Oh, baby, that's a good business to be in

Liquidating your assets is big business these days. The international sperm bank market was valued at $5bn (R92bn)  in 2020 and was projected to grow at a healthy annual rate of 3.56%. That kind of rapid growth is a turn on to any capitalist, a classic supply and demand situation. In actual fact, there's such a high demand that there isn’t enough sperm to go around. In the US, a country of 360-million people, there are only 1,200 registered sperm donors. There's a bidding war going on for the best swimmers in town. 

Obviously people could indulge in more traditional methods of insemination, ones that have been used successfully for generations to perpetuate our precious genetic material. But, as we know, sex is now less popular with the younger generations. According to research they prefer gaming and posing for posterity (and likes) to the actual connecting in flesh and blood, the real life bump and grind necessary for old school procreation. Plus, birth rates are tanking the world over. Nobody, it appears, really wants to make too many babies in today's world.

But, if you happen to be in possession of the requisite tools and resources — like a phone and wi-fi — now is the time to make a little light onanism work for you. The returns are spectacular. If you have a master’s degree, a job at an investment bank and the looks of a silver screen Lothario, your paper cup deposit could be worth $20,000 a shot. Not bad for a few minutes of self-gratification. 

But bear in mind that some liquid assets are more prized than others. American sperm is apparently the most sought after, and not because you can use it to claim your birthright citizenship — The Don has made sure of that (although I imagine that if you track your sperm daddy through 23andMe or some other DNA registry service and you manage to convince your donor to acknowledge his paternity, you might be able to make a good case for yourself at the border). No, the main reason American sperm is premium is because the Americans, by law, vet the sperm for communicable diseases.

There are some downsides to American sperm. In the US “spermdustry” there are no restrictions on how many families one super donor can bless. Therefore, it's not unusual for some sperm donors to discover they've parented more than 150 babies over the years since their first deposit. Their super sperm is creating family networks that rival Adam’s. In many countries they curb this enthusiasm for spreading the seed far and wide. Ten children bearing your genetic material is considered enough, particularly if you don’t want to run into the breeding issues faced by members of the European royal families. Things like ever receding Habsburg chins and the blight of haemophilia brought on by marrying your first cousin far too frequently up and down the family tree can damn your clan forever and result in very unfortunate family portraits.

There's always the Elon Musk route. He's a willing super sperm donor to an ever increasing number of children with an infinitely short supply of letters at the end of the alphabet to differentiate them from each other. Another child cropped up just last week. Musk is certainly a hero for our times. A man willing to stand up and do his duty for humanity. Give him half a chance and enough stimulants and he'll single-handedly repopulate the planet and further afield too, and he's happy to do it for free. I don’t know what a sperm deposit from the world’s richest donor is worth, but I can tell you this for nothing — the ladies are lining up to be covered by the Doge Stallion.

I know Elon has denied this but, personally, I believe that prize one for the Mars colony master plan would be Elon as the pater familias of a whole new humanoid population bred from his own super sperm. When you realise that  billions of people today still have Neanderthal genetic material colonising between 1 and 2 percent of  their DNA, you'll promptly come to understand the inherent power of a few hundred ancestors - never mind one Uber ancestor. The fact that humanity, in its present form, evolved from a teeny tiny number of humans about 15000 years ago that probably started with one original progenitor - the OG of sperm donors - could inspire anyone.

Imagine, you could be the original Elon, and tell me you wouldn't happily volunteer your little swimmers for the bigger picture? Now that’s  what I call investing in our collective future.