Genetic subjectivities of prospective fathers: men’s attitudes toward epigenetics

Abstract

This study investigates prospective fathers’ reaction to epigenetics and its implications for heredity. Mounting scientific evidence that epigenetic changes transmit through fathers, not just mothers, makes it important to learn how men regard their inheritance conceptually and its relevance for their behavior. This study features in-depth interviews with 31 prospective fathers in Canada. About one-third of respondents had heard of epigenetics, but only one had substantial knowledge. After a non-technical explanation, virtually all found epigenetics plausible, though to varying degrees and with varying mental models of how epigenetic inheritance would work. Nearly all expressed a strong desire to follow whatever behaviors would improve the health of their future children, even lifestyle changes, thus re-aligning responsible fatherhood with new scientific findings. This demonstrates the new concept of genetic subjectivity: socially conditioned attitudes and normative agency based on genetic science. Implications for the ontology of gendered inheritance and social relations are discussed.

Keyword:

• s: epigenetics
• inheritance
• interviews
• medical sociology
• reproductive health

Introduction

What does a father believe he contributes to a child before birth? What is his pre-conception influence, in his own view? In recent years, biological research on epigenetics, and separately, social scientific interest in men's reproductive health, have grown apace. The recent finding that epigenetic effects can be intergenerationally transmitted through paternal inheritance (e.g. Antoniassi et al. 2016; Belleau et al. 2018) links these domains. While research continues, there is scientific consensus that the sperm epigenome is malleable. Our knowledge of the social dynamics of reproductive and heritable health is thus incomplete without a thorough consideration of paternal epigenetics.

While we have long known about morphological changes to sperm over time, our understanding of the epigenome is more recent. As this science of inheritance develops, it will likely precipitate revisions to public health education, medical advice, and health policy. Exclusive focus on maternal heritable influence is now out of date.

Prospective fathers and their behaviors will be the logical target of these scientific developments, when applied to public health. But we lack information about what and how prospective fathers think about epigenetics and their own heritable influence. What is their knowledge of and reaction to epigenetics and its implications for heredity? Given scientific developments, this is now a foundational question for building the sociology of reproductive health.

This article reports the findings of an interview study that explores how men think about epigenetic inheritance. With these findings, I introduce the concept of genetic subjectivity. In social theory, subjectivity essentially aligns with “the self” as defined by George Herbert Mead (1934, 164–168). As I regard it, subjectivity refers to socially conditioned attitudes and agency; a basic sociological insight is that the subject is social and not individually isolated. A genetic subjectivity is socially conditioned attitudes and agency based on genetic influences. Attitudes are not themselves genetically encoded, of course, but attitudes may be formed in response to genetic information. For instance, behaviors adopted to improve the genetic health of offspring proceed from genetic subjectivity. Another version would be reproductive choices made on the basis of genetic testing (see Bosk 1992; Kearney 2023; Samerski 2009).

Recent qualitative research has examined the lay processing of biomedical knowledge (e.g. Au and Eyal 2022), attitudes around fertility and infertility (Bell 2019; Hadley 2021; Hanna and Gough 2020; Hudson and Culley 2013; Law, 2019), and social structural pressures on the body (Oleschuk and Vallianatos 2019), all things the present study also seeks to do with respect to recent epigenetic findings. By investigating how prospective fathers react to epigenetic concepts, thereby extending to men some gendered themes that are more typically applied to women, this study contributes to a social science of heritable male health. The following section briefly reviews the implications of epigenetics for inheritance, then the implications for certain key sociological categories. After Methods and Results, the Discussion sets out what this study shows regarding men's understanding of paternal epigenetics, and the gendered, ontological, and social-relational elements of inheritance.

Epigenetics and paternity

Epigenetics refers to environmental influences changing gene expression. We know that only some genes on a D.N.A. strand are transcribed to build proteins within cells, and that environmental influences can change which genes get transcribed, but we do not fully understand this process (Berdasco and Esteller 2019). In the usual metaphor, genes can turn on or off. The view that epigenetic changes leave the underlying genotype unchanged is contested (Lappé and Landecker 2014), and some environmentally triggered epigenetic changes to phenotypes may be genetically encoded in the first place (Husby 2022). The term gene-environment interaction includes both changes in gene expression and mutation or damage to the underlying genotype.

