Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?
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Notes -
I'm not in the habit of asking the internet for advice but my wife and I have stumbled into something that has put us way out of our element and quite frankly the nature of the question severely limits even the number of people in our lives we can solicit advice from so You get to weigh in.
For whatever reason, my wife is a magnet for LGBTQ+ people. Roughly half of her friends fall into this category. I have theories as to why this is the case but they are unimportant. One such couple is a married lesbian/bisexual pair who we have been good friends with since college. There's a running joke about us having a threesome with the bisexual, who is really quite fetching. It works as a joke for us because my public stance on group sex is "Dear Lord spare me from that awful group sex. All that commotion."
Well it looks like the chickens have come home to roost. They invited us to dinner last night, which they hardly ever do, and asked us if we would be cool with me fathering a child with the bisexual. My wife choked on her drink and I made a joke that I'd only agree if we did it the old-fashioned way rather than IVF which didn't land because that was, in fact, their plan. My wife understandably rejected that idea outright and couldn't even be mollified by a promise that it only be missionary with the lights off and I'd try super-hard to think of her, so now the question is do I contribute genetic material into a plastic cup some time in the near future.
I'm willing (and kinda want) to do this. We have a gaggle of kids of our own so it's not like I'm going to run off to play dad. We also have come to the conclusion that lawyers are going to be heavily involved beforehand to keep us free of financial obligation and limit any parental rights my wife and I may have claim with the possible exception of the couples' untimely death.
But even so, this seems like a big ask from them, and kind of risky w/r/t our marriage. The couple is pretty enthusiastic about my involvement though, so my wife is quite concerned that a "no" from us will damage the friendship irreparably. Why me specifically? I'm well-liked, have a family history of longevity, I'm smart and conscientious enough to be a physician (at least by training), and (perhaps somewhat cynically) a 6'4" formerly muscle-bound football player. Like Sydney Sweeny I've got good genes even if I'm a 4/10 in the face with abnormally long alien limbs. Plus we live in the same area so we'd have the chance to be involved at least somewhat. We see these two semi-regularly. That may be a downside though! We do have a plausible out that could spare us in that I'm over the age of 40, which I think is when most sperm banks won't take donations.
Thoughts? It hasn't even been 24 hours since we've been thinking about potential problems so I'm sure you guys could come up with new ones to think about. We're kinda Christian but this kinda stretches the whole "love thy neighbor" thing a bit.
The world must be peopled. Just go forth and multiply, man.
I do agree with the stick in the muds commenters that you won‘t be legally in the clear . But really, the ‚best interest of the child‘ here is to be born, messiness of the world and circumstances notwithstanding.
You want it, the hot bisexual and her wife want it, the kid can be presumed to want it, the rest of the global present and future human population wants it, slam dunk really. Leaves only the minor matter of your wife‘s reluctance. Don‘t have all the details on that, an offering of flowers perhaps?
I do believe she‘s being a tad selfish, but don‘t tell her that in those words. She‘s got her fill of your seed, now she wants to deny it the whole world? And the priests as always are backing up the worst impulses of womanhood.
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I understand you don't hold to the same interpretation of Christian morality that I do. I'm not going to pretend that from a deontological perspective I think this is ever ok.
But an angle I've not seen addressed directly in the comments- are you really OK with your kid growing up without a dad in the house? Really? Are you OK with having a kid and not being dad? Are you really OK with that?
The other commenters have addressed the... abundant... practical issues. A few have touched on the moral issues that apply under a more conventional Christian morality. But are you really just... accepting of the possibility, nay, probability, that you might could be unable to fulfill your duty as a man to the next generation, more or less on purpose? You don't gotta be Thomas Aquinas to see how that just ain't right.
Also the kids and their relationship with each other.
If the kids are told: Imagine growing up knowing your dad is consciously not in your life and instead just an aquaintance, because he truly loves only your half siblings. Conversely knowing your dad has somewhere another child which he is caring for … what example does that set?
If the kids are not told: High chance they will find out anyway (ancestry dna tests) later in life about the half sibling.
Disclaimer: I dont have experience with patchwork families, maybe it works.
