The Soapboxx

At the tail end of 2006, the media had a bit of a hullabaloo when Paul Hunter’s widow revealed that she had a supply of the late snooker star’s sperm on hold in her freezer. This followed a timely and rather urgent NHS appeal for more donors to come forward, following a chance in the law – the country, you see, has a massive shortage. And when you delve into it a little deeper, it’s fairly easy to see why.

Let’s get this out of the way right here at the very beginning: I have never donated my sperm, and in all likelihood, I never will. With three kids, I've done my part to further exhaust the planet's supplies. Besides, when I mentioned it to my wife a while ago, she went, as I believe the kids are saying, ‘mental’. It didn’t help that I suggested it could be ‘nice little earner’. And this was before this new legalisation came into power.

The thing is, giving sperm is really very simple. It literally is like you’ve seen on the telly. You literally do go into a room where you’ll be presented with a cup and some pornographic literature. The door is closed behind you and away you go. Sure, it’s a bit tricky to perform under this harsh environment – and yes, that constant whirring is a camera connected to the Internet, or possibly Who’s Been Framed? – but it’s pretty basic, carnal stuff.

Once an applicant is successfully screened (one imagines for disease and any blood history that possibly connects you to the Royal family), they are allowed to submit up to ten servings, for which they will receive the princely sum of £250. Or, more precisely, twenty-five pounds a throw. In the United States, a donor receives between $200 and $3,000 per vial unit of semen – which is around 0.7ml. A return ticket to New York with Virgin costs around £299. You really could be making money hand over fist.

The thing is, dear reader, I’m willing to make a bet that you’ve never donated sperm, either. Nor, is my hunch telling me, do you know of anybody who has. There are two reasons for this: one, because it's not something that comes up at the dinner table ("I had a great wank yesterday; don't worry, it was for a good cause.") and two, with the recent change in legislation which has eliminated donor anonymity – the child, at 18, now has the legal right to be told of their father's details – I don't see it getting any better any time soon. And either does the NHS – hence the outcry.

An estimated 7,000 patients receive treatment with donated eggs and sperm, known as gametes, every year and, as a result, 2,000 children are born. Around 500 sperm donors and 1,500 egg donors are needed each year. This is just in the United Kingdom, and recent figures estimate that the total amount of registered sperm donors in the UK has dropped to just 169. So, that’s East Finchley sorted, then.

What sounded like a good idea on paper might have actually turned out to be a total disaster. The thing is, does the good outweigh the bad?

The problem, of course, is donating one's love-juice anonymously is something that I think a lot of men probably wouldn't have an enormous problem with. That's not to say that all would willingly hand it over, but let's face it - under current legislation you have to make two big decisions. One, to actually go down there and do it in the first place, and two, that you're actually willing to be somebody's father.

Because that's exactly what has happened as a result of this change in the law. While the new legislation also prevents the 'father' from being in any way financially responsible for the child, when your kid shows up at your door at eighteen years of age, how exactly are you supposed to deal with that?

"Well, nice to meet you. Now, let me go and explain this all to the wife and my other four, 'real' kids..."

It's a potential disaster, isn't it? At least before you could rest in the knowledge that you'd done a good deed (and got a cheeky bit of me-time out of it with a foxy nurse eagerly awaiting the results) but it all ended there, with the last drop in the cup. Now... well, it's basically the same for eighteen years, and then you're toast. Like a ticking bomb.

On paper, of course, this benefits the child, and perhaps that's the important thing. But, ironically, as a result of the change, there's going to be a lot less of them out there. Children, that is. And fathers.

But, I’ve come up with a solution.

I know! Shocking, isn’t it? Me, a lowly prole, has seen the light at the end of the tunnel that all the doctors and nurses and whoever else is looking anxious at NHS, Inc. have quite clearly missed.

It's so simple but such genius that, dare I say it, kills two of society's problems with one stone.

Hookers.

That's the solution: your common or garden prostitute.

Instead of paying men to donate their sperm, pay our esteemed ladies of the night the same money to, ahem, work it out of them. I tell you now, for a fact, that if the NHS announced "Come down and give sperm and you'll get a free blow-job out of it" by mid-afternoon today they'd have to board-up all of the clinics because the places would be inundated with a throng of sixth-formers and 50-year old widowers in about half an hour flat.

There's two possibilities, neither of which are particularly crude-free so prepare yourself. One, either the prostitute takes the 'catch' and then spits it into a waiting cup, or, if that's not medically sound (and I can’t imagine why not), the man simply agrees to do the male standard "I'm coming, I'm coming", probably while tapping her repeatedly on the head, and, forewarned, she does a quick release and manoeuvres his output into the appropriate receptacle.

And if a blow-job at £20-25 isn't a reasonable trade for the working girl then a hand job would have exactly the same effect too.

This way, not only do we keep a lot of working ladies off the streets and in the protective arm of the NHS, but you'll get a guaranteed boom in sperm availability, too.

You know I'm right on this. I wonder if it’s enough to bring the wife around?

posted by Sheamus  @ 2:29 PM    0 comments