When epigenetic and gene-environment interactions affect gametes, they may transmit to offspring. For instance, an individual's nutrition can change their gene expression with long-term metabolic effects for themselves and their children (Heijmans et al. 2008; Kaati, Bygren, and Edvinsson 2002; Landecker 2011). More simply, what mom and dad eat before conception effects their child's metabolism. Since nutrition is perhaps the most established epigenetic effect, sociological commentaries on epigenetics often take obesity as their illustrative case (e.g. Blue, Shove, and Kelly 2021; Martínez, Anduro, and Bojorquez 2020; Warin et al, 2016). However in principle, and subject to ongoing research, applications extend far beyond nutrition. Those applications are not simple equations of genes with social traits; “sociogenomics” (Bliss 2018) based on such equations is as dangerous as it is unsupported by rigorous science.

Epigenetic research shows that fathers have a pre-conception role in children's health. For example, animal studies find that increased folate consumption in males decreases birth defects in offspring; geneticists have even identified a plausible molecular mechanism, known as histone methylation, which alters the R.N.A. in sperm independent of D.N.A. methylation (Belleau et al. 2018; Lambrot et al. 2013; Siklenka et al. 2015). Among humans, studies support sex-linked gene-environment transmission pertaining to nutrition (e.g. Heijmans et al. 2008; Kaati, Bygren, and Edvinsson 2002) and smoking (e.g. Pembrey, 2006). The latter is likely related to the fact that smoking can cause D.N.A. fragmentation within sperm (Antoniassi et al. 2016), an effect that has been isolated on the paternal germline (Laubenthal et al. 2012). Epigenetic research thus erodes the broadly held assumption that men are peripheral to pre-conception health (cf. Daniels 2006, 161–162; Hadley 2021, 238–241). That assumption goes so deep that critical masculinity scholars must demonstrate even that men are interested in fathering children (Law, 2019). Epigenetics, though distinct from fertility, also tends to reduce the focus on infertility as a female problem (Lamoreaux 2020, 2023; Turkmendag and Liaw 2022).

Although we lack a comprehensive set of causes and effects from pre-conception behavior to post-conception child's health, evidence clearly points to pre-conception paternal lifestyle influence. Since men can advantage or disadvantage future children based on health and lifestyle choices, society has placed inappropriately sweeping blame on mothers and grandmothers (Richardson et al. 2014; cf. Mason 1993; see also Collins 2021). Although the exact proportion of paternal versus maternal heritable influences is unknown, it is no longer compelling to see child health as maternally derived.

Epigenetics is a potentially transformative intervention into a slew of longstanding intellectual questions, including the nature-nurture relationship. At stake is the social and environmental constitution of the self. Epigenetics is a strong conceptualization of the environment shaping humans. Ultimately, nature and nurture are not independent forces. Epigenetic mechanisms modify traditional ideas about what is intrinsic to individuals. Ethically, this might lead to normative belief in an obligation to consciously shape genomes and epigenomes for the benefit of future generations (Rothstein, Cai, and Marchant 2009; see also Rose 2006), prompting a new genetic subjectivity among prospective parents.

No deterministic intergenerational epigenetic effects have been found – only dispositional influences. Determinism would mean a guaranteed health-related outcome from a genetic cause, like sickle-cell anemia or Tay-Sachs disease. In contrast, a disposition affects the probability and difficulty of changing an outcome. Non-genetic influences may counteract genetic dispositions; for instance, consistent exercise changes muscle-to-fat ratio. Epigenetic impacts are not immutable; for instance, parental diet does not seem to force obesity on a child independent of that child's lifestyle. What we can say from current research is that, for both parents, pre-conception lifestyle transfers through genetic mechanisms to impact child health (Belleau et al. 2018; Berdasco and Esteller 2019; Heijmans et al. 2008; Kaati, Bygren, and Edvinsson 2002; Lambrot et al. 2013; Lappé and Landecker 2014; Laubenthal et al. 2012; Siklenka et al. 2015). In summary, intergenerational epigenetic effects have been evidenced with scientific consensus. What remains uncertain is exactly how many there are, though scientific theorizing strongly suggests many broad impacts.