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Immediate reaction? HOLY CRAP NO! This is the perfect storm for blowing up your life, you and your wife's marriage, and the lesbian couple relationship. If you and your family remain friends with this couple, how are you going to introduce the kid to your kids? Or do you intend to pretend this child is not related to you? If Mom and Mom break up (and this happens) are you prepared to pay child support? Because forget any "oh but we got lawyers involved and there's a contract", that will be worth spit when she brings you to court to garnish your wages for the child you fathered in full knowledge and "the old-fashioned way" so you can't even argue it was anonymous sperm donation to unknown person(s).
There's a million ways this can go wrong and you making a joke of it to your wife is going to be marked as a red flag (so, what, you don't mind cheating on me? were you thinking of this before? were you thinking of her before?)
Let the friendship crash on the rocks if needs be, you have your marriage, wife and kids to think of.
Hoo-boy. Hoo, hoo, hoo-boy. You just ran your head into the noose there about "well yeah I'm kinda hot for Bi Girl there, wifey, but don't worry, it'll just be meaningless hot fantasy sex with a lesbian, there won't be feelings involved". Better start looking up some expensive presents for your missus and pray to God she doesn't read anything posted here.
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Run away, fast, and when your wife complains that you've damaged the friendship, just say "You're welcome."
No? I have my doubts. Extract yourself from this immediately. If you just want the thrill of sex with someone besides wifey, you can do that on your own, outside anyone's knowledge, and avoid the absolute shitshow of this situation.
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If you want to remain anonymous, but aware that some Australian states made a law that retroactively allowed donor kids to find out who their biological parents were (and it was considered a human right to do so). This opened up a whole can of worms where some donors who only donated under conditions of strict anonymity had their personal lives disrupted by donor kids looking them up.
In other words, a future government may decide that 'the best interests of the child' overrule the conditions under which you originally donated.
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Legally you're probably in the clear, dependent on which state it is.
Pragmatically... if they're friends... you're going to see this kid regularly. Your kids will presumably also know of/find out of this kid's existence.
Your wife will eventually see, as the kid grows, a child that looks like you... but not like her.
From my perspective there's too many ways this spirals emotionally out of control over the next couple decades. This isn't a 'fire and forget' scenario where you don't have to know there's a kid out there.
And the fact that they were suggesting it be done via direct injection is bold to say the least.
And it may depend on how you philosophically/theologically conceive of your 'duties' to your children. Are they innate from nature? Prescribed by God? Or merely socially constructed and can be accepted, transferred, or cut off at will.
For example, what if the alternative was they paid you and your wife to bear another child and then allow them to adopt it at birth? Would you feel weird handing over a biological child of yours to a different couple?
Isn't this at least half as weird as that? If you learn that the kid has a genetic disease would you feel at all responsible? Or, if the kid gets seriously injured at some point, how emotionally distant do you think you'd be?
And here's a vanishingly unlikely 'worst case scenario': what if all of YOUR kids end up dead before you... would you feel compelled to make this kid your heir of all your assets (after your spouse, of course) on account of the genes?
Just trying to feel out the emotional boundaries and your overall openness.
From the 1000 foot view, its good that this will help with TFR, but that doesn't mean it has to be YOU.
I also had the absolutely horrible idea that the situation could be somewhat defused by playing 'semen roulette' where there's six prospective fathers she chooses and the genetic material that gets used is then picked at random. Obviously one can figure out the truth later. Would that make it MORE or LESS awkward?
There's some gay guys (and arguably the entire sperm donation industry) that work on paternity roulette logic. Even for gay guys where it's just so they don't really have to think about who's the 'real' dad, though, it's kinda messy, and not just literally. These days, you can figure out the answer for a couple hundred bucks, obviously, but even if everyone involved credibly commits to never doing that (and the alternatives aren't obvious), it's just denying the questions, rather than actually handling them.
These things all have answers. Especially for soccons who care the most about this stuff, there are sometimes even doctrinal answers, but even most gay guys who only truck with the church when nailing complaints to the door have pretty good ideas about what they wished their fathers had been like. Dropping the odds to 1/6th only really gives an excuse to forget about or delay obligations and responsibilities, rather than making them actually not exist.
