flashquake Nonfiction

Wanking for Dollars
by Adam Eisenstat

Back when I was a performance artist in the East Village, in my hardcore bohemian days, work was sometimes scarce, so I had to resort to drastic measures. During the recession I went on welfare for a few months. It was a savage glimpse of the underclass and the most demeaning experience of my life. I even tried my hand as a sperm donor. I had seen an ad for a fertility clinic that was accepting new donors and it seemed like easy work for which I was certainly qualified.

To become eligible, I first had to get a physical and fill out a probing questionnaire about my sex life: "Do your sexual preferences include anal insertive ejaculation or insertive ejaculation with animals (bestiality)?" Then I had to submit to a relentless grilling by an aggressive female Russian doctor. In rapid succession she asked me dozens of pointed questions about my health, family medical history, and more about what sort of bodily fluids I was exchanging with what sort of people.

I was accepted as a donor and whenever I came to the clinic to donate, they would give me a plastic cup with my identification number taped on it and a stack of well-thumbed porno magazines in black binders. Then I would go into one of two small rooms ("Room A" or "Room B"), each with a couple comfortable chairs and a small table upon which sat a box of tissues, and do my job. It become part of my routine — I usually went the maximum two times a week, and got a check at the end of each month. I was siring dozens of children anonymously, a one-man fertile crescent of jizz. When I applied, I had to sign a form that stated:

"I understand and agree that the identity of the recipient shall never be disclosed to me and I agree never to seek this knowledge from the laboratory or anyone else ... I waive any and all rights I might have to any child that might result from use of my sperm."

I couldn't imagine caring much about my spawn in that context, I was just wanking for dollars. But I was glad to be a part the fertility industry, even heartened a little by the possibility that I could make some woman a happy mother or bring a family together just by jacking off to pornography.

Some days, at the height of my poverty and indolence, giving sperm was the only productive thing I did. Sometimes when I got outside of the clinic, on Madison Avenue near Central Park, I would feel dazed and oddly drained — not just of semen, or life force if you will, but dignity. Here I was, at the commercial pinnacle of the Western world, staring blankly at a motorized Big Wheel in the window of FAO Schwartz with half an erection pressing against my pants after masturbating into a cup for $50. Haughty matrons, pinstriped players on cell phones, and voluptuous Eurotrash scurrying to boutiques would brush by me and I wondered whether they could sense my debasement.

Copyright 2002 by Adam Eisenstat

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