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Don’t Bank on Sperm

Lauren

This clever commercial for the Oslo Gay Festival spoofs some silly ideas people push about sperm, that sperm is goal-oriented, sentient, and, yes, sacred.

Lisa at Sociological Images has some issues with the commercial, but our disagreement is whether or not this subverts or promotes the narrative of sentient sperm and all the baggage — the pseudo-science that relies on gendered athropomorphization of the active sperm and passive egg, for example, which isn’t true at all — that goes with it.

The good part, as Lisa says, “It also occurred to me that, in that this commercial celebrates the infertile sex act, we’ve come a long way from the Christian ethic against wasting your seed.” Indeed.

12 thoughts on Don’t Bank on Sperm

  2. Come on, microbiologychick. It’s most likely a married, monogamous couple. They don’t need condoms. It’s heteros that need condoms even if they’re monogamous.
    I found the spot hilarious, and your reference to the nonpassivity of the egg very, very interesting.

  3. I think a more responsible commercial would show sperm struggling against a latex barrier.

    My husband’s first comment was “Do they mean to promote barebacking?”

  4. My husband’s first comment was “Do they mean to promote barebacking?”

    I figure this could be larynx or intestinal tract, but either way…

  7. I thought this ad was hiliarious the first time I saw it, but also had the thought about barebacking. I clearly read it as a parody of the whole “struggling goal-oriented sperm” idea though, mostly because of the ridiculous “epic” music at the beginning, and how the epic journey fades out and then turns into club music. Joke’s on you, inappropriately anthropomorphized sperm!

  8. I thought the commercial was hilarious when I saw it a few years back. The fact that it seems to involve unsafe sex doesn’t really bother me. Its an ad for a gay festival; I’d be willing to wager that virtually everyone in attendance has heard what they need to about safe sex practices and that the vast majority will be adults capable of making reasoning decisions about their own actions in regards to their own assessment of risks and rewards. Not everything needs to be a PSA.

  9. It’s an event (like, I don’t know, music festivals aimed at young heterosexuals) where we can fairly assume that a significant number of people had sex with people they did not know well. Several commentators from the European gay community saw this ad as controversial on the safe-sex front in 2005; I don’t think those concerns should be dismissed.

    On every other front, this thing is hilarious, and I still would kill to find an .mp3 of that song for sale somewhere.

  11. When I watched this I didn’t immediately think of barebacking at all. It’s just a comedic narrative, not an anti-condom ad. Besides, it’s hilarious.

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