From a purely 'scientific' perspective, I wonder what the odds have to rise to before a guy no longer feels interested in confirming or dis-confirming his paternity. 1/1000? 1/10,000? I feel like if there was a 1/1,000,000 chance of it being my kid, without some additional Bayesian observations, I'd not consider it worthwhile to check into it.
From the child's perspective, however, I'd guess that learning that there are 10,000 possible fathers out there only steepens their drive to identify the one. From their view its not a 10,000 to 1 shot of being related... its a 100% chance of being related to one of the 10,000.
Honestly that right there is the factor that makes this entire thing a boondoggle.
It doesn't matter HOW emotionally distant or HOW legally protected you are, no matter how they raise the child it is entirely possible and probably more likely than not that they'll decide to bring this issue up and confront you about it and thus force an emotional reckoning, no matter how you or the other couple wishes it to be handled.
You're placing bets on how this future human will behave, what they'll believe, and how they'll handle this piece of knowledge, and whether it will thus impact your own life many, many years after the decision is made.
You don't have a say about how socially acceptable this particular arrangement will end up being in the future, either. Granted, you can't be certain that heterosexual monogamous marriages will be looked well upon by then either but I think the precautionary principle still favors not getting so experimental with another person's wellbeing.
This argument can probably be extended to cover all surrogacy/sperm donor situations and a good portion of adoptions, I guess.
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Like @ThomasdelVasto this seems clearly against Christian morality to me (especially them wanting you to have sex with this woman to impregnate her). So if that's important to you, do not pass go, do not collect $200. But even aside from that I wouldn't do it. This seems like it has way too much potential to blow up in your face, most notably with the possibility it will cause your wife to feel jealousy which eats at your relationship with her. I would politely but firmly decline this one.
I mean, yeah, it's adultery but given OP didn't even mention that, I don't think this is the sort of Christian he is. So appeals to traditional morality don't seem relevant here.
Aside from that, this is a very, very, very bad idea and someone in another comment raised questions of inheritance. You have no idea the amount of warfare that happens over wills in families. This would be his kid and thus, depending on the laws of the particular state, entitled to a share of the estate upon OP's death. Is his name going to be on the birth certificate? If there are lawyers involved with contracts pre-conception, no way he can later duck out of "that's not my kid, I have no idea what they're talking about". If he wants bloody war among his kids, his widow, their half-sibling and half-sib's mother, then this is a great way to set it up.
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... I philosophically prefer surrogacy where the donors stay in the picture, so caveat that I'm going to be biased in favor of donation, here. That said, potential problems:
All of that said, I've seen it work out perfectly fine for a good few people, and not in the porn premise (or polyamory) sorta way. The problems are downstream of you not just getting a kid, but a whole set of informal relationships, but those relationships remain when good things are happening, too.
The only group of people that lesbians seem to hate more than straight men are bisexual women. I recall being algorithmically given some tweet where a lesbian separatist was insisting that the lesbian domestic violence rate normalizes once you exclude lesbian/bisexual pairings; no idea if that's true (it's rather self serving).
(I don't think gay men generally hate straight women, but I'm pretty sure there's tension between gay men and bisexual men because bisexual men are seen as having an easy path to normalcy, though my impression is that this is mollified somewhat by the likely long-standing fact that bisexual men are a big chunk of penetrative partners. My entirely politically incorrect, and probably also factually incorrect, theory is that crossdressing and affected femininity emerged as a kind of cultural adaptation to this fact that pulls in some straight-leaning bisexual men. The loneliest person I know is a gay friend, who is both the archetypal femme who went to cosmetology school and has mostly women friends, yet is, apparently, a top. He's the sort of man who would be a ladykiller if he played for the other team and were 10% less obsequiously feminine, so his professed loneliness startles me a great deal.)
I can also say that I had the strange honor? of having been propositioned by multiple women or trans men in marriages with women to cheat on their wives with them. Turned it down, very much not my thing. But it was more than slightly creepy how eager and graphic they were in their apparent desire for the male anatomy. Neither homewrecking nor "I'm the guy who turned her" are my kink, though it really must be said that these ladies were not for turning. They were already, well, turnt.
