Crossing New Frontiers in the Mating Game

Today we seek the answers to three questions dealing with men, women, morals, motherhood and marriage. Just think of this as a pop quiz. Take a few minutes before answering. Ready? Here are your three questions:

1. What parent wants an ugly child?

2. What kind of man reads Playboy?

3. What kind of woman weds Howard Stern?

All of these issues are in the news this week. Decide for yourself which positions you take on each of the following:

(a) A Malibu photographer and a bevy of California actress-models are auctioning off ovarian eggs to couples who want better-looking babies.

(b) A 90-year-old Texas oilman who died while married to a 26-year-old “playmate” left a will that is under dispute while his widow’s in L.A. Bankruptcy Court.

(c) A wife whose husband made a living treating women as bimbos has separated from this radio “shock jock” after more than 20 years.

If you are sympathetic to the chicks with the eggs, press 1.

If you believe that an old sugar daddy should leave his fortune to his sweet young bride, press 2.

If you feel sorry for a radio superstar because his biggest fan finally gave him the air, press 3.

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I guess we should begin with the egg hunt.

Ron Harris, 63, a photo and video shooter, is getting TV lenses aimed in his own direction since hatching a scheme to sell female eggs to the highest bidders.

He is the one who has been quoted as asking that great cosmic question, “What mother wants an ugly child?”

(On behalf of my own mother, I resent this remark.)

Harris appears to be within his legal rights--not to mention fertility rites--in promoting www.ronsangels.com, a Web site for the anti-ugly.

“Darwin at his very best,” Harris calls it, referring to 19th century naturalist Charles Darwin, who even at his very best never did spend much time in Malibu.

Harris has invited “beautiful and healthy” women between the ages of 18 and 30 to his big hormone raffle. It’s like a new Merv Griffin game show: “Wheel of Ovulation.”

The women themselves set a minimum egg price. They get to keep 100% of their egg money. Harris gets another 20%, on top of the winning bid.

(You know what they say: 120% isn’t what it used to be.)

There have been millions of hits since Monday on this cyber-paternity site. Some might be from pubescent lads with pimples and PCs who love to look at “beautiful and healthy” women. The look is free.

For details of a woman, however--on, you know, little things like whether she smokes six packs of Marlboros a day or has the IQ of a Rhode Island Red--the charge is $24.95. Face it, you don’t want cracked eggs.

Among those volunteering to donate chromosomes are reportedly a music student from L.A., 25, and an actress from Arcadia, 26. More power to them, although personally I’d rather order my eggs in an omelet from Susan Sontag and Susan Sarandon.

A fertility expert from Beverly Hills--this could be redundant--told the Associated Press: “If people want to spend $150,000 for the eggs of a gorgeous woman who has an IQ of 68, let them.”

I concur. God put us on Earth to reproduce. It doesn’t matter which came first, the chicken or the computer.

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Meanwhile, in court today, Anna Nicole Smith, 31, the bountiful but bankrupt Playboy model, is either owed $535 million or a fat goose egg by her late hubby, J. Howard Marshall, the Texas oil fossil.

Smith is at odds with the oilman’s son, Pierce, 60, over what the 1992 Playmate of the Year’s got coming to her. She was married 14 months to Marshall senior. He died in 1995 at age 90, not nearly the man he was at 89.

Not since the People vs. Melvin Dummar have we had a bigger battle of wills. I am rooting for Smith. She now lives in an apartment in Burbank. If she inherits the $535 million, she could almost afford California house prices.

As for Mr. and Mrs. Stern. . . .

I have given this breakup a great deal of thought. Howard Stern is a funny man. He has a lot of this fun at women’s expense.

Many men would love to do the same.

Therefore, if Howard’s wife gets something like $535 million in their divorce, many men would be happy to marry her. I think she should find out which beautiful, healthy men are available.

Mike Downey’s column appears Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Write to him at Times Mirror Square, Los Angeles 90053. E-mail: mike.downey@latimes.com