This is guest post by Cristina Richie (Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences).

In 2010 the National Institute of Health [NIH] came under fire for purchasing and distributing pornographic materials to fertility clinics (Associated Press  2010) highlighting an important but often overlooked partnership of pornography and the assisted reproductive technology [ART] business. Reports indicated that about one-third of fertility clinics centers in the U.K. provide pornography to clients. While the tax-payer supported bill for pornography was not incredibly high—an estimated £700 per year (Associated Press  2010)-—one clinic ‘spent more than £7,000 of public money on a media suite and DVD unit’ (Hill 2010) that allowed men to view pornography in a high-tech environment.

Fertility clinics are complicit with the heterosexual pornography business[1] through their provision of explicit materials. The ART industry relies on pornography to obtain sperm from donors, men with infertile female partners, and men with slow sperm motility. This is highly problematic, as heterosexual pornography has been implicated with being antithetical to women’s welfare due to power imbalances.

Catherine MacKinnon ‘argues that pornography- both its economic structure and its cultural images- expresses a power relation in which women are depicted as submissive objects that men desire to dominate. This power relation… draws upon (and helps to construct) real and pervasive power relations between men and women’ (Jones 2000, 90-91). Malicious power dynamics are seen in the form of a dominant man taking control over a woman in hetero-sexed pornography,[2] or in the form of the male gaze (Mulvey 1975) in female homo-sexed pornography. In both cases the viewer/ voyeur has the power and not the women on the screen.

Radical feminists like Andrea Dworkin (1981) ‘use the word violence to describe pornography that would normally be classified as nonviolent… because they define as violent the power relation that they see inscribed in the sex acts pornography represents’ (Bersani 1987, 213). The illusion of power over a woman’s sexuality then translates into relationships that go beyond the fertility clinic where “masturbatoriums,” small rooms with erotic pictures on the walls and flat-screen televisions for watching pornographic movies’ (Smoot 2013) are used. Feminists connect the habitual use of sexually explicit materials to the daily interactions of heterosexual men with women of all sexual orientations. ‘Those who view pornography and use the depicted women for masturbatory purposes begin to see women as objects for purposes of sexual release’ (Morrow 2010, 70). The sperm donor systematically exposes himself to this mindset at the fertility clinic.

In order to ensure quality and quantity, most sperm donors sign a contact agreeing to make ‘donations’ every week for 12 months (New England Cryogenic Center 2014). This socially sanctioned opportunity to regularly engage in heterosexual pornographic consumption is often neglected in the narrative of the fertility clinic that claims to be helping families and women. The connection between pornography and the reproductive technology industry was perhaps most clearly seen in a 1999 Internet hoax involving the ‘sale’ of gametes and the pornographic film industry.

Ron Harris, an adult film director and photographer, ‘purported to sell female ova and male sperm’ on his website www.ronsangels.com. There was widespread outrage over the auctioning aspects of the service (Goldberg 1999). However, the fears over ‘commodification’ were unfounded. The advertisements for ‘supermodel egg donors’ were actually ‘a promotional tool for Ron Harris’ pornographic movie industry’ (Miah and Rich 2008, 47). The publicity was a decoy to draw attention to his ‘real’ work: making pornographic videos and still visual images.

The fact that a pornographic filmmaker decided to market gamete donation instead of anything else [e.g. lingerie or sex toys] makes one question, ‘what is the connection between selling gametes and pornography? Why did Harris think that couples interested in gamete donation would be a target audience for porn films? Why did he think that members of his porn site would be interested in gamete donation?’ The association between ARTs and porn becomes clear by looking at their representative function.

Both the porn industry and sperm retrieval are predicated on metaphorical surrogacy. In both cases a substitute is put in the place of another to produce the ancient link between orgasm and conception. When a man provides a sperm sample at a fertility clinic explicit materials initiate arousal instead of foreplay. This arousal leads to orgasm/ sperm samples through autoeroticism instead of partnered sex. As the sperm donor views the woman on the screen and imagines that he is her sexual partner his orgasm goes into the sample cup instead of the woman.

Once the sperm is retrieved the woman is inseminated. The fertilization catheter is the surrogate for the potent phallus, while the sperm donor is the surrogate for the partner that would impregnate during intercourse. The reproductive cycle that is initiated with sperm donation via pornographic substitution is completed with insemination via a replacement penis. The process of sexual arousal, ejaculation, conception and pregnancy is divided and allocated to many different partners. Men and women are taken and used for what they are ‘good’ at while their ‘deficiencies’ are left behind. This surrogacy and compartmentalization is a concern of feminists who point out that power imbalances and objectification are diseases of heterosexual pornography.

