This NYT story about single women attempting artificial insemination explains what happens when a 38-year-old, blond, female advertising exec starts browsing sperm donor profiles. Yup, one of them turns out to be desi:
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She loves dandy lions |
As I sat across her desk, she pulled up the donors’ descriptions on her computer. One was Indian: “He’s got black straight hair,” she told me, “brown eyes, he’s six feet but he only weighs 150. Which is good. If I have a girl, she wants to be skinny, and if she can eat what she wants, that’s perfect. You don’t have to get in fights about food.” The Indian donor’s complexion was described as “medium/dark,” and he had proven fertility. He had a master’s degree in business. He was bilingual, Hindu, single and liked traveling and music. His family-health history looked good. [Link]
I can see their first meeting now. He comes out of the kitchen in a salwar kameez with a dupatta over his head, tea tray in hand, eyes downcast and shy. She ticks ‘wheatish complexion’ on her clipboard and says, ‘Beta, please walk around the room’ to make sure he’s not lame. She opens his mouth and checks his molars, hocks and withers.
Sure, everything looks good on paper now, but what happens 18 years down the road? They need to put out a public health warning:
MAY GROW UP ADDICTED TO
BADMINTON, PAAN AND TEEN PATTI
This story shouldn’t surprise anyone though. With the conservative public morés of traditional desi culture, hundreds of millions of desi men happily spill surplus gametes outside the regular channels. But this chap was the only one enterprising enough to get paid for it.
Is he desi? Oh, indubitably.
HAHA! Brilliant.
Hmmm…on a digressive note, I have a desi-white lesbian couple as really good friends. They’re planning to have babies via AI, and the white girl has her desi sperm donor lined up. The guy’s a Manhattan investment banker, really smart dude, grew up in Mumbai.
I wonder how I’d react if someone asked me to donate sperm for them (as if!). I think I’d be totally flattered, for one, even though I prefer the “regular” channel 🙂
Wait, I thought only the blond blue-eyed Nordic stud sperm are in demand. No?
on page 7.
hehe. Desi sperm is in HIGH demand it seems…
And if you were the nerd like me trying to find where in that 10 page article the thing on Indian sperm is, it’s page 5…
what does the “quality” of sperm? true human qualities aren’t heritable right? 🙂
You forgot to add: might indicate a natural proclivity for bargaining 🙂
Manish, you are the caption-master. There should be some sort of award. I’d say I bow before your immense talent, but given the nature of the post….
i browsed a sperm donation site once. i was surprised by how many brown dudes there were. my understanding is that well educated males who have good mathematical scores are a premium, and american brown dudes are kind of nerdy so i suspect that was it.
fear of a brown planet?
I just read the article. Beginning to end. Barely blinking (which I realized only now. Ouch, my contacts…)
Daniela (the 38-year-old blond advertising exec) is chorgeous but also sort of…scary:
She ain’t talkin’ about a dog, folks, she’s talking about her CHILD! “Clear race”? Dear god. To further complicate her cause, she’s German. I can only imagine that the Editor is now drowning in letters based on that quote alone…
kavita,
what should she have said? i understand the queasiness on this subject, it turns humans into objects…but well, to some extent i think that’s what we are. there are serious questions here, but when we pick mates, friends or adopt children we make all sorts of objective assessments. note that the sperm banks do not accept men under 5’9. family health is important. etc. so is race. i am skeptical that daniela is normal, a disproportionate # of profiles of women who seek sperm donors seem to imply that they want the child to reflect their own appearance. to each his own. or is it?
to some extent the way women who go the sperm donor route creep me out just like men who get mail-order-brides do, though to a far milder extent. but…most of the men who get mail-order-brides have their reasons, they lack looks, personality and excessive wealth, at least by first world standards. most of the women who seek sperm donors don’t seem to be “losers,” but they do have issues in their life and the clock is ticking. the mercenary fashion in which they select the donor, in fact, the eugenic manner in which this seems to be done, is uncomfortable, but in a proxy fashion we all do this when we select mates. assuming that my supposition is correct, that assessments and judgements about genetic health, etc., lurk in the background of our mate selection criteria, does it make us any different on the fundamental reductionistic level that we scaffold our judgements with love, society and solemnity?
well, the answers will differ depending on what values you hold. we’re on the cusp of a brand new age, and those of us entering the years when we think about children will have to consider the possibility of many options. but just remember that choices can only load the die in particular directions, they rarely determine anything.*
what should she have said?
razib-
*** hybrid vigah *** is the term i find acceptable when people discuss my children.
This creeped me out:
The monster is already prepared to fight with her potential daughter about food is she’s not skinny enough. Really creepy.
This story reminds me of a short animated film I made a few years back, Fertco.
