
Demand for American Sperm Is Skyrocketing in Brazil - jkuria
https://www.wsj.com/articles/in-mixed-race-brazil-sperm-imports-from-u-s-whites-are-booming-1521711000
======
soneca
500 donations a year do not justify that title for me.

~~~
zombieprocesses
500 is low compared to the overall brazilian population, but it is significant
when you consider it is the wealthy brazilians ( a small portion of the
brazilian population ) who are doing this. It's the wealthy elite who drive
society so it is an interesting take on the elite's mindset and can shed a
light on parts of brazilian society/character/ethos/etc.

In the hispanic and the greater spanish colonial world - "white is right" is a
core ethic. It's how the spaniards ( with low numbers ) managed to rule so
much of the native americans, asians, africans, etc for hundreds of years.
It's interesting to know this also played a role in portuguese colonial world
as well.

------
rmsaksida
This happens for a single reason, briefly explained in the article:

> Unlike in the U.S., it is illegal to pay men to donate their sperm here, so
> domestic stocks are low and information about Brazilian donors sparse. “It
> basically says ‘brown eyes, brown hair, likes hamburgers’ and what their
> zodiac sign is—that’s it,” said Alessandra Oliva, 31, of the information
> available on local donors.

In Brazil they make very little information available about the donor - not
enough to reach any conclusions about race. People who go to fertility clinics
in Brazil are usually wealthy, wealthy people in Brazil are usually white, and
people generally want their children to be the same race as themselves. So
those couples look for the closest country where they can get "certifiably
white" sperm for accessible prices, which happens to be the US.

The article makes this look like _black and mixed-race Brazilians are trying
to whiten themselves because of racism_ which is completely incorrect.

~~~
John_KZ
Yeah the article is very misleading, possibly intentionally.

------
drukenemo
As a Brazilian, this is not surprising, as being white in Brazil is socially
advantageous.

However, as a white person, I must correct with _facts_ the erroneous idea
that there are few whites in Brazil. That sentence in the article is mostly
based on the old prejudice that south of the border everyone is the same.

Especially in the southern area (Sao Paolo included), brazilians are mostly
white, with the majority descending from Italians, Portuguese and Germans.
Really, this prejudice is old and should stop in the information era we live
in. Whites make 48% of the Brazilian population.

But of course, many white Americans have Irish, English and German background
which have the lighter of the tones of the white race. I’m not contesting that
these women are after such appearance and that it’s easier to find it from
donors in the US than in Brazil.

~~~
cdnh22
As a Brazilian from Sao Paulo, I used to consider myself white. But now I live
in North America, and I don't think that anymore.

If you think about, many very white people in Brazil get nicknamed "Alemão"
(German), independently of their origins. That's a sign that we are not so
white after all.

~~~
John_KZ
The white/non-white dichotomy is purely an American construct. When they say
"white" they mean "anglo-saxon". In my opinion anglo-saxons are actually red,
not white, but that's a differnt argument.

The rest of the world uses ethnicity/descent to describe skin
colour/appearance.

------
filipe_mp
[https://archive.fo/7tjn1](https://archive.fo/7tjn1)

------
booleandilemma
I didn’t realize this was one of our exports.

~~~
simonh
Instead of raising levies on cheap imports, increasing inflation for
consumers, maybe America should concentrate on this new export opportunity.
Maybe they can do a deal with China?

------
thanatropism
I didn't see this in the comments:

Material from Brazilian sperm banks is fully anonymous and nearly devoid of
data: skin/eye color are provided -- and I think profession too. In contrast,
American sperm banks provide a trainload of information: there are photos,
various indicators of health and intelligence, etc.

It's not even a difference in legislation, it's a difference in the ethical
guidelines of the respective medical associations.

------
UncleEntity
Paywalled but...wonder if they could apply for US citizenship since
technically their father is a USian?

Kind of reminds me of another article I saw a while back about Chinese women
coming to the US to give birth so their children would have the option of
becoming a US citizen if they wanted to later in life. Apparently there's a
big business built around it.

\--edit--

Wow, downvoted for pondering on a simple question...