I can't say my LGBT friends have always been the closest, but dang did they give me some great stories.
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Oh yeah. Eighteen years down the line, Baby is now old enough for college, "well seeing as how you're the dad and we're all such close friends, of course you'll help out, right?" and that's just if nothing else crops up (such as medical expenses) in the interval.
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I'm old fashioned so for me this situation looks kinda weird. I mean it's one thing if the kid's biological father is unknown (like sperm bank) and the kid grew up with this family and their are the parents and that's fine. That happens a lot and it's culturally inoffensive, out of sight, out of mind, you know. But if the father lives right over there, and you can see him every other day you go to the store, and still he's not your real parent but these guys are, and the real father is not part of anything because he his real kids who he loves unlike you... can you see how it gets weird? I mean I know nothing, maybe it can be made to work, people live with weirder things than that. But there's a huge risk it will be a mess.
And, on top of it, it really doesn't matter what you sign. What matters is what the judge would decide when push comes to shove. What one lawyer says another lawyer can contradict. If a man fathers the child, there's always a potential for this man to be called up to support the child. The judge would decide according to child's interests, not yours.
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You’d be intentionally fathering a kid that you legally disown and disinherit. This will not be the lesbians child. It will be your child. As much your child as your “own” kids, the ones who got to be a part of their parents’ family. Surely you can imagine that coming back to bite you or him/her in ways which you might not predict now. What if he resents not having a dad or siblings. What if they move away or you fall out. The idea that it could irreparably damage a friendship to not father their child is insane and doesn’t speak to a healthy stable friendship or one that can be counted on to last. It sounds extremely manipulative. And to bring a kid into that. Your own kid, whom you may never be able to fulfill your fatherly responsibilities to….
Purely selfishly this is a bad idea with the risk there. On a more moral level, I think it’s a monstrous idea and even if you don’t agree with any of my moral preconceptions, maybe it’s helpful to at least know that my opinion is out there.
Run, don’t walk away.
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Doesn't matter what the lawyers say or what you sign; a judge can decide to throw it all out and put you on the hook for child support because it's in the child's best interests. Sperm bank donors have strong precedent protecting them from this, and the knowledge from the legal system that the entire institution would collapse if they allowed donors to be sued; you don't.
Doesn't mean you shouldn't do it, but be aware of the very real risk that they divorce later down the line and whoever gets custody chooses to come after you; like Parfit's hitchhiker, they cannot credibly precommit not to defect at a later time once it is in their interest to do so.
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This is my comic book fantasy that I play in my head once a month so, congrats on that to start.
I think the advice of really leaving this to your wife and applying, if possible, negative pressure to ensure she actually wants to do it is the only way out of it sane and married.
Another piece of food for thought: If you don't get to enjoy the act of procreating with the "fetching" bisexual, you're getting a big chunk of risk in exchange for the thrill of expanding your contributions to the gene pool. That may be worth it but... who knows.
As fucking weird as all of this is, I want to put forward that it's less weird than a random sperm donor. If you know a guy who you like and has good genes, where some of that warmth in feeling will translate to the kid... isn't that obviously a superior choice to a crazy dice roll?
That is the big problem here, though. "Sure I'll knock you up, but that's it, kid is a stranger to me thereafter" is one possibility. "Kid is not a stranger, wife and existing kids resent the hell out of this situation" is another. "Wants to be involved in kid's life, moms don't want that" a third. "Wants to be involved in kid's life, mom of kid okay with that, wife of mom emphatically not okay because oh, so this is why you were so eager to have him knock you up, huh? guess it's true what they say about bisexuals!"
And that's before we get into "and we all live in the same neighbourhood and people are gonna notice kid looks like me and tongues are gonna wag" down the line.
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This whole comment is pretty much where I am at. I think my wife should have the biggest say, I'd rather like to spread my genes around generally even given the risks, and I also agree it's less weird than a rando donor. Melissa Ethridge and her partner had David Crosby, ugly motherfucker as he is, act as donor for one of their kids.
I guess I'm leaning towards "there's too much that could go wrong over right" here. We're not on a time-crunch at least so we can carefully consider the matter.