Paternal epigenetics affect sperm cells, thus operating prior to conception. Cultural conditions interact with the scientific study of this process: Genes carry explanatory and meaning-making capabilities (Nelkin and Lindee 1995). Sperm, the delivery mechanism for paternal genetics, has such symbolic salience that sperm are sometimes seen as proxies for men (Moore 2007, 6, 148–149). Sperm is even totemic or fetishistic (Barnes 2014, 137; Moore 2007, 12, 144) of which men can feel “very protective” (Law 2020, 1417). Though surely not all men subscribe to such fetishization, in some situations it is inescapable. For instance, providing a sperm sample in a high-stakes clinical setting like cross-border reproductive treatment can be “enormously significant” (Hudson and Culley 2013, 257) Men with male factor infertility, which often takes the form of low sperm count, feel demasculinized, marginalized, and distressed (Hanna and Gough 2020). One of few studies on this subject finds that men relate to childlessness and its disruption of standard life continuity in different ways, impacted by age, health, social networks, and self-conception within a life course packaged script, among other factors (Hadley 2021, esp. 225–226). Whenever sperm is involved, aspects of health and gender are in play.

Genetic health dynamics

Although the concept of genetic subjectivity is new, many social scientists have investigated cultural implications of men's reproductive health (e.g. Almeling 2020; Almeling and Waggoner 2013; Barnes 2014; Connell 2000; Daniels 2006; Moore 2007). A large literature examines the cultural dimensions and essentialism of maternal influence on child’s health. Mothers are said to be uniquely responsible for children’s well-being and are often blamed for children’s problems (e.g. Armstrong 2003; Fentiman 2017; Lupton 2012; Ruhl 1999; Waggoner 2017). There is also a growing literature carrying these discourses through to the cultural interpretations of maternal epigenetics (Kenney and Müller 2017; Pentecost and Ross 2019; cf. Chiapperino and Panese 2018).

Miranda Waggoner analyzes cultural dynamics of pre-pregnancy and its medicalization (Almeling and Waggoner 2013; Waggoner 2017). Some popular science recommendations sweepingly treat female bodies based on reproductive potential, striving to maximize the health of not-yet-existing children. Whether individualized as behavior or socialized as environment acting through the body, this “zero trimester” of lifetime before pregnancy has been medicalized with complex social consequences. Folic acid, subsequently shown to have positive epigenetic effects (Lambrot et al. 2013), was a biomedical entry point to zero trimester thinking (Waggoner 2017, 52–54). As Waggoner (2017, 34) remarks, the basic concept is ancient: Plutarch reports that Lycurgus, law-giver of Sparta, prescribed exercise for young women pre-pregnancy in order to improve the health of future offspring as well as their own (1914, 245–247). Epigenetics is only the latest and most molecularly sophisticated version of a very long intellectual trend.

Although Waggoner focuses on women, she notes that the “zero trimester” applies to men too (2017, 21–22). But there remain few qualitative studies of paternal epigenetics. An important study interviewed men about sperm genetics (Almeling 2020: chapter 6), but did not ask about epigenetics – a fundamental mechanism of paternal inheritance. It found that men were familiar with public education around women's reproductive health, but knew far less about their own. They were receptive to brief educational material about sperm health, stating a willingness to do anything they could to improve the health potential of their children, but seemed largely unaware of sperm genetics (Almeling 2020: chapter 6). Epigenetics, though, proposes mechanisms different from common-sensical determinants of health with potentially huge effects. It is worth asking men about these mechanisms.

Data and methods

I conducted in-depth semi-structured interviews on the subject of paternal epigenetics with 31 prospective fathers, recruited through several fertility clinics in Canada's two largest provinces, Ontario and Québéc. Clinic staff distributed flyers during appointments and posted signs in the clinics advertising a “men's health study” and containing the author's contact information. Flyers and signs were bilingual in English and French. Each participant received a $40 gift card. There was no screening, except for excluding a senior academic geneticist. Interviewing men without expertise in paternal epigenetics was deliberate because the research question pertains to how ordinary men react to this information.

Interviews focused on understanding how men thought about and reacted to epigenetic science. The interview guide narrowed from broad questions such as “Based on your understanding, how do children inherit things from their parents?” to the more specific “How do you believe your prior health status, behavior, and lifestyle could affect the health of your future children?” and “Have you ever heard of epigenetics? How about gene-environment interactions?” After a thorough response, with built-in redundancies to give the respondent every opportunity to express himself on the topic, the following non-technical description of epigenetics was provided:

Some scientists believe that experiences in your life can have effects on your future children. The idea is that genes can sometimes turn on and off based on experiences, things you do physically and things in your surroundings, and this sometimes applies to the genes in your sperm just like in the rest of your body. So some of your experiences are in your sperm, to so speak, and then genetically they get passed down to your children.

