The Sperm Kings have a problem: too much demand

There have always been infertile heterosexual couples who need donor sperm, but with the legalization of gay marriage and the rise of elective single motherhood, the market has grown over the past decade. About 20% of sperm bank customers are heterosexual couples, 60% are gay women and 20% are single mothers by choice, according to the banks.

To meet this demand, men have provided sperm at a constant rate for years, according to some banks. But the coronavirus has changed things. Existing donors were afraid to enter. New donor registrations were on hold for months during the lockdown and never really bounced back at some banks. Several banks said they have a lot of old frozen sperm in stock, but it can only last so long.

“Donor recruitment is a growing challenge,” said Scott Brown, vice president of strategic alliances for California Cryobank. “And I would definitely say that people are still very interested in having children.”

A lot of people also want smart sperm. This is why some big banks are close to elite colleges. They have semen collection centers in Palo Alto, Calif., Near Stanford University, and in Cambridge, Massachusetts, near Harvard. College men are one of the most trusted groups to see the potential chaos of creating maybe 50 biological children around the world in exchange for around $ 4,000 over several months – and decide it’s a good deal.

A donor typically visits a bank once or twice a week for months to produce enough sperm to sell to dozens of families.

“A lot of their recruiting is done around the fraternities, but the fraternities don’t come together,” said Rosanna Hertz, chair of women and gender studies at Wellesley College and co-author of “Random Families,” a donor design book. “People want semen from college, so to speak.

The banks were therefore becoming desperate. A recruiter told me that she had started advertising at the start of the outdoor trails since the gyms closed. A sales representative from another sperm bank said he hoped management could offer cash bonuses to attract donors, but his bosses feared setting a precedent.