Selling your boys

Guys: Get paid for what you already do for free! Sperm donors wanted. $250 per specimen.” I was an undergrad, sitting in the dank men’s room when I saw the flyer taped to the door, just low enough to confront the potential recruit as directly and as quickly as possible.

I was aware that men donated sperm. But I wasn’t aware they sold it. After the initial shock wore off, the lure of $250 bucks—no small sum to a financial aid recipient like myself—grabbed hold of me. 

I never did end up spilling seed in the name of unfortunate, infertile couples—or cold hard cash. But there are plenty of guys to take my place. Six NYC locations specialize in sperm donation, including Manhattan Cryobank on the Upper East Side. Alan Ravin is the bank’s tissue director and, although he’s not an MD (he has a bachelor’s degree in biology, as well as being certified by the American Association of Tissue Banks as a Certified Reproductive Cryotechnology Specialist), he assures me that there are plenty of doctors on the bank’s staff.

According to Ravin, most of the donors are students, but there are several doctors and lawyers among them. Once selected, they get $60 to $90 per specimen depending on the quality of (and demand for) their sperm. The real shocker is that they typically donate once or twice a week for six to 12 months. That’s quite a commitment with a minimum of reward or appreciation.

The most difficult part may be the prep-work: Before donors arrive, they have to abstain from any kind of sex for two to five days before their first and all subsequent deposits. Next they fill out a questionnaire that asks them about their genetic history, their parents, their physical characteristics and whether they have any STDs.

Then it’s on to the private collection room where they’ll donate their spunk for the first time. The room is fully-equipped with videos and magazines “to help,” according to Ravin. “We always recommend that they produce a specimen through hand manipulation.”

This initial specimen is just a tryout. It goes into an on-site lab for evaluation to be examined for volume, sperm concentration and motility. If it meets the criteria, the donor goes home with more paperwork to fill out. According to a recent study published in the June issue of the American Sociological Review, 90 percent of applications are rejected because their sperm isn’t deemed donation-worthy.

If everything checks out, donors must sign a consent form that makes it clear that they will not receive any information about their kids or the clients purchasing their sperm. Likewise, clients sign that they understand any information that could be used to learn the donor’s identity is confidential.  

For donors, confidentiality is the primary concern, Ravin said, but dealing with inquiries about a donor’s identity from clients or their children is not a concern because they are infrequent.

Clients are allowed to request and receive updates on their donor’s health, lifestyle or new information about the donor or his family’s personal history, but not the donor’s name or any other information that could lead clients or their children to him. “To me, if somebody signs a confidentiality or consent agreement, they should basically just keep it like that. Just keep the information confidential. Don’t go after it,” Ravin said.

But a growing movement is trying to make the entire process more transparent. In 1989, Wendy Kramer and her then-husband learned he was infertile. And just two weeks after a minor surgery failed to correct the problem, Kramer conceived using an anonymous donor’s sperm that a local clinic got from the California Cryobank, Inc., said to be the world’s largest.

When her son, Ryan, was two, he inevitably asked her if his “dad died or what?” Wendy decided then and there to start explaining his unconventional conception, giving him more and more information as he grew up.

In 2000, the Kramers started a Yahoo! group and posted their donor’s profile number, which clients have access to, hoping to find any half-siblings he might have. This group eventually became the Donor Sibling Registry, which has matched 3,796 half-siblings and/or donors so far. In February 2007, Ryan Kramer found a half-sister through the registry.

Wendy Kramer’s working to have sperm banks acknowledge that kids are interested in knowing who their biological parents and half-siblings are, and has been encouraging cryobanks to “self-regulate” sperm donation, which she calls “big business.” All this pressure may cause potential donors to be more reluctant to give of themselves, but temptation could win out. Despite all the hoops, it’s a nice chunk of change in your pocket, and all for just a few minutes of touching yourself.