After getting initial impressions about epigenetics, respondents were told of the most frequently cited epigenetic example: Famine has metabolic impact across generations – not just in children, but in grandchildren (Heijmans et al. 2008). Data analysis investigated the structure of men's thought on paternal epigenetics. It was less concerned with evaluating technical knowledge or other aspects of inheritance.

Epigenetics was pitched at a layperson level. Molecular mechanisms of, for instance, intergenerational effects of telomerase reduction or R.N.A. transcription of dormant allele sequences were not covered in the interview. The interview did not deliberately seek to convince respondents of epigenetic science or educate them deeply about epigenetic research. Each interview, though, was fundamentally a discussion of epigenetics.

Interviews lasted approximately one hour. All interviews were audio-recorded. Recordings were transcribed verbatim and coded using an iterative process – reading the transcripts, developing a coding scheme, and writing memos exploring the main emerging themes. Five interviews were conducted in French and 26 in English for a total of 31 interviews. Translations from French are by the author. All respondents were fully proficient in either French or English, although in several cases as their second or third language. Quotations are transcribed from real-time conversations and spoken grammar was not always perfect.

The sample was ethnically diverse. The most frequent self-identified ethnicity was Caucasian or White, accounting for about half of the sample (16 respondents or 51.6%). Other relatively frequent identifiers were “Arabic” and “Middle Eastern” (four respondents or 12.9%) and Chinese (three respondents or 9.7%). The remaining eight self-described as either Black, East Indian, Latino, Native American, Pashtun, South Indian, or West Asian. Although the interview did not ask directly about sexuality, 27 respondents referred to female partners with whom they hope to have children using their own sperm. Four referred to male partners and stated an intention to use their own sperm with a donated egg through in-vitro fertilization.

As a group, these men were more educated than the broader Canadian population. This reflects the tendency of fertility clinics to serve those of higher socio-economic status. More than one-third held Bachelor's degrees as their highest completed education (12 respondents or 38.7%) and nearly as many held Master's degrees (11 respondents or 35.5%). Of the remainder, one held a Ph.D. (in Education, recently completed), four attended college but received no degree, one had a C.E.G.E.P. diploma (Collège d'enseignement général et professionnel – part of the Québécois higher education system entered after high school), and two had high school diplomas but no university attendance.

Respondents quoted more than once receive pseudonyms. Further personal details, including names and clinics, are confidential in order to make respondents more comfortable discussing potentially sensitive topics about personal health. The study was I.R.B-approved.

These recruitment and interview methods have strengths and limitations. Connecting present health to that of future children in an interview context does not necessarily mean that men have thought much about it before. Fertility clinic recruitment yields a purposive sample of men consciously intending to become fathers. For these men, the health of future children is not a hypothetical question. Not all of these men were infertile; some were receiving initial testing, or accompanying partners for treatments or egg-freezing procedures, and others were same-sex couples arranging surrogacy. Infertility, though, is very likely over-represented in this group compared to the general population, and even by virtue of stepping into a fertility clinic these men have an experience that could plausibly affect their attitudes on parenting. Arguably this is a limitation, though this is an exploratory study featuring a purposive sample of self-selected respondents and thus cannot claim representation. This is, all the same, the best readily obtainable qualitative data on this particular subject.

Results

Nine respondents had heard of “epigenetics” or “gene-environment interactions.” One of these knew of the concept, but not the term, before participating in this study. The other 22 were familiar with neither the terms nor the concept. No one stated flatly that he did not believe in epigenetics. All were at least open to the idea, with 23 of 31 directly stating that it seemed plausible without qualification. Five others were open to the possibility but wanted more information, for instance: “I would definitely like to read more about it. Yeah, if studies are showing that this might be possible … I would be very open to learning about it. I think it's completely possible.” Another of those wanting more information noted that scientists might become enamored with certain ideas that do not stand the test of time:

I'd have to understand where it is in the scientific process for acceptance. … Given I know nothing really about the details of D.N.A, I think it could be a thing, but yeah, I'd have to see where it is on the level of acceptance. Because I know there's all kind of things that become, what's it called, like a trend. It gets exciting and then it's not proven or whatever. I guess I could imagine ways in which it could happen.

Arjun, another respondent, directly stated skepticism, not because epigenetics might be too early in the scientific process, but because he was uncertain of whether it was a scientific concept to begin with:

There's a lot of things that come up – and again, trying to be very diplomatic – I think, that don't have a lot of grounding in science. And so, the fact that I've not come across it, the fact that it's not something that has ever been mentioned in all of the fertility [appointments] that I've ever gone to, I'm not sure that it's – my first thought is skepticism.

