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Sperm-Donor Siblings: A Family Portrait
- Someone1234 7y agoSorry is this is off-topic, but given the context, why are so many of them posed in seemingly erotic ways? It isn't just the women either look at Nik Morgan, 21 near the bottom (no pun intended).
- dexterdog 7y agoYeah, the photography choices are so odd. It made the presentation awkward and uncomfortable.
- jacobush 7y agoYes, that's why it's genius.
- arkades 7y agoI think a lot of them aren’t really erotic, so much as there’s an overlap between “erotic poses” and “vulnerable poses.” A lot seemed to be posed in a manner that I would call, artificially, awkwardly, vulnerable. Which might be the point, for all I know.
- earthscienceman 7y agoIt's definitely the point. Being the child of a sperm donor can be so uncomfortable. It seems like an extremely appropriate way to pose someone who is being confronted by such a deep part of themselves.
- oh_sigh 7y agoIt's simply the timeless art of seduction: https://i.imgur.com/J8vRD5Y.png https://i.imgur.com/J8vRD5Y.png
- dang 7y agoPlease don't do this here.
- serf 7y agoa cross between gucci advertisement, a mug shot, and old playboy articles. it's indeed very strange to me, too. I think they were playing with the ideas in the article being a bit alienating, so the photography tried to follow -- emphasis on tried. If I had to label the photography: "sexy ennui' comes to mind.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- CommieBobDole 7y agoI guess it's just the photographer's style, but every one of those portraits looks like the subject been posed in a way that's unnatural for them, and they're not enjoying it.
- mikece 7y agoPerhaps that's partially the point? They've all been brought together in a manner that, for almost everyone, is uncomfortable and strange... to say nothing about the nature of the connection they share which is awkward, even to them.
- crispyporkbites 7y agoMeh, I think they all look like they’re trying hard to look like they’re not enjoying it, aka hipster, it’s not cool to be happy
- UsefulAlt 7y agoFWIW, as someone who found out by surprise that I was a sperm-donor child (and that I have at least one half-sister who was equally surprised by the knowledge of an unexpected half-brother) I find the expressions of the people in the photographs extremely relatable. It's pretty much the exact expression I had on my face when I first found out, which is essentially a combination of "wow this explains a lot of things" + "what the fuck" + a constant background oscillation of "but this changes nothing/everything/nothing/everything/nothing/everything". I'm in my mid-40's, so it's not a generational thing.
- TotempaaltJ 7y agoI do think there's the factor of the type of camera used: it's mentioned that it takes a while to take the picture.
- xwdv 7y agoAside from the bizarre, uncomfortable poses in the photographs, the subjects all look somewhat dejected, as if their existence in this world is very clinical. Not sure if that’s what the photographer was going for but kudos to him for keeping such a consistent style across multiple loosely related people. I imagine it could be like herding cats.
- muzika 7y agoSeems like that was the photographer’s goal
- wyldfire 7y ago> Not sure if that’s what the photographer was going for Interesting that the photographer was the author here. Some of these poses strike me as downright bizarre, but they also remind me of the kind of thing you'd see in magazine shoot.
- bilbo0s 7y ago>across multiple loosely related people... They may be strangers, but these people are all closely related genetically speaking.
- buboard 7y agoI found them funny, in fact i'm pretty sure the photographer was being deliberately porno-ironic with some of the guys. Refreshingly fun pics and a step away from work-safe sterile photography.
- jawns 7y agoThe essay's author talks a little bit about how he and some of his half-siblings feel a sense of loss, or that something feels missing, or that they wished they had a father. But the essay never really touches on whether they _resent_ the fact that their parent or parents made the choice to have them conceived through artificial insemination from an anonymous donor. Obviously, if that hadn't happened, they wouldn't be around to resent it -- but it's still possible to feel conflicted about it. I'm sure there are some people who do carry that resentment and some people who don't, and we often hear stories about the latter, but I've heard fewer stories about the former and would be interested to hear their voices and perspectives.
