Steady on, chaps. We are not all after your sperm
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Version 0 of 1. The National Sperm Bank has only signed up nine donors since it opened last year. Those in charge think that men have been put off by the change in law in 2005, which no longer grants donors anonymity. Now the bank is thinking of appealing to British men as “supermen” saviours of national fertility, because a similar approach worked in Denmark. The lack of numbers isn’t surprising – sperm donation went from ejaculation without consequences to ejaculation with immense far-reaching consequences. Aren’t men completely within their rights not to want to sign up to this potentially complicated (at best) scenario? Nor am I convinced that the solution is to flatter men that their sperm is a precious commodity that women are desperate to get their, ahem, hands on. Aren’t there far too many men who think this way already? It’s called sperm entrapment paranoia – the belief that there are hordes of women out to “steal” their sperm, either by “forgetting” pills, sabotaging contraception or sneaking off to bathrooms with used condoms to impregnate themselves. While this sort of thing must happen (in this world, every kind of “crazy” occasionally happens), would it be in such numbers that ongoing widespread sperm entrapment paranoia is justified? When I looked for statistics, I ended up falling down an online rabbit hole, mainly comprising gossip, conjecture (women in their late-30s/early-40s, whose fertility is waning, are the most “dangerous ” apparently) and fathers complaining about maintenance payments for children they felt “tricked” into having. What do men think women gain from sperm theft? Saying: “The baby, stupid” doesn’t adequately cover it. It’s not as though it’s the “olden days” when men were pressured to marry women they impregnated. And while it would be wrong for a woman to dupe a man into fatherhood, it looks far from ideal for her too. These days, a sperm burglar could look forward to denials and accusations – perhaps a self-esteem-raising paternity test on The Jeremy Kyle Show (if you wish to be facetious). It could mean tough single parenthood and all those disheartening statistics about insufficient/nonexistent maintenance payments. Even within a proper relationship, there would be childcare issues, interrupted career paths and all the other ways in which children deeply, irreversibly affect a woman’s life, including many wonderful ways – after all, it’s the miracle of life. Perhaps that’s what really grates. Most would say that having a child is the biggest thing you could ever do, but apparently we must accept that there are innumerable women out there who are insane, scheming and nasty enough to start it with a huge, unforgivable lie. In 2015, are we still at the point where even a genuine unplanned pregnancy, the traditional “mistake”, becomes a squalid hotbed of suspicion? With men (and some women too) intent on stoking paranoia about large-scale sperm theft, a fallacy, part anachronism, part misogyny, now so firmly rooted in the male British psyche, there seems no hope of budging it. Well, it’s long overdue for a budging, not least because it’s incredibly insulting to women, most of whom are not insane, scheming or nasty. A while ago, when the male pill was mooted yet again, I wondered if one effect would be that men could finally understand what it feels like to be fully and solely blamed for unexpected pregnancy. I’d now add that it might be a good mental exercise to reverse the sexes – have men imagine the sheer weirdness and offence of being incessantly accused of scheming to get women pregnant (“ovum theft”?) – and at last understand that most women feel just as confused and offended about sperm theft. As it is, the National Sperm Bank could be mistaken about applying Danish strategies here. British men don’t seem to need to be worked up any further about their sperm being coveted. If anything, they need to calm down. Too fat? Too thin? Self-important? Give a girl a break Cheryl Fernandez-Versini thinks that “body-shaming” should be made illegal. She says that she’s speaking up for ordinary people who have to deal with constant carping about everyone being too fat or too thin. Now Cheryl has been criticised for being self-important. Why? She has as much right as anyone else to comment. Recently, she’s been loudly criticised for being too skinny (cue wonderful faux-concerned phrase “worryingly thin”). In the past, she was castigated for being “too big” (such as when she was briefly on the US X Factor). So Cole has been body-shamed both ways, indeed pronounced on in all ways, unless a new form comes in with people described as “the perfect healthy weight!”. All the body-shaming aimed at Fernandez-Versini has occurred in the full media glare, which few would deny looks intense, so why are her views instantly discredited? Her comments probably won’t change anything (right now, body-shaming is one of those runaway juggernaut issues that can’t be stopped) but it’s still worthwhile that she tried. Celebrity hubris is one thing, but what makes someone like Fernandez-Versini’s opinions and experiences less valid than anyone else’s? A toast to drinkers – and compassion New figures say that, contrary to popular belief, drinkers are not a burden on the nation. The tax on alcohol subsidises non-drinkers by up to £6.5bn, according to a report from the Institute of Economic Affairs, using crime, health and drinking data. The author of the report, Christopher Snowdon, says: “Drinkers are taxpayers and they pay billions of pounds more than they cost the NHS, police service and welfare system combined.” Even as someone who’s had to largely hang up their drinking boots, and who, these days, sips gingerly at (gosh!) two glasses at wine as though I were embarking on a wild night out with Shane MacGowan and Hunter S Thompson, this is cheering news. If nothing else, it could help put a stop to people whining piously about alcoholics not deserving help, medical or otherwise, because they’ve brought misfortune upon themselves. Whatever help alcoholics may need, it appears they have pre-paid for it and with money left over for all the teetotallers who despise them. Still, something about this remains disquieting. It can’t be that the extra money people have paid on alcohol tax is the sole reason to justify helping them should they become ill. This could turn into a way, for instance, of ringfencing alcoholics who buy their own drinks, morally separating them from those on benefits, “who have the state buying their booze for them”. This strays dangerously into the territory of means-tested compassion and the concept of “deserving” and “undeserving” alcoholics. These new figures are welcome, interesting and useful, but do we really need to know that someone’s plight is economically justified and viable before we can find it within ourselves to feel sympathy? To my mind, compassion should be forthcoming as one human to another – not because someone has “paid their way”. |