Which Nature for Desire ?
An ethnographic survey about ART and Embryo donation in France, allowed questioning a concept widely mobilized in these interactions : the « child desire ». What do these people going through ART wish to transmit ? Why do they put their desire for children at the core of their demand ? That this desire obeys to a gender logic has to be stressed. Many women – but also men – consider that a woman really becomes a woman once she has become a mother. In a form of essentialization, they evoke consubstantiality between being a woman and the desire for children. The men link this desire for children to a desire of transmission, the desire to have a descent, reaffirming the social side of paternity. Furthermore, to evoke this child desire is a good way follow the evolution of representations of the family. In doing so, couples in ART wish to inscribe themselves in the transmission of values reflecting the many ways to be a family today.