The aforementioned example of the Dutch famine study did not change Arjun’s point of view: “If you say that there's some kind of scientific proof to that, that it [heritable genetic change] happened in a single generation, that would be surprising to me.” Arjun was by far the most dismissive of epigenetics in the study sample. Perhaps relevant, he is older than the other interviewees, has scientific training (though not in biology), and holds a master's degree. He did not entirely reject epigenetic inheritance though. He believed that an unhealthy paternal lifestyle could increase chances of brain defects in a future child, but did not believe his lifestyle could enhance child health: It only hurts or is neutral.

Another respondent, Denis, at first stated he did not believe in epigenetics:

To me it just doesn't make sense. Genetics are genetics. I can’t – I don't – at least my opinion would be that the experiences I have aren't gonna affect, like, how I'm genetically made. … Chemically it's definitely going to change if I'm stressed out, or stressful, but I don't think genetically that's necessarily gonna be passed on.

After mention of the famine study, however, and despite a caution that there is no definitive scientific consensus on how paternal diet has heritable effects, Denis stated that he considered it plausible after all. He especially mentioned alcoholism and began relating the concept to observations he had made in his work as a police officer. He added that he would change his diet if he learned that scientists had established heritable effects:

It would definitely, probably even now, change the way I would eat to a certain degree. … I think if I knew that what I do right now, and that what I put in my body as far as food, or I guess my – kind of the way I eat – would definitely impact what I do, in fact, I would eat a lot healthier, make sure I'm eating fruits and vegetables and staying away from fats and fast foods. If I knew that was maybe getting genetically passed on and my kids would be a little more susceptible to that, then yeah, I would definitely be more cautious with what I eat.

This respondent indicated that his opinions could be changed and could in turn affect his behavior and lifestyle choices. Finally, one man said epigenetics seemed plausible, but conflated it with conventional genetic inheritance through dominant and recessive genes.

The most typical response was that the respondent had never heard of epigenetics, but reacted sympathetically once given an explanation. This category includes men who said they knew little and those who provided more elaborate viewpoints. As an example of the former: “I guess I agree with it. I don't know. Like I say, I haven't really read up on it or anything. But from the way you described it, I think you have a valid point.” As an example of the latter:

Yes, I agree with this idea. I think that indirectly I've already heard of this. I think that yes, we say that with this genetic information, we transmitted it to the child and maybe that information remains there. But there are moments in life, specific situations, that will set it off maybe – a behavior, or a habit, or a disease – and that could trigger that information. I think that environment will have an influence on the genetics. (translated from French)

This latter view is fully compatible with theories of epigenetic alterations in R.N.A. replication and gene expression. The respondent believes behaviors and events can alter genetics within a lifespan.

Some men unfamiliar with the term “epigenetics” had already accepted the idea, for example:

Let's take some university students and they're casual smokers, I guess. They smoke when they drink with friends. That could have an effect, then, if somebody that wasn't smoking and something later on, so you could have a 30-year-old that has healthier sperm if they didn't go through all that, than what a 20-year-old did that, and then changed their habits afterwards. Now, whether that's genetically possible, I don't know.

In the context of discussing heritable traits, this respondent had a sense that lifestyle could affect sperm health in potentially heritable ways, another association of epigenetics with change over time. Even though he expressed uncertainty as to the precise genetic mechanisms, this is an epigenetic claim.

Men who accepted the basic epigenetic idea did not necessarily understand how epigenetics would work mechanistically. It was hard for some of them to think of inheritance outside of a one-gene-one-disease deterministic model. That is, these men believed that single genes controlled phenotypic characteristics – a gene for eye color, a gene for height, and so on – and that disease resulted from single-gene mutations. To illustrate, Chao discusses why he and his partner quit smoking:

Chao:

Smoking wasn't good for us. There's really no health benefits. And I guess from media, from the smoking tax, there's a lot of information saying how detrimental smoking can be for babies and for people in general. Cutting it out was just a no-brainer.

Interviewer:

Is that because of second hand smoke, or because of something else?

Chao:

As far as I know? I was thinking, if we were smoking, it would be damaging our bodies and obviously the baby being coming from both of our bodies, we wanted to have the best chance of a healthy baby. So we didn't want to ruin it by our smoking.

