
In the Spermworld “Donating sperm helps in raising my ego, I think it is because it offers feelings of being wanted, and needed. I feel like I am worth something to someone else,” says Stefan, one of the subjects of Spermworld, the new FX on Hulu documentary about unregulated baby-making and the immense demand that has led to such parents pursuing non-conventional means of conception. Located in a former New York Times Jelly Building, Lance Oppenheim spent too much time in the bizarre realm of The Villages of Florida where residents tell bizarre stories about their mundane lives. It’s a great example of what Oppenheim’s films are about, knowing how engaging without a voice-over can be and knowing that their subjects always have interesting stories worth sharing. Stylishly saturated images that Oppenheim is known for carry a lot of weight to the narration as well, speaking of which Oppenheim put the hammer down with his next upcoming project. Oppenheim was sucked into the realm of numerous sperm donations through a former New York Times journalist Nellie Bowles, who happened to be searching for one looking for a donor. With recollections, Oppenheim notes: “She was dating a woman and they were searching for options and were quite unsatisfied by what they were finding in sperm banks”.
As a result of her quest, the article “The Sperm Kings Have a Problem: Too Much Demand” was published with great assistance from her co-writer Bowles, who also figured that there was a documentary in this fast-evolving practice as well.
Many women wanting to conceive without going to sperm banks discovered they could reach out to other women through Facebook to help with insemination, ‘donors’ were more than willing to go on this spur-of-the-moment! As Nagel recalls after striking filmings about the New York Times documentary, Obsession, “I was captivated by the reality that there are people on Instagram and Facebook who develop the need to show themselves.”
Several people describe it as a moral endeavor similar to blood donation. Others, like Ari Nagel, one of the film’s protagonists, think it is exhilarating to have numerous children all over the world. Some do it just for pleasure – whether it’s through sex or insemination, as shown in the film’s opening scene.
One of the attractions is that, unlike traditional sperm banks, there is some interaction between the potential mothers and the sperm donor in this case and the legal requirements are very few. “They’re total strangers there’s no blueprint for how these people should be interacting with each other outside of the regulated sperm donation space,” Oppenheim explains further. He then wondered: “What are these tender and kind of awkward moments that I’m witnessing on the internet? How do they occur in the physical world, and how can I be present there to shoot them?”
The story generally revolves around three donors. There were also some prospective moms who allowed Oppenheim to film them: Nagel the teacher, who tries to visit children he sired but hardly knows and wishes to stay somehow in their lives even though his mother disapproves; Stefan, a recently divorced man hoping to get closer to the mothers of his children, like Rachel, a young girl whose life is shattered by cystic fibrosis; and Tyree who is fond of helping people but his wife is having trouble getting pregnant.
The more private aspects of their lives include children learning to cope with a donor who only shows up periodically, strained donation appointments at motels in the suburbs, and seeing the heart-wrenching grief of women who remain childless. There were plenty of situations that aren’t in the film out of respect to the participants that were a little too painful, and a little too vulnerable to the circumstances but according to Oppenheim he had to stop shooting at times because too many things became too personal: “I’ve had to stop shooting in the past when it became too personal”
For the women, they are in it to win a baby. But what pushes these men, what motivates these men? “They’re looking for something maybe bigger than themselves. They’re looking to cement a sense of legacy, a sense of purpose,” Oppenheim thinks. “A lot of the people in the film are at different stages in their lives, in a moment of crisis trying to understand why they are where they are or their lives are not as they ever hoped they would be. I think that kind of existential question is the thing that is at the heart of all the other moments in the film”
The author concurs that some of the ‘sperm kings’ are receiving a modicum of erotic satisfaction. “It’s not all sexual violence, I’m not saying but there is erotic experience in some of it,”
In the end, he believes it’s the question of, “How do we create families, how do we choose families, what does family even look like?” In the same way, there are other types of families, such as informal donations that are not as strict to the regulations that surround typical sperm banks, there are also legal complications that exist with these informal donations.
Oppenheim states, “There’s no signing contracts or exchanging documents.” For instance, in some regions, if the mother no longer cares for her child and the father has custody of the child, it goes back to him. He explains that contracts or documents are hardly signed. “That is not a very enforceable type of situation,” he says.
Nagel is said to be the father of no less than 138 children, yet the movie does not make a verdict as to whether it has any ethical or genetic consequences. On-screen, however, Nagel’s aging mother makes headlines as she expresses her strong discontent with the matter. “One aspect of my work as a filmmaker is I do try to not make any sense of somebody’s starring at all. He is very pleasant, and I find it so difficult to feel in many aspects,” explains Oppenheim.
‘Nagel’s life choices may evoke strong feelings in a lot of people,’ Oppenheim notes. ‘But the interesting thing about him is that I think his heart is in the right place, even if his head is in another place.’
But what is the thread that Oppenheim’s revealing documentaries? ‘I am curious about these sorts of unorthodox setups,’ he explains. ‘Be it The Villages retirement community in Florida or Sperm Bank, which is about the desire to have a family. The subject of ‘Ren Faire’ then it’s a different question, but it is really about power, being close to power meanwhile looking for that which ought to be the bedrock of the fantasy the feeling of hopeless inadequacy or isolation.’
Oppenheim imagines that his style of making documentaries has the potential to be a segue to a narrative film. ‘I want the real people portrayed in the films to tell their stories themselves it’s not much different from watching a fiction feature.’ He indeed confirms, that he is looking forward to the narrative composition, which he has been working on and about which he would like to begin very soon.
In filming documentaries, ‘sometimes it feels as though I’m performing with actors because I allow them to participate in the making of the film,’ he explains. ‘So perhaps switching from one space to another won’t seem so intimidating,’ he continues.
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