🎭 Culture Aug 21, 2026 · Paul McAdory

If You Build It, Will They Come? On the Sperm Racing World Cup

The Paris Review
Paris Review blog
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If You Build It, Will They Come? On the Sperm Racing World Cup
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Ghadeer Bustani, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
In 1677, a medical student named Johann Ham approached the Dutch scientist and future “Father of Microbiology” Antonie van Leeuwenhoek with unsettling news: there were tiny creatures living in his semen. Or not in his semen, not necessarily. Some incorrigible friend—someone who certainly wasn’t Ham—had dislodged his wad in the company of an “unclean woman” and then transferred custody of his deposit by means unattested into Ham’s hands. Curio

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