Interviewer:

Is there a genetic connection, as far as you know?

Chao:

From being a smoker to having a certain disease from a newborn? Not that I'm specifically aware of.

With the dispositivity of “a certain disease,” Chao is thinking in terms of a determinate outcome, not a disposition, susceptibility, or more diffuse state of heath. He thinks smoking may have pre-conception effects – an epigenetic claim – and yet used heavily qualified wording about a genetic mechanism.

To illustrate further, several respondents thought in terms of one-gene-one-disease were more likely to mention some specific visible outcome in their offspring. For instance, Kevin supposed:

Let's say I'm super unhealthy, or let's say somebody is destroying their body with drugs, right? I would think that if that messes up your sperm, or maybe you give them – maybe you have damaged sperm that you're sending out to the eggs. Maybe the kid will have some sort of … maybe that sperm will be somehow inferior and all of a sudden they have a messed-up foot or something.

The “messed-up foot” may have been more of a momentary exaggeration than a serious expectation. But it nevertheless hypothesizes that health behaviors can cause specific, genetically associated conditions that present at birth. Though Kevin's idea differs from dispositional understandings, it is consistent with the basic epigenetic principle that genetic alterations are possible and transmissible. These examples show that not everyone who learns the basics of epigenetics will intuit a range of susceptibilities. Some may instead intuit a particular disease or deformity.

Several respondents have what might be called epigenetic intuitions, a genetic subjectivity already pre-disposed to accept these claims. They accept the epigenetic insight that their current health passes through sperm to affect their future children. For instance, Kevin cut back on drinking and smoking:

I guess it's that just like, okay, this is some bad substance that's in your body and your sperm are going to have – it's all in there, I don't know. It's actually like, okay the less bad stuff that's in you, the better that is for your sperm and then the kid. That's my thinking at least. … Not too sophisticated. Just like simple, “oh this is bad for me.”

With a dose of self-deprecation, Kevin made an epigenetic claim with, “the less bad stuff that's in you, the better that is for your sperm and then the kid,” but did not articulate a genetic mechanism, even when asked about it directly. (When Kevin received a short explanation of epigenetics, he said it sounded plausible.) Men can believe improving their health improves sperm health, and that sperm health improves child's health, even without knowledge of epigenetics.

One participant used language similar to epigeneticists, calling his lifestyle changes “reprogramming.” He believes in epigenetic effects – for instance, referring to the period before conception, “Environmentally, we can live in a healthier city, which is not polluted. We can eat healthy foods. So in those cases, yes, I believe I can affect the health of kids” – despite feeling skeptical about the epigenetic science. In planning fatherhood, he has significantly increased his exercise routine, started taking nutritional supplements, including folic acid, and “eating an overall healthy balanced diet, much more than I used to.”

As expected, some respondents said they simply had no idea about these topics. Responding to the broadly pitched question, “What impacts do you believe fathers have on the health of their future children before conception?” one respondent paused a long time before saying:

What impacts on health? I – I don't know. I'm not sure how to verbalize it a different way in that I just think that, like, living the healthy lifestyle is your best chance of passing that on. And that's all you can do. And other than that, if that doesn't work, then I don't know. I don't know how – what to do differently, and that's where you get someone who knows more about health care than I do to tell me. But at this point, I don't know – I can't – I can only say that, keep living the way the best as healthy as possible and the rest falls into place.

The respondent endorses epigenetics, connecting a healthy lifestyle to “passing that on.” But he does not know which behaviors pass on. He paused for a long time after the question, then said “I don't know” four times. Several other men also said they did not know, though most of these ventured guesses.

Yassin's overall genetic subjectivity typifies most study respondents. He did an internet search on “epigenetics” the night before the interview because he saw it referenced in the e-mailed consent form. (This is the only respondent who said he did this.) He stated that, prior to the internet search, he knew the concept but not the term: “I wouldn't say it was new to me, but what I would say is this concept, epigenetics, whatever it is called, this word was not known to me. But all I had the idea that external factors does [sic] affect our genetics and health.” He articulated the theory:

Yassin:

If there's anything that I am eating, it affects my health. And this will affect whatever I produce, including the children.

Interviewer:

Mhm. Sure. Do you know, or how do you believe that happens exactly?

Yassin:

I believe like when I am like eating the food – let's say it's genetically modified – I believe that this has consequences on my health. And those consequences could be physical or mental and then as well, that could be transferred to my kids. … I believe we may be able through biological contribution or even like through psychological.

