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After a 45-minute visit, my wife's face starts to fall with fatigue. "It's time to say 'Shalom,'" I suggest.

"Come to Nathan's naming ceremony at the synagogue next week," Monica insists as they exit. "It's generally for baby girls, but we want him to have one. I know you're exhausted, but please; you're part of the ritual."

"OK."

Read Also Confessions of a lesbian sperm donor By Hank Pellissier My seeds are sprouting in two wombs Hank Pellissier, giver of sperm, is about to receive. Last heard from while contemplating insemination, he's now got a girl coming with the wife and a boy on the way with the lesbian gal pal. By Hank Pellissier

The naming ceremony created by their radical Reform synagogue is a benign celebration unmarked by the intimate bloodletting of its bris equivalent, but I'm reluctant to attend because I'm allergic to religion and I resent the sissifying of Nathan in a girlie rite. Isn't the poor boy receiving a confusing mixture of messages from his parents? They've already whacked up his weenie to honor a patriarchal barbarism and now they'll sing effeminate hymns and coddle him like a princess?

Carol, Tallulah and I arrive late, delayed by my procrastination. We situate ourselves discreetly in the back pew until Monica and Rachel, on the temple stage already, make eye contact with us and gesture us into the front row. Oh no.

The ceremony begins with a passionate Hebrew roundelay that Carol sings joyously while I cynically lip-sync. Prayers and other songs follow, I imagine; I can't remember because I was spaced out.

"You're on," Carol nudges me, eventually. "Hey! Earth to Hank: Forward."

Reluctantly, I stumble onstage, like a convict to the gas chamber. People are staring, I realize. I should have shaved. I should have shampooed my hedgehog hair that's sticking up like an oily haystack.

"We want to especially thank today," announces Monica to the rapt, emotional, mostly homosexual audience of 250, "the donor, who performed long and selflessly to assist us. Hank Pellissier gave us the seed we needed to create our beloved Nathan."

A wave of titanic affection rises out of the audience; it floods the stage like a tsunami, washing up my skinny legs, drowning me in its warmth. For 10 seconds, silence. Then the room explodes in applause.

"Bravo! Mazel tov!"

Speechless, I stand there, amazed. Gradually, I realize two truths: 1) Everybody here has been dying of curiosity, wondering who the donor is; 2) What I did is important to them. I didn't just beat off for 15 months. I helped gay people become parents.

"Thank you! You're wonderful! You're so kind!"

I hear these phrases a hundred times each when the ceremony ends and the party ensues. Monica's father from Brooklyn blesses me incessantly for providing him with a grandson. Rachel's abundant relatives treat me to wine, cake and ear-to-ear smiles. I hug strong gay men, lesbians in sweaters, aunts, uncles, cousins. Carol is reverenced for her generosity in "sharing me." Tallulah is flattered for cuteness.

When the celebration subsides, I try to slip out with my family, but I'm snared by a recent arrival, Rachel's mother, Esther, who miscalculated the time it would take to drive up from Beverly Hills.

Esther holds my hand. She insists that I accomplished something heroic.

"It was fun," I giggle. "No problem. Really. I'd do it again. Actually, I'd like to get your daughter pregnant next year."

"Promise?" she gasps happily. "Will you do that for me?"

"Yes, yes, yes," I vow. "I want to make all would-be mothers and grandmothers and great-grandmothers happy. I want to make lesbians and all gay people happy. I want to make everyone in the world happy. I'm drunk."

Esther exhorts something in Hebrew or Yiddish that I subconsciously comprehend because I am like her now: I'm no longer young, but I have a daughter and already I want grandchildren. I am suddenly in alliance with all parents and wannabe parents who dwell temporarily on the face of the earth and crave tearfully, tenderly, a small chunk of their being that will survive into the mysterious future long past their own onrushing demise.
salon.com | May 3, 2000

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