~~~
vijaybritto
Oh god. Propaganda and misinformation. Two solid factors for the demise of
your country. Factors which have led to the election of a person like Donald
Trump as the president!

~~~
UncleEntity
I know the HuffPost is bad but not that bad...

[https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/01/china-us-birth-
tou...](https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/01/china-us-birth-
tourism_n_7187180.html)

------
heldrida
Violence against women, misogynistic, neurotic homophobic society; the LGBT
against racism and all this...then guess what: demand for blue eyed, white
skin men sperm is skyrocketing. Somethings will never change, it's sad!

------
rjett
This is slightly off topic since the focus of this article is racial
demographics and economic standing in a culture, but it's interesting that
Brazil, a country which has whole heartedly adopted chemical agriculture and
monocropping practices finds themselves in a place where fertility rates per
woman are lower than in the US, which has one of the lowest (and also heavily
relies on chemical ag). As an investigative journalism piece, I think teasing
out the effects of industrial agriculture from other social factors that
contribute to people CHOOSING not to have children and relating that to
fertility rates would be a much more substantive article than looking at sperm
imports where n=500.

------
grondilu
> He sees children as a way to perpetuate his genes and ensure his existence
> beyond death. “It’s an atheist’s way to achieve immortality,” he said.

This desire is futile and I hope it's not really anchored in the atheist
mindset.

~~~
cdnh22
This guy is not achieving immortality. His genes are. His genes are
controlling him to believe in this, but he is only the puppet.

~~~
bradleyjg
Even his genes aren’t, at least not in any meaningful way. The specific
combination of alleles he has dies with him.

------
zawerf
It's paywalled but I wonder if one of the reasons is the Zika virus[1]?

Like if a Brazilian male partner is infected, would they try to find a non-
brazilian(to be safe since it's asymptomatic) sperm donor?

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015%E2%80%9316_Zika_virus_epi...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015%E2%80%9316_Zika_virus_epidemic)

> It was estimated that 1.5 million people were infected by Zika in Brazil,
> with over 3,500 cases of microcephaly reported between October 2015 and
> January 2016.

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zika_virus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zika_virus)

EDIT: I don't care about the karma but I am curious what part of this comment
is attracting the downvotes?

~~~
gtirloni
1) Is there any evidence that makes infected with the Zika vírus will transmit
it to their children?

2) Is there any evidence that males will be infected forever and won't be able
to have children?

3) Poor people don't import US sperm, rich people do. Rich people also are not
the demographic impacted by Zika.

It's mentioned in the article they are doing it for white genes.

~~~
zawerf
I wasn't trying to claim anything, was just throwing an idea out there. To try
to answer some of your questions (not even as an informed layman, just someone
who skimmed a wiki):

1) Yes. The whole scare around zika was that it causes birth defects if the
mother has it (and the mother can get it transmitted sexually from the
father). It was so bad that countries controversially advised all their women
to "delay pregnancy until more is known about the virus and its impact on
fetal development." See
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015%E2%80%9316_Zika_virus_epi...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015%E2%80%9316_Zika_virus_epidemic#Transmission)

2) Seems like it's still being studied since it's such a new disease. At least
for now there's no cure and vaccines are still in the early stages.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015%E2%80%9316_Zika_virus_epi...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015%E2%80%9316_Zika_virus_epidemic#Prevention_and_treatment)

3) Mosquitoes don't care if you're rich or poor (j/k I do get your point). But
if I were a rich person in brazil, I could and would take every possible
preventative measure to avoid problems in a pregnancy.

The white genes argument doesn't make sense to me because they have a pretty
large (like 50%?) local white population. But I guess my zika argument is
pretty ridiculous even if there are tons of paranoid rich folks.

------
smoyer
Over my 35-year career in electronics and software I've been most concerned
that the U.S has almost completely out-sourced it's manufacturing capability
further exacerbating the import/export balance. <sarcasm>It's good to see that
we've found another product category that we're good at producing and that
seems to have demand outside our borders!</sarcasm>

------
mic47
Isn't Brazil in America?

~~~
grzm
_America_ is a commonly-used short form for the United States of America, as
it is in this case. (Edit to add: Actually, it's even more specific than that:
_American_ is the commonly accepted demonym for citizens of the United States,
which is how it's used here.) To refer to the landmasses including North and
South America, the term _the Americas_ is typically used.

~~~
cdnh22
The funny thing about it, is that at the time the name "United States of
America" came to be, "America" was the full continent and the name of the new
nation simply reflected the fact that it was a union of states in that
continent. I think the name "America" for the country got stronger because
people from there were calling them selves "Americans" for a lack of better
demonym.

~~~
bmmayer1
Hard to believe 'United Statesians' didn't get more traction :)

~~~
cdnh22
Actually, in Portuguese and Spanish there is the word "estadounidense" that is
basically "Unitedstatizen". But this is a formal word, used only in books (and
Wikipedia). At least in Brazil, we use "americano" in the day by day for both
someone born in the USA or in the continent (which is still called "America",
no plural).

------
doxanthropos
Strange headline. Last time I looked at a map, Brazil was part of America.
Where else would they look for Sperm? Asia, Europe? (Of course I read along
and even before knew they meant the United Stated, but America is not the
United States.)