Yassin’s response encapsulates the broader analysis: Respondents by and large articulated a burgeoning, sometimes direct and sometimes latent epigenetic subjectivity as the interview progressed. Many incorporated epigenetic thinking about their own influence, and even responsibility, to do what they can to assure the health of future offspring. Feeling compelled to act individually (or at least to say they will) has long been associated with neoliberal discourses of the self (Lemke 2001), health discourses (Petersen and Lupton 1996; Rose 2006), and genetic discourses (Novas and Rose 2000). These interviews asked men to examine their paternal influence, revealing an emergent genetic subjectivity.

Discussion

Genetic subjectivity

This article has explored the genetic subjectivities of prospective fathers, particularly regarding epigenetics. Genetic subjectivity is the socially conditioned ways people think about genetics. Normative agency based on genetic science is an important component of genetic subjectivity. Predictably, the genetic connection between parent and child D.N.A. is firmly established in men's minds. Likewise, sperm as the vehicle for that transmission is unanimously understood. From these premises, it is a straightforward deduction to the proposition “whatever affects D.N.A. of sperm could affect D.N.A. of future children.” The fundamental epigenetic move is to claim that at least some environmental and lifestyle factors affect sperm D.N.A. Thus it is unsurprising that people who find this plausible find epigenetics plausible. This was true of the men interviewed for this study, with many degrees of qualification and uncertainty as detailed in the Results section above.

Less predictable, though, was how readily men changed their behavior, or at least altered the rationale for it. Naturally, talking about lifestyle is different from implementing it behaviorally. Still, within the interview, men frequently stated their willingness to make healthier lifestyle choices in the future given strong epigenetic findings. As they presented it, these changes were for their children, not necessarily for themselves personally. This rationale is a component of subjectivity and derives, in this case, from genetics; hence I am calling it a genetic subjectivity. Social desirability and a certain scientific literacy, evinced by presence in a fertility clinic, likely influenced this finding. Nevertheless, one implication is that, facing new scientific information, the threshold for altering the rationale for behavior is fairly low. Reports of new scientific findings seem to be enough.

There was no uniform attitude among men on the question of whether and how their pre-conception health epigenetically influences their future children. There was unanimity that epigenetic inheritance should not be dismissed as a concept. But there was no consensus on the level of confidence in it or the exact mechanisms by which it operates.

Since respondents widely believe that their lifestyle and behavioral choices are likely to influence their future child’s health, whether they have an understanding of epigenetic mechanisms may not matter for public health impact. However, the shallower the knowledge, the greater the vulnerability to misunderstanding and misinformation. Future research and practice can investigate optimal public health communication approaches.

Respondents were unanimous that lifestyle is likely to influence the health of future children through some sort of genetic mechanism. They used varying examples of proximate behaviors: Many focused on diet (aligned with Martínez, Anduro, and Bojorquez 2020), others smoking (aligned with Antoniassi et al. 2016), exercise (aligned with Plutarch 1914, 245–247), or combinations thereof. The most frequent behavioral example in the interviews, as in the epigenetic literature, was diet (Heijmans et al. 2008; Kaati, Bygren, and Edvinsson 2002; Landecker 2011). Men in this study clearly expressed openness to revising their eating habits, even though there are clearly gendered cultural distinctions between meaty burgers and dainty salads (cf. Bourdieu [1979] 1984, 190–192). Diet has normative gendered implications. The stated willingness to change lifestyle in light of new information about gendered inheritance indicates a potential public health payoff to epigenetic knowledge, even when there are degrees of skepticism or unfamiliarity with its details.

These results on epigenetics are broadly consistent with those on general paternal genetics (Almeling 2020), adding that men fit epigenetics within their self-conceptions as responsible prospective fathers. That is, they align their genetic subjectivity with responsible fatherhood. Almeling may underplay the significance of men's willingness to act to benefit their children. My results, necessarily hedged by the limits of the sample, suggest complications – not contradictions – to what the sociology of reproduction has said of men. Although the meaning of sperm can construct and reinforce gender stereotypes (Barnes 2014; Law 2020; Moore 2007, 12), and although men sometimes assume biological risk for the sake of old-school manliness (Daniels 2006), my findings suggest men may eschew stereotypes in one area of conventional masculinity in order to fulfill another. What in masculinity is changeable and what is not, and under what conditions? These are research questions for a field that would likely do wrong to treat masculine ideals as monolithic and men as uncompromising.

