Splashing in the Gene Pool

by anna at 10:01 PM on December 15, 2003

On a shelf sits a vial. In the vial is a smidgen of cum. Somebody was given the unenviable task of swabbing it from a dead lady’s vagina. Virginia governor Mark Warner is now mulling whether to have it tested. DNA tests could determine if it matches Roger Keith Coleman, who bought it in 1992 for a brutal rape and murder. Prosecutors vehemently oppose the test, arguing that to proceed would set bad precedent. Coleman’s family wants it done, in hopes that it will exonerate him post-mortem---for all the good that’ll do.

Yes, these genes are a wondrous thing. There is a gay gene. There is a fat gene. People want to think everything about them is hard-wired at birth. I was born this way, dammit!

Joseph “You Can Call Me Joseph” Mengele fancied himself a pioneering geneticist. He’d scour the death camps in search of twins among the Jews, gays and Gypsies held there. He would spare their lives only to subject them to unspeakably horrific experiments. One shudders to think what he’d dream up had he gotten his grimy mitts on the Olsen Twins. (Is it just me, or do others wish those two had never blossomed into full-fledged foxes? It’s just so disturbing.)

Genes form the core of Darwinian theory. Guys supposedly want to maximize their chances of passing on theirs, so they knock up as many young, fertile chicks as possible. Like Sir Mick Jagger, they want buns in the oven all over town. Gals want a guy to stick around and help them with the arduous task of child-rearing, so they choose seemingly faithful mates. They figure older, more successful guys are less likely to run off with the first hot chippie to come down the pike. So long as all three orifices remain wide open, their reasoning goes, why would he ever need to look elsewhere? But they are often dead wrong.

Inbreeding and incest are just as wrong. These practices stifle genetic diversity. Yet we know that royal families have been at it for untold generations. In the House of Windsor, it isn’t a tall unusual for kissing cousins to do a lot more than smooch. Perhaps that explains why jug-eared Prince Charles once told his beloved Camilla that he’d like nothing better than to be reincarnated as her bloody tampon. Ugh.

It gets even uglier when it comes to matters of race and sports. Backwoods bigots alternatively bemoan and cite the fact that pro leagues are disproportionately populated by blacks as affirmation of their sick, half-baked theories. You know, Africans who could outrun ravenous lions survived to pass on their seeds and all that pseudo-Darwinian hooey. Yet, in years past, the glamour/money position of quarterback did remain off-limits to blacks. Now four of the top NFL offenses are led by African-Americans, namely Donovan McNabb, Dante Culpeper, Steve McNair and Quincy Carter. Even the traditionally white bastions of tennis and golf have been inundated by black stars. In fact, the top two female tennis players are black. The world’s top golfer is biracial. Tiger has shattered most of the records held by Big Golf’s revered white icons of yore; who’ve long since been consigned to toddling about the Seniors Tour. (This is the same PGA that has tried to maintain all-white country clubs, stop that Swedish chick from competing with the men and tried to block a disabled golfer from using a cart to tool about the links.)

Self-loathing white Hollywood reinforced this unfortunate stereotype with White Men Can’t Jump. I’ve often wondered what awful fate might befall a screenwriter who pitched Black Men Don’t Eat Pussy or Asians Eat Household Pets or The Lazy Mexican. Probably whatever it is that derailed Dana Carvey’s once-promising career.

You’d like to think genes are meted out in a relatively fair way. There’s the idiot savant, so deficient in many key areas but a whiz at math or tickling the ivories. There’s the whore with a heart of gold as depicted in many a movie before Pretty Woman. (Why they chose toothy Julia Roberts for the title role is anyone’s guess. You could park a Hummer in that cavernous mouth.)

But then you hear about this picture perfect Penthouse Pet who is also a prima ballerina and certified genius as well; which scuttles that theory and shakes your belief in any higher power. Where, pray tell, is the fairness in that? Might we take solace in the fact that she is a world class bitch who doesn’t play well with others?