On a busy night last week at the Target on Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn, Ari Nagel, 40, emerged from the men’s bathroom looking a little flushed and quite pleased with himself.
“It’s better when it’s fresh,” he told them.
“It” is Nagel’s semen, and it’s in demand. The 6-foot-2 CUNY Kingsborough math professor has served as a sperm donor for dozens of locals, siring 22 kids over the past 12 years with 18 women of various backgrounds.
For lesbian couples and single ladies looking to have a baby without the expense of going through a sperm bank (which can run in the thousands of dollars), he’s the No. 1 dad.
“This isn’t time-consuming, and I’m doing it anyway,” he says of his hands-on hobby. “It’s very easy for me to do.”
His oldest child, now 12, was conceived with a woman he was in a committed relationship with, but all of his offspring since, he says, have resulted from his donations.
About half the time, he provides his seed the old-fashioned way. Sometimes, a lesbian looking to conceive will have her partner in the bed for moral support while she and Nagel engage in intercourse.
“She’s never slept with a guy before, so the partner’s in bed, holding her hand,” Nagel explains. “Sometimes, it could be a little painful, then after a few times, they’re comfortable to do it on their own.”
Other times, he supplies his goods in a cup, which he prefers.
He often uses public bathrooms, like those at Target and at Starbucks shops, to procure his samples and hand them off to ovulating women.
“You don’t want to do it in one where people are knocking,” he notes.
He will also offer his services in his home near Downtown Brooklyn, but mama wannabes are often more comfortable meeting in public.
Once a location is chosen, Nagel will go into the bathroom, pleasure himself while watching porn on his iPhone — “You can’t connect to Target Wi-Fi if you’re connecting to a porn site, so I use my cell service,” he says — and ejaculate into an Instead Soft cup, a type of menstrual cup“.
He then delivers the specimen to the woman, who goes into the ladies’ restroom and inserts it into her cervix.
The prolific professor is often successful, which he attributes to a high sperm count: 85 million per milliliter.
“It’s off the charts,” he boasts. “The clinic said they’ve never seen anything like it.”
(The Mayo Clinic says normal sperm density ranges from 15 million to greater than 200 million sperm per milliliter.)
Nagel made his first foray into professional baby-making eight years ago with a friend — a single, straight Jewish woman in her late 30s and living on the Upper West Side.
Women who have used Nagel’s services — which he provides for free — say his good looks, personality and high sperm count are a draw.
“He’s a lot of fun to be around, he loves people, he’s outgoing, and he’s gorgeous,” says Tiffany Harrison, 41, of New Jersey, who with her wife, Yvonne, has a toddler daughter, Zoe, sired by Nagel.
As for his own motivations, the big daddy insists he just likes spreading his seed.