Sperm Donation: Eugenics or Family Bonding?

Brett Berk, aka “The Gay Uncle,” has just written a post about sperm donation. He finds it odd, he says, that lesbian friends of his can choose the looks of their children “like a handbag,” and is wondering if anyone else finds the process odd.

Leaving aside the question of how many lesbians carry handbags—as someone who has been through the sperm-picking process myself, I can say, yes, it is a little odd to shop through an online search engine for sperm. At the same time, I think most lesbians don’t pick their donors for the narcissistic reason of wanting to create an idealized “Mini-Me.” I think the ability to choose the characteristics of our children’s donors is more often about choosing someone whose physical characteristics are similar to the non-bio mom, in order to honor her connection to the child and to minimize the awkward questions about our families. (Show of hands: How many non-bio moms have ever been asked, “Are you the nanny?”) Granted, physical characteristics shouldn’t matter—and there are plenty of adoptive families, gay and straight, where the kids don’t look like one or both parents—but in our current society, there is still the assumption that families have some physical similarity.

Now, if you’ve read any of Brett’s writing before (he’s guest posted here at Mombian), you’ll know that his style is very tongue in cheek, so please don’t go bashing him for his hypothesis of lesbian narcissism. I think that underneath it, he raises a good question about a process many of us encounter, and I hope you’ll pop over to his place and leave your thoughts.

5 thoughts on “Sperm Donation: Eugenics or Family Bonding?”

  1. 8thdayplanner

    We choose our donor not on physical characteristics but because he already had two healthy children.

    Strangely the bio-mom and the donor both had brown hair/brown eyes and our two children are blond and red haired and both have blue eyes. So much for the bio-engineering theory.

  2. Because straight people never choose their prospective co-parents based on their looks, looks they hope will pass down to their kids? Lesbians are just more upfront about it, as usual.

    Of course, we chose ours in large part because he was the guy who finally said yes. So, you know, there you go — lesbians can both as choosy and as indiscriminate as straight people! Who knew?! ;)

  3. Considering how much of the info that sperm banks provide about their donors is related to appearance, is it any surprise that people actually use that info to make their choices? And it’s not like straight people usually aspire to choose the ugliest or most dissimilar person they can find to conceive children with.

    I conceived my son as a single parent, and I chose a donor that seemed healthy, intelligent, and with physical characteristics roughly similar to mine, which turned out to be someone with a different ethnic background. Fast forward 13 years, and my now-partner and I find it rather remarkable that the donor I chose is the same ethnic background she is, and in general I couldn’t have chosen a better match to her if I’d tried. So we joke about what my son got from her side of the family. And we like to think it’s one more sign we were meant to be together. :-)

  4. What I didn’t like was that the process can give an illusion of control that you simply don’t — and shouldn’t — have over your child.

    However, we did choose a donor that approximated my (non-bio mom) ethnic background. I can’t say we did it in order to avoid my being read as the nanny — I don’t look like anyone’s possible profile of a childcare professional! But as it turns out, strangers have no trouble reading us as mother and son (or, for the less observant strangers, father and son… :-) ). That superficial similarity probably saves me a little bit of stress every day.

    I have a vague and mixed ethnic identity: ancestors several generations back from England, Sweden, & Germany. But when I was growing up, we did talk about things like where our ancestors lived before they came to America, what their lives might have been like, and how that affects our holiday traditions, family recipes, and so on. Of course, we all ultimately came from Africa, but having some specifics makes the story of that journey more interesting to me.

    So knowing the donor’s national heritage means that we can imagine something about his cultural and genetic heritage as well, if my son ever becomes interested in his genetic ancestors. I also think that what is TMI for me and my partner could be of interest to him, as he grows older.

    What do other folks feel — has your choice of donor been significant to you and your kids, several years down the road? Do you ever go back to that big information packet, or do the kids just not care?

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