The ontology of gendered inheritance

Paternal epigenetics prompts a potential responsibility to the next generation, as others have said of maternity (Kenney and Müller 2017; Pentecost and Ross 2019). In exploring how men think about epigenetics, this study found that respondents posed questions about their own responsibilities within the interview format. Epigenetic information prompted respondents to discuss their sense of responsibilities as prospective fathers.

Based on multiple generations of public health education, belief in maternal health influence is well established in the population. The men in this study reflected this understanding, which has the social status of common sense. The mother carries the fetus for nine months and the egg for her entire lifespan, even prenatally. What affects a woman's body could affect the health of her offspring, though this does not necessarily imply mothers are to blame for poor child health (Collins 2021; Mason 1993; Richardson et al. 2014).

The situation is different for men. Epigenetics has a different meaning for women than for men. The difference lies in the ontology of their sex cells. Men produce sperm cells that combine with an ovum to become an embryo. Like women, they provide a material input to create the future child. The egg cell already exists in the woman, but men produce new sperm throughout their lives. Unless a man is about to father a child, he is not carrying the impregnating sperm cell, and thus the particular strand of paternal D.N.A. that becomes part of the child does not yet exist. There is therefore a material and ontological difference between maternal and paternal epigenetic effects. The material basis for a maternal effect (the egg) already exists prior to conception, but the paternal material basis (sperm) does not with the same longevity. Maternal and paternal epigenetic ontologies are differently situated in time. It is precisely this ontological situation that enables male behavioral changes to epigenetically impact the next generation. The ontology of gendered inheritance enables the genetic subjectivity of prospective fathers.

The sociology of gendered inheritance

Intrinsic to epigenetics is a notion of dynamic health. Although it does not seem to challenge macro-social gender patterns, paternal epigenetics might change family-level behaviors. Raewyn Connell (1993) argues that masculinities develop within histories, and could theoretically reconfigure to democratize gender relations (Connell and Messerschmidt 2005, 852–853), though no grand historical “political masculinities” (Starck and Luyt 2019) operate among the men in this study in any obvious way. But what respondents in this study are doing is a more micro-level form of emergent masculinity (Inhorn and Wentzell 2011) in that it entails fatherly responsibility for change and development, in this case, for the biomolecular changes linked to lifestyle behavior.

Certainly more could be said about the gender dynamics in play. I say much of it in a separate paper (Kearney, in preparation): In brief, these men's genetic subjectivities fit a version of emergently hybrid masculinity, but without undermining patriarchy (also without deliberately strengthening it). More generally, they show that new scientific findings can be a source of emergent and hybrid masculinity (for these terms see Bridges and Pascoe 2014; Inhorn and Wentzell 2011). Men are updating their roles but not transforming them.

Conclusion

This article characterizes the genetic subjectivity of a sample of prospective fathers with a focus on epigenetics. All but one viewed the basic science as plausible, but with varying understandings of its implications for genetic mechanisms or their own lifestyles. Intriguingly, men stated a willingness to alter their own behaviors based on epigenetics, including normatively gendered behaviors. Awareness of paternal epigenetics changes genetic subjectivity. Men align their genetic subjectivity with responsible fatherhood.

Returning finally to the science to which these men are reacting: Epigenetic science shows that parental behavior can affect unborn offspring (Berdasco and Esteller 2019; Husby 2022; Kaati, Bygren, and Edvinsson 2002; Laubenthal et al. 2012), with fairly precise molecular mechanisms (Belleau et al. 2018; Lambrot et al. 2013; Siklenka et al. 2015). This is a type of interpersonal relationship, even though one of the persons in the relationship (the child) does not yet exist. Epigenetics thus poses a complexity for sociology with the same conceptual structure it poses for ontology. It is based on the future, not the present. There can be a socially consequential relationship between entities even in the absence of their material existence.

Further biological research seems likely to reveal a large number of distinct epigenetic mechanisms, not just one or two (Landecker 2011; Lappé and Landecker 2014). Genetics would then have a mechanistic structure much like sociology itself, since sociology has found a great number of mechanisms running between environment and social action. The matrix of influences on health would then have a group of inputting social mechanisms plus a group of inputting genetic mechanisms, with a set of interactions between social and genetic. The ultimate model of health determinants will be a large set of complex interactions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The data are not publicly available due to privacy and ethical restrictions.