the Good Old Days in a single generation’s time. This is a growth market in the worst possible sense, but make no mistake, the Fertility Industry is strictly catering to the high-end customers. Technically speaking, this shit is expensive. The problem of poverty will be solved by the problem of infertility...call me a heretic or a quack, but them’s the facts, Pilgrims. Better yet, there’s not a single fucking thing you can do about it.

So, on to the Capitalism part. You may not be able to have kids without birth defects, but you can certainly make money in the meantime. The Fertility Industry is wide open...just don’t dwell on that visual too long. As per Naomi Cahn and Wendy Kramer:

“The United States has almost no rules when it comes to buying or selling sperm. In fact, no one keeps records on how much sperm is bought or sold, so we don’t even know how big the sperm market really is, or how many babies are born each year through donor sperm.”

Cryos International, the Denmark company who can’t get their policy on redheads straight, claims to have been responsible for 18,878 pregnancies since opening their doors back in 1991. Disturbingly, despite have a strict testing and screening process and almost bizarrely high standards, Cryos doesn’t bowl a perfect game. They report a running “Malformation Rate” of 4%, and I hope you’re not visualizing what that euphemism means right now, because that would be gross.

Not nearly as gross as this, though: accidental incest. No, that does not involve tripping and falling...it’s far worse. As headlines go, this one is miracle of story-telling and brevity: One Sperm Donor, 150 Offspring. Yup. Naturally, professional commentators were simply shocked but this is about as inevitable as McDonalds offering salads or S&M porn going mainstream.

Most Americans know absolutely nothing about...well, anything, really...but in particular, the Sperm Business. Men don’t just go in, make a deposit and walk out with a check. They get screened and commit to a long-term program, usually weekly deposits for a full year. Only a dipshit could act shocked that a business is monetizing their existing inventory: it’s what they do. So it’s only natural that in California, which has always been ahead of the American curve, children of donor sperm are starting to connect on the internet. That’s kind of heartwarming, but it gets disturbing when they keep connecting and connecting and connecting and you realize you have over 50 half-brothers and half-sisters living in the same state as you. The biggest single group was the source of the headline: exactly 150 actual human beings from a single storage unit of manjuice. Which brings us back to two words that should stay far away from each other: “Accidental Incest.”

As one anonymous Mom put it: “My daughter knows her donor’s number for this very reason. She’s been in school with numerous kids who were born through donors. She’s had crushes on boys who are donor children. It’s become part of sex education.”

The Genghis Khan Effect.

Genghis Khan Genetic Warfare

Maybe you don’t see it yet. This should help: in 2011, 0.5% of the world’s entire population can be traced directly back to the loins of Genghis Khan. That’s a little over 35 million people, most of them in China.

This is for horrible reasons, of course. There was not a lot of consensual sex behind the Khan dynasty. Regardless of circumstances, though, reproduction is genetic warfare...the messy reality behind the “fitness landscape” the biologists love to wax poetic about. Having 150 offspring is such a massive tactical advantage it’s hard to wrap your head around it, but that anonymous donor has done more to shape the future of California than any Governor or Billionaire fascist in the past century.

And that’s just a glimmer of the insanity that’s on our horizon now. 150 will be small potatoes very shortly. What happens when celebrities start getting in on this action? Imagine the kind of prices that a Brazilian soccer god like Ronaldinho could get for his, uh, product. Imagine the demand/price curve for someone like Ryan Reynolds or Jude Law and you’re starting to see it.

Now, the notion of sexual competition is nothing new. We’re all trying to make ourselves more wealthy and attractive and blah blah blah, but what’s new here is the scale and the technology available. It’s certainly not like human beings are any smarter. Women shop for attractive and physically fit sperm donors, but it’s not like their kids are automatically going to have chiseled abs or some shit: that comes from working out. There’s also the gender crapshoot factor—sure, sperm comes out of a guy, but it produces both sons and daughters. That fact is sadly lost on a lot of people. Then again, their ignorance is your potential profit center. Nothing cuts into your bottom line quite like informed consumers, right?

See, your average Adonis with a genius IQ and clean bill of health can generate a solid load of merchandise every single day. If he makes it out of Harvard by 22, that’s a potential career of 15 to 20 years. Bear that in mind as you read this outstanding Atlantic article, ”All the Single Ladies,” which documents how the economic devastation of the United States has completely changed the sexual politics of both marriage and conception. These trends will converge into something unprecedented: the most dramatic change in human reproduction since our species first emerged from Africa. This shift is going to be far more profound than birth control, because it will involve more children being born by vastly fewer men, a narrowing down of the gene pool that will hit our DNA like a mass extinction, despite the fact we’re slouching towards the 10 billion mark, population-wise.

Keep thinking I’m wrong, by all means. I have no illusions about convincing you. There’s no solace in truth, especially if you’re older than 21 and worth less than a million dollars. Just keep it in the back of your mind, eat more veggies & fish oil and work out a little bit harder. And oh yeah...stay away from wi-fi signals, too.