- earthscienceman 7y agoWell. You can hear my voice. I'm the child of a sperm donor. I didn't learn about it till I was 18... which was more than a bit strange. The emotions that come from the combination of society's familial expectations, your own complicated family, and just the general fact that it's nice to be alive is a really strange cocktail. But... I'm not sure resent is a word that I would ever use, even in my bizarre situation of having learned later in life. Instead of resentment I would probably describe a bubbling dystopian feeling. For me, I often focus on the fact that my life, or at least the genetic specifics of my being, is directly a result of technological progress. The very core of who I am everyday in my life relies on the fact that society enabled my mom to have children without her (ex)-husband. That's pretty strange. These feelings come up most strongly when I look in a mirror. The physical features are the inescapable consequence, right? I think this is what made this photo essay so impactful for me. That photos so strongly highlight what is most stark about being the child of a sperm donor. In the thesaurus, vex is listed alongside resent. That word seems to get at the core of what I feel. When I think too long or hard it just feels vexing... it's very "what the fuck"-ish.
- jawns 7y agoThank you for your story. Does that vexation affect your relationship with your mom?
- alistairSH 7y ago
- CodeSheikh 7y agoTheir nose tip is a common genetic trait.
- mzs 7y agoI was struck by the the ears, of those visible, except for two, they were very uniform.
- dqpb 7y agoIt seems to me that being a sperm donor is an absurdly good evolutionary strategy.
- ip26 7y agoSort of, but from what I have heard, being a donor is also absurdly competitive due to the low marginal cost to the donor. Every prospective parent wants their child's donor-father to be a 4.0 GPA valedictorian ivy league graduate, captain of the football team, leader of men, captain of industry. Or maybe visionary researcher, famous scientist. Or perhaps top-billing hollywood actor, or decorated military hero. And, behold, because the parent can be choosy about the donor, they actually can have that. So in the end being a donor isn't really the key strategy here, it's just a force multiplier for highly successful men who have always had fantastic odds for passing on their genes to multiple mothers (even in nominally monogamous societies)
- ahelwer 7y agoI don't think this is true. There are ads for becoming a sperm donor on the Seattle light rail.
- ip26 7y agoI don't live in Seattle- do big shot lawyers & doctors happen to ride the light rail to work? :)
- krapht 7y agoThere's a couple restrictions on supply, depending on country: 1) Limitations on number of donations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sperm_donation_laws_by_country#Limitations_on_number_of_donations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sperm_donation_laws_by_country... Even when there are no legal limitations, sperm banks will often limit the number of donations made by any single donor. Most donors will not travel to donate to multiple sperm banks. 2) Limitations on donor anonymity. (probably useless these days - acquaintance of mine tracked down her anonymous donor father via 23AndMe, and was devastated to discover he didn't want to have any contact with her. seems obvious, but...) 3) Limitations on donor compensation. (same reason there are limitations on blood and organ sales, I imagine). However, you have to pay highly achieving men significantly more than others for them to take time out of their day to donate into a vial. And also to abstain so that their donations are high quality.
- Kenji 7y agoThey all seemed to have inherited the "insufferable hipster" gene... Or maybe it's just the photographer.
- ChuckMcM 7y agoOk, that is an interesting diversion on a Friday. I too was struck by the odd poses, some of them seem to me as if they are trying to evoke a sexual response although given their consistency I attribute it primarily to the style the photographer imputes on his work. Given all the internal dialog he includes I'm pretty sure the similarity of emotions is intentional. That said, the most interesting thing for me in the article was the chain of events, same sex couples wishing to conceive, selecting a sperm donor with a 'good' track record, results in the same donor being preferentially selected. Given that the children share common activities (the article mentions camp for same sex families) and the kids socialization there, it would seem there is a higher than otherwise risk of developing a relationship with a half sibling. That has got to be emotionally challenging if you discover it later. Understanding ones own genetic history is a thing in isolated populations like Iceland but I can easily see it being overlooked in a larger more diverse population. I have never considered that burden that would be imposed on future children conceived in this way, but in hindsight it makes sense. Somewhere there is the most "popular" donor of the most used donation service who could have hundreds? thousands? of children out there.
- fouc 7y agoOdd poses but without any sort of smouldering look on their face, it's more plain/openness on their face. Really doesn't feel sexual at all. Not even the open legged poses.
- dougmwne 7y agoIf this writing is at all representative of Gen Z it's going to be a VERY interesting cohort. I sense some extreme social alienation lurking.
- faissaloo 7y agoAlienation doesn't even begin to describe it
- faissaloo 7y agoIs anyone else concerned about a reduction in genetic diversity?
- NickNameNick 7y agoOn a global scale, not at all. Locally, given that some of them had already met each-other without knowing they were half-siblings. Maybe a little.
