I don’t actually know if they do or not, but why don’t more people do that? Maybe they’re afraid the donors will expect or demand some rights or involvement in the child’s life, which isn’t a problem with anonymous or hired donors.
Agreed regarding the fitness cost. That makes chaosmage’s comment correct, although I didn’t realize it at first; his comparison with asexuals led to me to think his proposed mechanism was simply homosexuals raising fewer children, whether their own or not.
You might as well ask why people adopt strangers as ask why they half-adopt by using strangers as donors. The answer is that people are adaptation-executors, not deliberate fitness maximizers.
I hear about people asking for donations from friends more than family, which seems to me to be a bigger risk. Being on bad terms with family because of orientation probably is a reason, though.
People have always sometimes adopted the children of near relatives who couldn’t care for them, at much higher rates than adopting strangers; that’s fitness increasing. It’s not a stretch to imagine that crossing over to sperm and egg donations.
Both friends and family have the large advantage (at least I imagine it to be so) that they are known quantities: you know them well and can evaluate them as biological parents just as you would a potential mate. I wonder why sperm banks don’t seem to offer the sperm of people with known qualities at higher prices: not just screened for diseases, but known to have strong positive traits like good looks and intelligence.
I don’t actually know if they do or not, but why don’t more people do that? Maybe they’re afraid the donors will expect or demand some rights or involvement in the child’s life, which isn’t a problem with anonymous or hired donors.
Agreed regarding the fitness cost. That makes chaosmage’s comment correct, although I didn’t realize it at first; his comparison with asexuals led to me to think his proposed mechanism was simply homosexuals raising fewer children, whether their own or not.
You might as well ask why people adopt strangers as ask why they half-adopt by using strangers as donors. The answer is that people are adaptation-executors, not deliberate fitness maximizers.
I hear about people asking for donations from friends more than family, which seems to me to be a bigger risk. Being on bad terms with family because of orientation probably is a reason, though.
People have always sometimes adopted the children of near relatives who couldn’t care for them, at much higher rates than adopting strangers; that’s fitness increasing. It’s not a stretch to imagine that crossing over to sperm and egg donations.
Both friends and family have the large advantage (at least I imagine it to be so) that they are known quantities: you know them well and can evaluate them as biological parents just as you would a potential mate. I wonder why sperm banks don’t seem to offer the sperm of people with known qualities at higher prices: not just screened for diseases, but known to have strong positive traits like good looks and intelligence.