Ron Harris’ ploy to attract pornography users to gamete donation [and vice versa] inadvertently made clear the very problematic connection between the pornography industry and the reproductive technologies industry. Those using reproductive technologies—from single women selecting ejaculatory fathers (Raymond 1993), to couples using donated sperm, to the man who becomes a sperm donor for pay- are all complicit in perpetuating the heterosexual pornography industry and all it entails.

Pornographic viewing at fertility clinics is justified under the excuse that ‘men may benefit from using pornographic materials to provide a semen sample under stressful conditions in a clinic’ (Thornhill 2010). But the social ramifications of heterosexual pornography are overlooked. The use of explicit materials is neither a medical tool, nor are they necessary for masturbation. Furthermore, masturbation is not necessary for obtaining sperm samples. Both surgical sperm collection and electroejaculation techniques can produce semen samples without self-stimulation. So can partnered assistance and sexual intercourse with a condom. The damaging effects of using a form of media that displays power dynamics and encourages the parting out of human beings cannot be endorsed at the expediency of sperm retrieval in fertility clinics.

 
Author Bio: Ms. Richie is an adjunct professor of Health Care Ethics at Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences [MCPHS] in Boston, MA. and has previously taught Bioethics at Tufts University [Medford, MA.]. Her work has been published in over two dozen peer reviewed journals including Journal of Medical Ethics, Clinical Ethics, and the Hastings Center Report.

References

• Associated Press. 2010. “NHS Criticised for Supplying Pornography to IVF Couples.” The Independent U.K., September 08.
• Bersani, Leo. 1987. “Is the Rectum a Grave?” AIDS: Cultural Analysis/Cultural Activism 43:197-222.
• Cook-Deegan, Robert. 2003. “How Decisions are made about Health Research and Health Policy: What Does Sperm Donation Involve?” Stanford in Washington Seminar and Tutorial. Accessed January 08. http://www.stanford.edu/class/siw198q/websites/reprotech/New%20Ways%20of%20Making%20Babies/spermint.htm
• Dworkin, Andrea. 1981. Pornography: Men Possessing Women. New York: Plume.
• Goldberg, Carey. 1999. “On Web, Models Auction Their Eggs to Bidders for Beautiful Children.” The New York Times, October 23.
• Hill, Emma. 2010. “Who said pornography was acceptable in the workplace?” 2020health.org August 9.
• Jones, Serene. 2000. Feminist Theory and Christian Theology: Cartographies of Grace. Fortress Press.
• Miah, Andy and Emma Rich. 2008. The Medicalization of Cyberspace. New York: Routledge.
• Morrow, Maria C. 2010.  “Pornography and Penance.” In Leaving and Coming Home: New Wineskins for Catholic Sexual Ethics, edited by David Cloutier, 62-84. Eugene OR: Wipf & Stock.
• Mulvey, Laura. 1975. “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.” Screen 16 (3): 6-18.
• New England Cryogenic Center, Inc. 2014. “Become a Sperm Donor.” Accessed January 08. http://www.necryogenic.com/become-a-donor.php
• Raymond, Janice. 1993. Women as Wombs. San Francisco: Harper Collins.
• Smoot, John M. 2013. “Why Sperm ‘Donation’ is Bad for Dads and Kids.” The Public Discourse Feb. 27.
• Thornhill, Alan. 2010. “Porn in the NHS: A Matter of Perspective.” BioNews 576, September 20.
• Thornhill, Alan. 2010. “Porn in the NHS: A Matter of Perspective.” BioNews 576, September 20.

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[1] My concern here is only pornography that is made for and viewed by straight men since this article is predicated on power imbalances between the sexes. Although reports do not indicate what genre of pornography is stocked by fertility clinics, in many cases sperm will not be collected by a man who has had sex with other men. I therefore assume that most, if not all, pornography at fertility clinics is ‘heterosexual’ (Cook-Deegan 2003).

[2] I use the terms ‘hetero-sexed’ and ‘homo-sexed’ to more accurately describe the complex connection between sex-for-pay and sexual orientation. It is not the case that all women or men working in the pornography industry are acting in accordance with their sexual orientation. That is, a heterosexual woman might engage in intercourse or sexual play with another woman in a pornographic film or magazine. The act is ‘homo-sexed’; the women are not necessarily homosexual.