Shopping for Sperm: Nobel Prizes Wanted

“The Genius Factory,” the first book by David A. Plotz ’92, is probably the best lay-audience book about sperm ever written. It’s hardly a generic discussion of the male gamete, though, because—well, not all sperm make the cut.

The volume centers instead on the Society for Germinal Choice, nicknamed the Nobel Prize Sperm Bank by reporters, which eccentric millionaire Robert Graham founded in 1980 and bankrolled thanks to his patent on shatterproof eyeglasses.

He considered it his way of fighting against the degradation of American society: he would collect the sperm of Nobel Prize winners, America’s best and brightest, and match them with intelligent women who need sperm. But the Nobel sperm was few and far between, forcing Graham to become less and less choosy about his donors and to give his clients choice in sperm.

Plotz, who is also a Crimson editor, was reminded of this kooky experiment soon after its founder’s death led to its closing. He remembered that the original articles had interested him as a child. He began to investigate the institution in a series of articles for the online magazine Slate, where he is deputy editor.

Almost as soon as he began, people began contacting him about their experiences; Plotz became a part of their search for families. Finally, a benevolent sperm donor, code-named Donor White by the Sperm Bank, contacted Plotz about an article he had written. With Plotz’s help, White, assisted by a birthmother whom Plotz nicknamed Beth, began a grandfatherly relationship with one of the children born from his sperm.

Plotz dug in deeper and found more families, eventually talking to 30 of the 215 kids born with sperm from the Sperm Bank. His narrative blends the stories of these children with the history of the bank itself, eugenics, and sperm banking in general, as well as an analysis of all the people involved.

The Crimson talked to Plotz about whether any of these kids were geniuses and why; whether or not Harvard students should donate sperm; his conclusions about Graham, the Nobel Prize Sperm Bank founder; and whether his subjects liked his book.

THC: How would you characterize a good sperm donor?

DAP: Tall and willing, clean health history, free of genetic disease, nice as possible, smart as possible, as good looking as possible and a high sperm count.

THC: What is the attraction of donating sperm?

DAP: There are four main attractions, which are all related, but the power of each depends on who you are and what state of life you are at.

The key attraction for people of [college age] is making money for something you do anyway—and there doesn’t seem to be any consequences. As the slogan says, “Why not get paid for it?”

The second attraction is altruistic. After having children and starting their own families, or not being able to have children with their wives, donors understand the importance of having children and want to pass that gift on to others.

The third attraction is egomania, even though many in this group say they are doing it for altruistic reasons.

The fourth attraction, which is certainly related to the others, is that you are seduced into this. You’re wanted and you get the perception that you’re special. Particularly in the case of the Nobel Prize Sperm Bank, but the same is true at any sperm bank. You’re healthy enough, you’re smart enough, you have a high sperm count. Part of the lesson I got from—when I was able to qualify and was actually considering it, even though I had completely dismissed it before the examination—is that there is a strong element of raw male ego within the process.

THC: Did the Nobel Prize Sperm Bank produce any geniuses?

I don’t know all the kids. I only talked to 30 of them and it is not a random study; these are just the families who got in touch with me. As a group they’re certainly above average.

There are some who are below average students; there are some with health problems. And there are some who are quite extraordinary: there is the smartest teenager I think I’ve ever met, a wonderful opera singer, and great athletes among them.

I don’t think it has anything to do with the sperm they got. First, the donors didn’t turn out to be the great men of the age. The incredibly smart kid came from Donor Corals’ [one of the less accomplished donors] sperm. In many ways, it is a tribute to nurture. Considering that these are the women who would seek out a place called the Nobel Prize Sperm Bank, it’s no surprise they have turned out accomplished. These are exceptionally attentive mothers in prosperous homes pushing their children to fully cultivate their talents.

THC: What do you think these mothers were looking for when they used the Nobel Prize Sperm Bank?

DAP: They were not looking for Nobel Prize winners. Although Graham wasn’t able to recruit very many Nobel Prize Winners, there wasn’t actually that much demand for super brainiacs. The women wanted to know the heights of the donors, if they had musical abilities, and their family health history. Brains were only one of the characteristics they valued. Although he was forced to recruit other donors because of a lack of supply, Graham was a businessman and quickly realized that having other kinds of donors was a good marketing move. The biggest attraction of the Nobel Prize Sperm Bank was the sense of choice.

You have to remember that this was the early ’80s. If you needed sperm, most doctors aren’t going to give you any choice and most sperm banks are not going to give you any choice. Often, doctors would just use the nearest able bodied medical student and you were lucky if characteristics like eye color and hair color matched.

Graham introduced the idea that you could shop for sperm, which you really couldn’t do before. His innovation played a big role in creating the consumer economy of fertility. He forced the other sperm banks to take the things the Nobel Prize Sperm Bank had done well and do them even better and without the weird philosophy behind it.

THC: Did anyone else contact you as a result of the publicity from the book? What were some of the reactions of the people you wrote about? Have you talked to them about the content?

DAP: I have heard from several new donors and children, including some whom I have since introduced to each other. The subjects of the book have all responded, except for a couple, including Michael the Nobelist’s Son. They all like it, and think it tells their stories truly. Even folks who I thought might not be so happy about it like it.

THC: What were your final feelings on Robert Graham as a man?

DAP: He’s an enthralling character. He made a profound improvement in American life by inventing shatterproof lenses—a genuinely huge advance. And he was motivated by essentially noble, and relatively harmless, goals. But he suffered from the problem of hyper-rationalists everywhere—the belief that the world would work perfectly if only smart people like me were allowed to control it and keep the morons in line.

He was deaf to human emotion and human frailty, which may be why he was not such a great father to his own kids.

THC: Why should Harvard students be interested in this book?

DAP: Most Harvard students come from families with expectations and this is very much a book about what it is like to grow up with expectations, particularly genetic expectations.

Additionally, these children are messengers from the future in terms of [choosing genetic material] and it is very much an open question about whether this is a benefit for them. And as you guys are going to grapple with fertility questions and expectations, the choices are going to be very tough. The Nobel Prize Sperm Bank is sort of a beta version of the choices kids now in college will make when it comes time to consider their own fertility and families.

THC: Is eugenics dead?

DAP: Eugenics has transformed from the pubic enterprise it had been during the first half of the century to a private enterprise controlled by the self-interest of parents.

THC: What do you think of the movement to make the names of donors available to the children of their sperm at age 18?

DAP: I think registration of sperm donors is probably the right idea. It will cause a huge reduction in the amount of people who are willing to be sperm donors, which is the downside. But these kids are a party to contracts between the parents and the sperm bank that have not allowed them to make these decisions. We live in a genetic age, and the current situation is not fair to children who want to know who their genetic parents, so I think registry is probably a good idea.

—Staff writer Scoop A. Wasserstein can be reached at wasserst@fas.harvard.edu.