Sperm Counts: Overcome by Man’s Most Precious Fluid
By addebook • Jun 24th, 2008 • Category: Biology •
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Sperm Counts: Overcome by Man’s Most Precious Fluid
Sperm Counts: Overcome by Man’s Most Precious Fluid
By Lisa Moore
Publisher: NYU Press
Number Of Pages: 256
Publication Date: 2007-07-01
ISBN-10 / ASIN: 0814757189
ISBN-13 / EAN: 9780814757185
Binding: Hardcover
A clever yet comprehensive look at the substance of manhood. Moore goes where few scholars dare to tread, and uses bodily fluids as a revealing window through which to observe the current nature of sexuality and gender relations.
—Michael S. Kimmel, author of Manhood in America: A Cultural Study
“In this intriguing feminist sociological account of sperm, Moore takes a subject we think we knew all about and proceeds to examine the multi-dimensional facets of its cultural subtexts. What is so unusual about this provocative book is the way Moore meshes history, technology, medicine, criminology, gender studies, children’s books, and porn in her depiction of sperm as a manifestation of masculinity. Sperm Counts is witty, erudite, and informative— a gem of social constructionist scholarship.”
—Judith Lorber, author of Paradoxes of Gender and Breaking the Bowls
Moore has crafted a smart and surprisingly funny book about semen. Original and refreshing, Sperm Counts follows the little guys through laboratories, childrens books, sex work, crime scenes, and bodies, illuminating varied meanings and representations of manhood and masculinity. This is engaged feminist scholarship at its best.
—Monica J. Casper, author of The Making of the Unborn Patient: A Social Anatomy of Fetal Surgery
It has been called sperm, semen, seed, cum, jizz, spunk, gentlemen’s relish, and splooge. But however the “tacky, opaque liquid that comes out of the penis” is described, the very act of defining “sperm” and “semen” depends on your point of view. For Lisa Jean Moore, how sperm comes to be known is based on who defines it (a scientist vs. a defense witness, for example), under what social circumstances it is found (a doctor’s office vs. a crime scene), and for what purposes it will be used (in vitro fertilization vs. DNA analysis). Examining semen historically, medically, and culturally, Sperm Counts is a penetrating exploration of its meaning and power.
Using a “follow that sperm” approach, Moore shows how representations of sperm and semen are always in flux, tracing their twisting journeys from male reproductive glands to headline news stories and presidential impeachment trials. Much like the fluid of semen itself can leak onto fabrics and into bodies, its meanings seep into our consciousness over time. Moore’s analytic lens yields intriguing observations of how sperm is “spent” and “reabsorbed” as it spurts, swims, and careens through penises, vaginas, test tubes, labs, families, cultures, and politics.
Drawn from fifteen years of research, Sperm Counts examines historical and scientific documents, children’s “facts of life” books, pornography, the Internet, forensic transcripts and sex worker narratives to explain how semen got so complicated. Among other things, understanding how we produce, represent, deploy and institutionalize semen-biomedically, socially and culturally-provides valuable new perspectives on the changing social position of men and the evolving meanings of masculinity. Ultimately, as Moore reveals, sperm is intimately involved in not only the physical reproduction of males and females, but in how we come to understand ourselves as men and women.
Summary: Interesting, rare, and revealing examination
Rating: 5
Do NOT listen to the reviewer below me. The author interviewed countless individuals, and looks at a background that revolves arond sperm. She addresses how sperm has been used, how sperm has shaped male self-identity, and how the use of sperm without a man (either in-vitro, or among lesbians) is shaping new identitys of families. The man below clearly has a scewed perspective, and a biased agenda to push, as the book in no way reflected what he wrote. Did he even read the book? I highly doubt it, and if he did, his biases stood in the way of him understanding it.
The book would not be difficult to understand to the majority of “lay” people, and that is what the author intended. Revealing and informational.
Summary: Groundbreaking
Rating: 5
Sperm Counts offers a wide variety of data on how social policy and pop culture view “man’s most precious fluid.” Lisa Jean Moore’s education and job experience makes her an expert on this subject matter.
This book should serve as a required text for any 101 gender study course in academia. There is a lot of valuable information to digest but Moore’s writing style allows the book to flow very easily.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
Summary: Skewed
Rating: 2
The author, while dubbing sperm man’s most precious fluid, seems to have little use for men themselves. In fact, she seems to look forward to the day when there will be no further use for them. I suspect she would be quite content were gallons of semen put into storage, thereby assuring future generations while dispensing with the need for men completely. Her experience working at sperm banks seems to have skewed her point of view so totally that she exaggerates the importance of such services in the grand scheme of things. In addition, she seems convinced that the risks of HIV infection have made semen a toxic fluid for most people despite the evidence that tens of millions of couples somehow don’t share this view and continue to reproduce the old fashioned way. Perhaps if she had spent less time interviewing prostitutes, porn stars, and fellow academics in the “gender studies” community and had spent even a little time speaking with ordinary men instead, she would have come away with a different perspective.
Summary: Racing Tadpoles
Rating: 5
My most memorable conception of sperm comes from “Look who’s talking” where the opening scene shows the sperm competing with each other to push their way into the egg. Apparently, there are many more meanings of sperm, and this book goes beyond the single minded understanding of man’s most precious fluid.
“Sperm Counts” delves into every conceivable crevice to describe the ways in which sperm has been used to validate patriarchy and conversely how it can be an enemy to the very thing it legitimizes (by proving identity in crime scenes). American culture rooted in Puritanical values views sperm as a strictly biological substance, while Moore looks at it through a sociological and feminist lens: What do children’s books about reproduction teach? What norms, values and prescriptions are passed on and learned through the ways sperm are introduced to young ones? How has the commodification of sperm separated men from the embodiment of masculinity in sperm? How has reproductive technology changed the way we view fatherhood?
Moore discusses all of these questions without bashing men or masculinity- she brings to light certain issues that threaten and hopefully change our understanding of men and their sperm. It seems that Moore’s goal in writing this book is not female domination but men’s liberation from the strict ideal identity of what it means to be a man. And while some may view her theories as brash or radical, after looking at her education, job experience, and methodology (often over-looked, but provides proof of her research and validity) her theories follow through and hold their own weight.
Summary: sperm counts: a unique, thought provoking, & fresh perspective
Rating: 5
How many ways to talk about and discover SPERM?
I really didn’t anticipate too many, but Moore does an incredibly thorough investigation on not only the depictions of sperm, but also reproduction, masculinity, sexuality, and gender.
This text appears radical in its content while simultaneously remaining impressive in its inquiry of the many biological and social realities surrounding sperm; Sperm Counts is not only about sperm, but how sperm functions as the vehicle for many other discourses relevent to American gender and social issues. It is at once ambitious and sucessfully critical as it provides a cohesive analysis of what I always just thought of as a disposable product– perhaps even more important, Moore offers us PERSPECTIVE in this work, as we are introduced to a variety of diverse and important ideas that appear non-judgemental; this isn’t just feminist spew which may sometimes unintentionally alienate.
Highly reccommended.
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