*** hybrid vigah *** is the term i find acceptable when people discuss my children.
the implication is that “non-hybrids” are less vigorous. this is debatable for those who aren’t the product of an incestuous subculture (i think there is some validity to cross-racial hybrid vigor, but i think it is minimal and trivial in the grand scheme of things). in any case, hybrid vigor is exactly what mutts have vis-a-vis “pure breeds” (the reality is that “pure breeds” are not “pure” as much as inbred, there were no pure lines of ancient dogs, they are simply extensions of standard genetic variation within the domestic wolf species). perhaps unlike some i do not find animal analogies particular offensive because some of the best people i know are animals 🙂
nice one! awesome blog! 😀
Six feet tall and 150 pounds? “Daniela” must really be into male near-anorectics …
Razib,
You have regularly demonstrated your intense aptitude for biology and genetics on these pages. As such, I respectfully bow out where the asterix comes in.
As for the rest of it, who am I to say what she should” have said? What I am saying is that most people still prefer to embed these preferences in notions of love, loyalty, companionship and shared ideals with a parenting partner. Thus I expect that there will be a very strong, very visceral reactions to Daniela’s reasoning among the NYTimes readership.
I am also saying that events of the previous century do not favor a German woman throwing down term like “clear race”, even if she is trying to “help the world” through her multicultural breeding efforts.
The mental calculus of figuring out whether or not one would like to merge one’s genetic material with another person’s is obviously an intensely complicated matter. I agree that this happens in a less overt fashion all the time, from first date to the bedroom to the mandap/huppah/altar/fill-in-site-of-nuptial-transaction (for those who go that route).
However, Nina’s note underscores a kind of Brave New World / Hatcheries and Conditioning thinking that Daniela’s comments (as well as those of the other women in this section) raised for me. I recognize that these women lack the option of disguising their preferences in any of the experiences fueling the upper end of the FM dial. But I have to wonder what that means for after the children are born. What if Daniela’s kid ends up pale and fat? What if the African American woman’s child has kinky hair? What then?
I also believe that the article would have benefitted on a number of the points you mentioned had Daniela et al been asked why the weren’t considering adoption. If nothing else, it would have punched a hole or two in her “help the world by breeding muticulturalism” line.
Anyhow, if I’m one of those women toting a thermos o’sperm on the subway in another ten years time, I’ll be sure to report back … 😉
Regarding Razib the atheist’s coment #9, I am not so sure that the phrase “IQ is ~.5 heritable” is that incontrovertible. I am fairly sure we are still fighting about it.
What seems to fall out of is that there seems to be a genetic component. We DO NOT know what fraction it is.
These experiment are long assed and difficult to do, the data are not free of researcher bias, they are difficult to replicate and in some cases completely forged.
Otherwise rock on.
Make way for the new wave of discrimination – genetic discrimination.
“GATTACCA” was an interesting (and very stylish) film addressing this topic…..
Cool short, Nina.
kavita,
the women are said to not consider adoption b/c of the money & time involved and esp. b/c they are not good candidates since they are single
18 Jai, Gattacca is a good reference in that context.
I can already see bumper stickers and reverse discrimination against the genetically superior.
Since the only level of control is in selecting the sperm donor (not in specific manipulation of the genes), for all the deliberation involved beforehand there may be no significant differences between the resulting population of humans and the general population of humans.
22 Deepa
When you consider the fact that only men in good health above 5’9″ and with good family health history can donate, you are statisically raising the quality of the gene pool in terms of physical characteristics. Now what is the possiblity that the child born from this gene pool may turn out to be superior in terms of physical attributes and healthwise compared to a child concieved through good old man-woman procreation (i.e the regular gene pool)? Pretty good, I would think. It is manipulation of the gene pool, addition by subtraction, whichever way you put it.
From the sound of it, you know no more than I do.
Whatever you say. Sorry for my lame attempt at humor in the bumper sticker post.
Sigh…I guess I shall have to give up on the idea of making money off sperm donations 🙁
Nina P – I totally agree. That was what creeped me out most. Imagine if all mothers thought this way, what an AWFUL model (no pun intended) for your child to grow up with….
Conversation on 16th birthday:
Mother: “Honey, Its time for you to know the truth about your father. Bad news or good news first?”
Coco: “Ummm, I’ll take bad first”
Mother: “He wasn’t actually my best friend who decided to move to Darkest Peru after you were born.”
Coco: “Does it get better?”
Mother (with a bright smile): “Oh yes! You have him to thank for being the skinnest and prettiest of all your friends. Poor Kate. It must be so hard being a size 4.”
And for more pithy mindlessness of this sort, see Sloane Tannen 🙂
Regarding Razib the atheist’s coment #9, I am not so sure that the phrase “IQ is ~.5 heritable” is that incontrovertible. I am fairly sure we are still fighting about it.
the estimates are 0.2 to 0.8. heritability probably differs between cultures and classes, high SES groups have higher heritability because there is less environmental ‘noise’ in the system to reduce the full expression of you cognitive ‘potential.’ 0.5 is a pretty good rough estimate….