- shagie 7y agoThe donor is nowhere close to the impact that Genghis Kahn had on the Y chromosome. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1180246/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1180246/ - and that was in the 11th century with a total word population of about 400M. A few dozen children from one father today, in a world with a population of 7.5B should not be any concern.
- faissaloo 7y agoYeah but that was also an anomaly, which isn't the same as repeatedly decreasing genetic diversity over a number of generations.
- jccalhoun 7y agoThere are over 7 billion people. I think we are ok.
- faissaloo 7y agoI don't think you really understand how quickly these things propagate.
- Tomminn 7y agoIs it just me, or do all the photos feel strangely sexualized?
- snazz 7y agoI don't think it's just you, but I don't think it's intentional either. Other comments (backed up by the article) have said that the goal might have been to make the subjects look uncomfortable, which at a second look seems perfectly plausible.
- jccalhoun 7y agoDefinitely reminded me of the (in)famous Calvin Klein ads of people in their underwear in a basement. https://www.buzzfeed.com/briangalindo/the-1995-calvin-klein-ad-campaign-that-was-just-too-creepy https://www.buzzfeed.com/briangalindo/the-1995-calvin-klein-...
- pndy 7y agoDonor Unknown [1][2] is a documentary film about this topic; young woman, daughter of two women tries to find her biological father and on the way, she reaches and makes contact with her other 12 siblings. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donor_Unknown https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donor_Unknown [2] - http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/films/donor-unknown/ http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/films/donor-unknown/
- ctrager 7y agoMy father was a sperm donor, back in the mid-fifties. I didn't know until I was in my thirties (in the eighties). In the past few years, via 23andMe, I've discovered three living half-siblings. I think it's been totally mind-blowing fun for all involved to discover each other. We all read the nyt article today. My bio-sister commented, "Yuh think we’d all look better if we were in the NYT?"
- bobthechef 7y agoSperm banks should be outlawed. Please don't interpret that to mean that children -- people! -- conceived using that method are any less human. That would be an incorrect and grossly unjust reading of what I've written. First of all, it introduces disorder into society. Family relations are thrown into chaos. Incest and inbreeding become bigger problems. Furthermore, half of the extended family disappear. You've only got the mother's family now. You deprive the child of her family network and a relationship with her father. Second, it prioritizes the woman's desires over the child's good. The woman in question does this because she either can't find a husband or doesn't want to. She isn't adopting a child that already exists and needs a parent (better one than none). She's causing a new child to come into being because she wants it, full stop. Never mind the good of the child, that single motherhood is strongly correlated with various problems. Some would go so far as to say that the child is objectified in this way. You could say the same thing about the man who becomes nothing but a sperm machine. Mutual consent does not magically bless the act. Third, it does not leverage sexual selection. Both sexes play a role here. Sexual selection tends to maximize health and favorable conditions for the child and contributes to a reproduction of those factors genetically and culturally. Sperm donation subverts this process. Fourth, it strains and poisons relations between the sexes which exist, at least in part, for the reproduction of the species and subsequent formation of those children into mature adults. Until very recently, this was the overwhelmingly typical case across human civilizations and societies. I do not think it is helpful to play the game of describing hard won traditional norms and relations, which characterize the typical case across human civilizations historically, as merely "conventional". It comes from a place of dismissive and frankly self-destructive hyperindividualism that waves away human nature as meaningless. Under the influence of influential yet unscientific and irrational ideologies, everything under the sun is increasingly described as a social construct. This is dangerous. It spreads falsehoods. It alienates man from himself and uncharitably enables delusions.
- silencio 7y agoas a person that gave birth to a child, married to a woman, no. stop. i also see a lot of disgusting sexism in the assumption that men cannot be solo parents or be partnered to other men that both want to be parents. you seem to know nothing about assisted reproduction and you should inform yourself and address your cisheterosexism before you speak again on this topic. edit: i’m so infuriated i missed the part about adoption. if you haven’t experienced adoption from the perspective of solo parenting by choice, i assure you that the path to getting pregnant and carrying a child is usually drastically easier and cheaper. i cannot even _donate_ eggs/embryos without running into religious organizations that refuse to talk to me.
- spermboy 7y agoIs it possible to buy sperm on your own? Do you need the approval of a doctor or some other third part entity to obtain sperm from a sperm bank?
- silencio 7y agoyes. you just sign up with a sperm bank and cough up money. for maximum protections (both directions) you will want to involve licensed medical professionals on the usage end. so you should have a doctor looped in for ICI/IUI/IVF etc.