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I'd be very leery of the legal aspects to something like this. I have some vague recollections about a donor in a similar scenario still being on the hook for child support.
I'd be more concerned about this particular aspect if the two of them weren't doing as well as they are, financially speaking. Like I said though, lawyers will be involved if we proceed, possibly even good ones.
Oh you sweet summer child. Okay, this is from the UK, but "good lawyers were involved"? 🤣 Yeah, and if mom decides she wants/needs you to contribute, good lawyers will also be involved there, too.
This is from Sweden:
And there are American cases as well:
So if you have anything to do with the kid, and it would be hard not to given that everyone would be 'good friends' and living nearby, then you are likely to be on the hook for financial contributions.
I'm laughing about the lawyers bit because I remember, years and years back, reading reports of a court case. Lesbian couple went to court with heart-rending story about wanting non-biological mom on the birth certificate. She is my partner and as much a parent to this child as I am, sobbed biological mom, and their lawyers wrung every drop of pathos out of it that they could.
Okay, judge rules that law can be changed and non-bio parents put on birth certificate.
Fast-forward a few years. Couple have split up. Now biological mom goes to court to get ex-partner off the birth certificate because (I'm paraphrasing here) no way that bitch is having anything to do with my kid, she's nothing to us.
Law in these instances means whatever they want it to mean. Don't bet your life on "but we had a contract!"
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Absolutely not. That is simply adultery, whether it's via a "cup" or not.
The kids that would result from such an arrangement are going to realize you're the actual father, as will the rest of your friend group. There's a decent chance the kids are going to view you as their actual father, possibly with bitterness once the lesbians inevitably separate.
From a pragmatic perspective, it will look exactly how it actually is: that you're fathering children with another woman. It's not a good look, and there is a going to be a lot of drama and gossiping about such a thing. Furthermore, lesbian arrangements also tend to fall apart quite frequently (you can look up divorce statistics on this), so it's pretty unlikely you won't be swept up in the drama of that, with the kids getting to witness all of it. Your wife is also unhappy with it, so this would not just be unfaithful at a spiritual level, but also on an emotional level.
I think you should listen to your wife and put all this to the side, ideally distancing yourself from these women. They are in a disordered arrangement that is at odds with both the natural order (as indicated by their inability to conceive in such an arrangement, and by the abnormally high divorce rate), as well as scripture.
What does it mean to be "kinda" Christian? Do you think it's true that Christ is God or not? There's not an in-between position on this question. If you don't think so, you're not Christian. If you think it's true, then how can you ignore Christ's words on this matter?
You describe the woman as "quite fetching" and say you kinda want to do it. I can't read your heart, especially from this post, but I just don't see where the motivation is coming from here given how risky it is, how much expensive legal trouble it is, and how much your wife doesn't like it. If you do feel lustful intentions about this there is already a problem starting and you should repent (ideally in confession if your denomination supports that) and, again, distance yourself from that couple.
One last point, do you go to a church? You should talk with your priest or pastor, rather than atheists on Harry Potter rationality forums. It sounds like the far bigger decision/problem you have is whether you actually accept Christianity (and therefore Christ) or not.
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Well, from my perspective this obviously violates Christian morality.
Either way, to me it seems extremely risky. You are tying yourself to these people in a very deep way, and it sounds like you and your wife are somewhat split on it. I'd recommend against it personally.
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This feels less like a Mottepost and more like a psychological thriller film pitch from the 1990s.
Does OP or his family have any pet rabbits?
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"Dear Penthouse, I never thought it would happen to me..."
"The hot lesbian couple who my wife knows asked the most amazing thing... clearly it's true that the right man can turn 'em straight!"
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Honestly - leave the decision to your wife, but you take the blame if it is negative. And don't even think about joking about sex. The damage is done, but don't make it worse.
Please tell me that is was not you that attempted the mollifying ...
I did not make any jokes during the exchange after realizing they were serious; the scenario in which I do joke about missionary with the lights off didn't happen irl. The whole situation is awkward as hell and I default to jokes in those conditions. Sorry.
I think I'm going to leave this to my wife like you suggest. They're more her friends anyway and if we never interact with them again it's probably a reasonable sacrifice on the altar of "a stable marriage".
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