Dolce and Gabbana: “Embrace it, it might make you love even more.”

Do you remember the fairytale that you used to read as a kid, ‘Goldilocks and The Three Bears’? There was Daddy bear, Mummy bear and Baby bear. The three of them lived together in blissful happiness – they were the epitome of the ‘traditional family’.

But then one day their perfect breakfast set-up was ruined by the evil Goldilocks. And if you’re Domenico Dolce or Stefano Gabbana, Goldilocks was most probably the spawn of an untraditional family because, in their words, not mine, “children of chemistry [are] synthetic children. Rented uterus, semen chosen from a catalogue.” (1)

Before I delve any further into the problems with the pairs’ ideals that they shared in an interview with Italian magazine, Panorama, it seems that I should suggest something that I always thought was nothing more than a fact; no child is “synthetic”. To bring a child into the world isn’t a spur-of-the-moment decision and it’s a decision based on a whole plethora of different factors – one of the most important being the guarantee that that child is going to be loved and cared for.

There was one quote from the D&G; that I agreed with, but not for the reasons that they were proposed. Dolce said that bringing a child into the world should be an “act of love”. But surely he doesn’t think that love is simply the aftermath of sperm impregnating a woman through the act of sex? Is that the only way love is created? Because if it is, drop me out.

As a child of divorce I can wholeheartedly say that the ‘traditional family’ isn’t all it seems. In fact, the ideal, ethereal image of a traditional family is a huge problem. It’s archaic and there’s nothing romantic about it. Unless, of course, romance is a suppressed household filled with a ‘traditional family’ staying together because of social repression and embarrassment in the face of divorce. A forced ‘traditional family’ can be the most loveless place to be.

And an ‘untraditional’ or “synthetic” family can burst with love. By untraditional I mean a gay couple, a transgender couple, a family born through IVF and artificial insemination. Anything that doesn’t fit into the neat chocolate-box mold of Mum, Dad, son, daughter, a dog and a cat.

My problem with Dolce and Gabbana’s segregating statements didn’t lie so much with their anti-IVF and gay adoption comments (mainly because they were so ludicrously archaic that they didn’t deserve the attention they received) but in the fact that we still have an ideal family image; a 21^st century nuclear family.

We live in a world so aware of diversity. Our generation is the most liberated in history in relation to gay awareness and acceptance, and it’s something I pride us on. If there’s one positive to take away from Dolce & Gabbana’s ludicrous comments, it’s the overwhelming support for IVF and gay adoption that followed and the outlandish backlash that the designers’ received. Their words didn’t scare us – yes, they were offensive – but they didn’t entice contemplation. They simply proved to us something that we already knew – that this world is filled with opinionated people

The route of a sperm doesn’t measure love. Love isn’t even a commodity to be measured. Parental love doesn’t disintegrate if insemination takes places in a test tube – it doesn’t discriminate between genders either.

“No chemical offspring and rented uterus: life has a natural flow, there are things that should not be changed.”

Well, D&G;, traditions die, flows change and babies are born in test tubes – embrace it, it might make you love even more.