What seems to fall out of is that there seems to be a genetic component. We DO NOT know what fraction it is.
narrow sense heritability is the proportion of phenotypic variance which is due to genotypic variance within the population. speaking in terms of what ‘fraction’ a trait is genetic or non-genetic is misleading.
These experiment are long assed and difficult to do, the data are not free of researcher bias, they are difficult to replicate and in some cases completely forged.
no, not “bias” anymore. even if you agree that the tests have serious problems, no one who studies the subject really believes that the bias exists anymore in the way you probably mean (questions about the rules or tennis or something). bias is controlled for in a variety of ways (the researchers check for example that different groups have the same pattern of difficulty of questions, if there is a tendency for one group to test far higher on one particular question or lower, etc., it is dropped because it suggests different levels of familiarity with different types of questions).
Nina – your movie is very cool
Nina – Your short film rocks!
Thanks, y’all.
(r.e. #20) Hi Rani,
Yeah, I saw that. I guess I would have liked some quotes from the women though, rather than such a brief summary from the author.
Some of these women are shelling out thousands of dollars for insemination (plus raising a child in America is no cheap endeavor esp. for those New York / Connecticut women). And many spend years trying to get pregnant. I also know seven single women who have adopted children with relative ease. Seven isn’t statistically valid but most of them belong to adoption support groups in which there are many other single adoptive mothers. Thus from what I’ve seen personally, the argument that single women have much difficulty adopting doesn’t seem to be as much of an issue in this day and age.
So are money and time and singlehood the real issues preventing them from adopting? I doubt it.
I also couldn’t help but see a certain lack of subtlety between Daniela being an ad exec and the kinds of things she was implying (that if we just produce enough skinny, melanoma resistant, multi-culti kids, not only will her life be easier but that the world will be a better place)
*On that note, Nina, I just watched Fertco – rock on, sistah!
kavita:
With regards to this whole adoption vs having your own – isn’t it natural to want your own? I don’t think it is right to admonish people for wanting to have their own kid on the argument that there are 1000s of orphans who could be adopted.
I’m not a parent, but surely the bond that exists between a child and their biological mother/father is far greater than the bond between an adopted kid? Just a note, I am talking about the inner bond that comes from ‘within’. Sure you could love your adopted kid as much, you could leave them all your wealth etc, but there must be something different about seeing a part of yourself in another human being.
Usually, adoption is the last resort – if there is absolutely no way one could have their own offspring, they could at least have the experience of loving and raising a child.
Bengali,
The adoptive families whom I know would recoil at the idea that the bond they have with their child is any less than what it would have been had the child come from the mother’s womb. I also know families with both biological and adopted children in which the parents have to stop and think about who was adopted and who is related to them by blood – I wouldn’t believe it had I not seen such incidences myself, and more than once.
All of these families have made it abundantly clear that whether adopted or biological, every child whom they bring into their lives has been “their own”. However, these are all families for whom adoption has not been a last resort, but simply an additional option.
There are obviously a number of reasons why the women in this article are not adopting, possibly because they hold to the kind of reasoning that you offered. But the money / time / single mother argument doesn’t hold water given all the money and time that is being expended by these women to begin with. Furthermore, many adoption agencies, esp. those advocating for international adoptees, actually favor older single mothers (more life experience, financial security, less likelihood that the child will have to endure parents divorcing).
Anyhow, perhaps we should just ask Angelina for her take on things in a few months time…?
“…and more than once” should have read “…and more than once, at that.”
Razib the athiest.
If I read right, within a carefully controlled upper socio economic status group, the heritability of IQ can be rounded out to .5. Maybe higher. From what I glean from my superficial reading on the subject, if you shopped in the same genetic and socio economic pool that you come from, you improve your chances of pushing the IQ of your offspring upwards by looking for the so called higher IQ donors. I am assuming these folks are from the bracket in which the enivironment does not play as big a role. But does this hold when a woman is shopping outside her specific gene pool for a tall anorexic Indian who is choking his chicken for cash as in the example.
On a personal note I have always been biased against the results of IQ tests being used as a marker for any sort of achievement. On the other hand we use all sorts of other markers to pick our mates, so why the heck not this one.
Re: Adopton vs infertility treatments:
Both cost a lot of money, pain and heartache but an adoption also involves giving up a lot of information from your own life to total strangers. It is a long, intrusive (rightfully so), subjective process that allows other people to make calls on your lifestyle choices. Not many people like that idea. You may not (in the case of international adoptions) get placed with your child till months after birth. All of this leaves single women, who are used to dictating the terms in their own lives, more likely to go down the AID pathway than adoption. Some of the comments in the article suggested to me that the women wanted more control over all aspects of their lives (“the child will be all mine” jumps to mind) and not having to deal with a spouse or social services makes this process a lot more appealing.
kavita said:
This wasn’t that obvious to me when I went through the process. All the questions that we had to answer seemed loaded against single people (men or women). Somebody had to stay in the country of adoption for weeks even months and then be home with the baby for the first few months once they got here.
These are wonderful! Thank you for finding and sharing