You've Heard of IVF, Prepare for IVG

The sperm situation right now in America "is no joke." That's according to Rosecrans Baldwin, who writes about the current "spermpocalypse" for GQ, a colorful description of the decline of sexual activity in the US, as well as of plummeting pregnancy and fertility rates. Sperm quantity and quality are both factors, which Baldwin notes can be affected by air contamination, forever chemicals, and overprocessed foods—as well as by age, which Baldwin uses a somewhat NSFW metaphor for to explain. "Of all the factories in a body, the balls are the busiest," he writes. And, "as the factory ages and the machinery degrades, the widgets it makes turn out wobbly more often." This has all contributed to what reproductive epidemiologist Shanna Swan calls a "reproductive health crisis," and one with varying possible remedies.

IVF, of course, can be deployed, though some balk at the ethically fraught issues emerging from that, such as embryo screening to correct for certain traits. One of the more interesting angles of the piece, however, centers not on IVF, but IVG—in vitro gametogenesis, a technology on the horizon that would take nonreproductive cells from a person's body (e.g., skin, blood) and reprogram them into stem cells, which are then "differentiated" into eggs and sperm. But though IVG looks promising in many ways—same-sex couples are one demographic that could really benefit—we may also end up in "stranger lands," per Baldwin. "What if cells are swiped off Ben Affleck's discarded Dunkin' cup?" Baldwin writes. "What if a woman makes sperm from her own cells and, essentially using IVF, impregnates herself?" More here from Baldwin, who took a big step himself while writing the piece. (More sperm stories.)