So I’ve been getting questions from friends about monogamy and whether or not it renders one visually impaired to other attractive individuals when they’re in a relationship. My answer to that question is often a chuckle. Such question is analogous to one asking if I notice the color blue when purple is really my favorite color. But whether or not blue is for me when it comes onto wardrobe combos, skin tone, etc, is a different story. Similarly, attractive individuals aren’t automatically tucked away in a couple’s blind spot. There are going to be the Angela Bassettes, Suzan-Lori Parks, Nikki Minajs, Kerry Washingtons, and Sanaa Lathans who breeze in and out of our consciousness like yesterday’s wind, sending fleeting shivers to places reserved for the affections of only one. In fact, my partner and I often joke about crushes. How could we not? It’s fun. As long as both of us understand that there is a line that shouldn’t be crossed. And after all, we can’t go on forever playing blind in each other’s presence, especially now that we’ve begun to identify the baby-daddy for our son/daughter where one criterion is looks: dark skin, handsome, lean, and tall (with ample records of a clean mental health track, no jail time, and highly educated, of course). Although there are certain sperm banks that will tell us the physical make-up, history, and IQ of our baby’s father, sometimes it’s nice to sit at a park and identify the handsome chocolate fellow, about 5’8 or taller with thick, healthy dreadlocks down his back, lean with well-defined features that seem prominent even from afar with a camera slung around his neck or a guitar slung over his broad shoulders.
“How would you feel about giving us your sperm, sir? Two cups each.” I’d imagine asking the fellow. “No, no…don’t walk away, Sir. We’re not crazy. We just want to know what our child would be like.”
But of course, even in 2010, two women walking up to a random guy asking him for sperm is not quite the norm. Therefore, most times we leave the scene, imagining the phantom of an unborn child moving between us with bushy dreadlocks.
It doesn’t hurt to dream, right? I remembered when I saw Spike Lee’s movie “She Hates me” in 2002 and felt so repulsed by the concept of lesbians being so desperate for sperm from an eligible bachelor that they were willing to have sex with him and drop ten grand on top of that. But I’ve come to realize that not everyone is willing to go through sperm banks and then the arduous process of In Vitro-fertilization. Not to mention the lengthy process of adoption. In fact, isn’t it easier to just have sex and get it over with? However for me and my partner—unlike unlike the lesbians in Spike Lee’s movie—“the natural way” is certainly not an option, which leaves us with “the expensive way”.
With “the expensive way” we don’t have the luxury of cruising parks, museums, jazz concerts, and art openings with our shopping carts, checking the price tags and stock of the men who we deem baby-daddy-worthy with barcodes that tell their family history, degrees, allergic reactions, mental disposition, and IQ. Even if he agrees to tag along with us to the sperm bank and sign his sperm over to us, it may be more expensive than doing it anonymously. For in exchange for his services, he may want an insane sum of money to pay child support to the other twenty children he probably fathered…for free.
So yes, there is definitely a lot to consider when it comes to identifying eligible baby-daddies. The courting process may be a little rusty and unconventional. Instead of a date, there is an interview. Instead of wine, there is tea (we want to make sure that he is alert while making this decision). Instead of expectations, there is a contract waiving his rights as a parent. Instead of him forking the bill, we write him a check. Instead of a kiss goodbye, we hand him a cup and he hands us best wishes. And there, in the nebulous realm of this selection process and fertilization, begins another journey where we’re destined to meet a rambunctious little dreadlocked stranger, boy or girl, along the way. Only this time, we’ll dare to fall madly in love with this stranger…
Nicole © 2010
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