The Sperm Apocalypse: A Satirical Descent into the Bitter End, By Brian Simpson and Mrs. Vera West
The modern world, that glittering carnival of plastic packaging and Wi-Fi signals, is waging a silent war on humanity's very essence: our sperm. Oh yes, the tiny swimmers that once stormed the gates of life with Olympian vigour are now, according to some, dwindling faster than a politician's credibility. Epidemiologist Shanna Swan, the Nostradamus of reproductive doom, warned in her 2017 meta-analysis that sperm counts in Western nations have plummeted by nearly 60% since 1973. Project that trend to 2045, she says, and the median man might be sterile. A fertility crisis looms, threatening to turn humanity into an endangered species. But what happens if we ride this slippery slope to its bitter, barren end?
Picture it: the year is 2100, and the sperm apocalypse is in full swing. The last viable spermatozoon was cryogenically preserved in a Silicon Valley vault, displayed like a holy relic for the barren masses to worship. Cities are eerily quiet, not because of some dystopian plague, but because nurseries are empty, and playgrounds are rusted relics of a bygone era. The global fertility rate, already halved from 5.06 births per woman in 1964 to 2.4 in 2018, has nosedived to 0.1. Entire nations are ghost towns, their economies collapsed under the weight of too few workers supporting too many elderly. Japan, the canary in this coal mine, saw its GDP shrink from 18% of the global total in 1994 to a measly 4% by 2025; imagine that trend on steroids.
In this worst-case scenario, the culprits are everywhere, lurking in our water bottles and non-stick pans. Endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs), those sneaky villains from Swan's book Count Down, have turned our environment into a hormonal minefield. PFAS, the "forever chemicals," are in everything, your yoga mat, your takeout container, even the air you breathe. They've slashed sperm counts, shrunk testes, and, if you believe the wilder claims, even nudged gender fluidity in humans and amphibians alike. Frogs are indeed turning gay, as the memes foretold, and humanity's not far behind. Lifestyle doesn't help: obesity, smoking, and binge-watching dystopian dramas while chugging energy drinks have turned men's reproductive systems into sluggish factories. The average twentysomething woman, Swan claims, is less fertile than her grandmother was at 35. The biological clock isn't just ticking, it's sounding the alarm.
Society, in its infinite wisdom, tries to adapt. Governments, desperate to prop up their shrinking populations, offer tax breaks for test-tube babies and subsidise AI-powered sperm sorters. But it's too little, too late. In vitro fertilisation can't keep up when viable sperm are rarer than a truthful politician. Mass immigration, once touted as a fix for low birth-rates, falters as global fertility tanks, there's no one left to immigrate. The Right, radicalised by the crisis, pushes for "testicle tanning" initiatives, inspired by fringe health gurus like Raw Egg Nationalist, who preach raw diets and sunlight to boost testosterone. Meanwhile, the Left bans plastic straws and calls it progress. Both sides bicker while humanity's seed dries up.
By 2150, the bitter end arrives. The human population, once a robust 8 billion in 2022, is a mere 500 million, clustered in fortified eco-domes where chemical-free air is a luxury. The wealthy elite, hoarding the last fertile men like rare Pokémon cards, commission designer babies in underground labs. The rest of us? We're relegated to virtual reality, where simulated families offer cold comfort. The English, once a proud ethnic group, are reduced to a handful of eccentric reenactors, brewing tea and debating cricket in a world without heirs.
But wait! There's hope, or at least a satirical lifeline. Charles Cornish-Dale, aka Raw Egg Nationalist, argues in The Last Men that we can fight back. Ditch the processed foods, filter your water, and maybe, just maybe, embrace a primal lifestyle to reclaim your manhood. Will it save us? Probably not. But as the last sperm swims feebly into oblivion, we can at least raise a glass (of organic, chemical-free mead) to the absurdity of it all.
"Dr Charles Cornish-Dale, also known as Raw Egg Nationalist, is an anthropologist, political commentator and men's health writer whose work has appeared in publications including the American Mind and the Spectator. He's also the author of several books, the most recent of which is The Last Men: Liberalism and the Death of Masculinity which is out later this summer.
In this special episode of the Sceptic, host Laurie Wastell and Charles discuss The Last Men, why testosterone has been declining and why declining sperm counts could mean the end of humanity, how the modern world is making us sick, why we're having so few babies, why chemicals in the water really are turning the frogs gay – and people transgender – and how the material and spiritual elements of these modern problems overlap.
In the premium section Charles explains how we can stay healthy in spite of modern chemicals, why mass immigration isn't a good solution to declining birthrates, how the Right is becoming more radical and why the English are an ethnic group.
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