Would This Count as a Good Deed?

I wish I were joking. An ex–Hinge match texted me from the room…the room where he was scheduled to produce a semen sample for him and his fiancée’s future embryos.

Reader.

He asked me to help. Specifically: “I just need a little inspiration lol.”

Lol.

LOLLLLL.

I stared at my phone the way one stares at a raccoon that has somehow opened the fridge

Sir.

You are in a fertility clinic.

You are actively attempting to create life.

You are engaged.

And you thought: You know who would really elevate this sacred moment?

The audacity is Olympic.

And yet.

A tiny, deeply unwell part of me wondered: Would it count as a good deed?

If I assist, am I technically helping them procreate?

Is this community service?

Is this my civic contribution to the next generation?

Or.

Is he cheating?

Because here’s the philosophical conundrum no one prepares you for:

If a man mentally revisits your body while engaged to someone else—and then texts you to optimize the fantasy—is that nostalgia?

Or infidelity with Wi-Fi?

He kept texting.

“You always had that effect on me.”

“You know exactly how to get me there.”

What unsettled me wasn’t the sexuality.

It was the entitlement.

The assumption that I would be flattered.

That I would happily donate my memory, my image, my energy to the production of another woman’s future child.

As if I were a spiritual sperm donor.

As if my body were communal property in moments of male inconvenience.

And here’s the thing:

I am not scandalized by desire.

I am scandalized by laziness.

You cannot propose to one woman

and outsource your arousal to another.

That is not romance.

That is emotional gig work.

Also — imagine being his fiancée! Somewhere, probably Pinterest-boarding nursery themes, believing this man is in a sterile room heroically thinking of her.

If I had participated, would their future child carry my karmic imprint? Would I have to attend the baby shower like a chaotic godmother?

And if you have to crowdsource your fidelity from women you didn’t choose, you are not ready to create life.

Men continue to surprise me.

What’s your version? Tell me everything!