The value and meaning attached to genetic relatedness among Australian sperm donors

Abstract

While in the context of western societies sperm is attributed with a wide range of meanings, in the context of assisted reproduction it has increasingly been treated as an alienable commodity. Yet despite attempts by medical professionals to encourage a disconnect between donors and their sperm, the latter continues in many instances to operate as a synecdoche for the former. This can be seen, for example, both in donor-conceived children's desire to know their donor and in donors' investments in the use of their sperm. This paper explores the latter example by providing a discourse analysis of the narratives of 30 Australian sperm donors, with a focus on how they accounted for the value and meaning of their sperm. Three broad themes are discussed: sperm as a marker of genetic legacy, responsibility for sperm as genetic material, and sperm as a “gift” to others. The implications of these understandings of sperm among donors are discussed in relation to outcomes for all parties involved in donor conception, and suggestions are made for recognizing the investments that donors may have in their sperm.

Keywords:

• sperm donation
• identity
• responsibility
• altruism
• genetic relatedness

Introduction

As anthropologists, social scientists and feminist theorists have long noted, there are a wide range of social and individual values attached to sperm: values that are highly contingent upon beliefs about what it is that sperm signifies (Martin 1991, Moore 2002, Kirkman 2004, Ripper 2008, Thomson 2008). In western societies, sperm has traditionally been taken as a signifier of masculinity, virility, fertility and agency. In varying historical periods these meanings attributed to sperm have produced a range of effects, including the injunction to “save” sperm (i.e. by restricting ejaculation to procreative heterosex), and more recently the desire to know the “worth” or “veracity” of sperm (i.e. in genetic testing, either for health reasons or to determine paternity). As such, sperm as a bodily fluid represents more than just capacity to create life (or indeed to end life through the transmission of disease); in many ways it functions as a synecdoche for men as a whole in patriarchal society, where worth and value in terms of masculinity are accorded on the basis of functionality, agency, and control. Certainly this relationship between sperm (as a non-gendered bodily fluid) and men (as gendered beings) would explain why sperm carries with it such a wide range of meanings, and why in the context of sex it carries with it weight in excess of its capacity to create or take life (i.e. ejaculation is typically considered central to men's sexual practices, even though ejaculation is not required for orgasm).

In addition to this wide range of meanings attributed to sperm in western societies, and increasingly since the middle of the twentieth century, sperm has also been seen as an alienable commodity that can be donated or sold for use by others (such as in the use of donor conception, as is the focus of this paper). Yet while the process of donation or sale of sperm is typically presumed to sever ties to the donor himself, the synecdochal relationship between men and sperm functions to refuse a simple distinction, often with significant implications (Waldby 2002). In the context of donor conception, recipients of donor sperm (traditionally heterosexual couples) and medical professionals have historically gone to considerable lengths to refuse any relationship between donors and donor-conceived children (Daniels and Lewis 1996, Kirkman 2004). This has included not maintaining (and in some cases destroying) records containing information about donors, and generally encouraging a climate of secrecy about donor conception. More recently, however, and particularly as donor-conceived children (many of whom are now adults) speak about what it means to not have been told about their donor conception, or to not be able to access information about their donor (e.g. Turner and Coyle 2000), views about the separability of donors, their sperm, and children conceived of their donation have slowly shifted, with parents of donor-conceived children reporting a growing recognition that children have a right to know (Lycett et al. 2005).

Often what appears to be at stake when heterosexual parents consider disclosing donor conception status to children is the identity of the family itself (Grace and Daniels 2007). This may perhaps be exacerbated by media attention on cases in which donors have successfully petitioned for access to children conceived of their donations, despite entering into contracts stating that there would be no such access (Kelly 2002, Dempsey 2004, Ripper 2008). Yet what often disappears in anxieties over donors claiming parental status is the heteronormative social context in which sperm donation occurs, and within which certain family forms often receive greater support than others. In the case of donor sperm, the encouragement of secrecy about donor conception was historically intended to ensure that the family appeared to all parties other than the mother, father, and medical professional as a family formed through heterosex (Daniels and Lewis 1996). Yet while in many instances this was achieved (i.e. there remain a significant number of donor-conceived children who do not know of their donor conception), these attempts at emulating a heterosexual family formed through heterosex continue to produce anxieties over “discovery” (Grace and Daniels 2007). Furthermore, the inevitable backlash from donor-conceived children wanting to know about their donor has, if anything, only exacerbated the value attached to sperm as a marker of kinship or connection, rather than diminished it. Moreover, examples of the ongoing connection between donors and donor-conceived children only serve to reify the images of sperm as a signifier of fertility, agency and potency as outlined above. As such, it is perhaps understandable that both donors and donor-conceived children have become increasingly invested in the meaning of sperm as a marker of genetic relatedness.

Taking account of these issues about the meanings of sperm and in particular its increasingly contradictory position as both an alienable commodity and a marker of genetic relatedness, the present paper sought to explore the meanings attributed to sperm as genetic material among a group of Australian sperm donors. Specifically, we were interested in whether or not the men we interviewed were invested in making claims about their sperm, and how these claims could impact upon both recipients of their donations and children conceived of them. Our findings suggest that the men did indeed accord considerable value to their sperm as a signifier of future genetic relatedness, although as we note further in the paper prior to our analysis, this was mediated by the differing identities of the men and the impact of the broader social context upon their own opportunities to reproduce.

Method

Participants

Ethics approval was granted by the University of Adelaide's Human Research and Ethics Committee. Thirty semi-structured interviews were conducted by the authors with Australian gay and heterosexual men who had acted, or were in the process of acting, as sperm donors. Of the sample, 21 men self-identified as gay (70%) and nine self-identified as heterosexual (30%). Participants were gathered from across four Australian states: South Australia, Victoria, New South Wales and Tasmania. The average age of participants was 45 years, the range being 25 to 65. Fourteen (46.7%) of the sample self-identified as parents (i.e. they were currently involved in raising children on a custodial basis), while 16 (53.3%) of the sample did not. Eight (88.9%) of the heterosexual men identified as parents, while only six (28.6%) of the gay men identified as parents. Thirteen participants had donated anonymously to clinics in states where the identification of donors was not mandatory (eight of these men were heterosexual), and the remaining 17 men had donated through private arrangements to friends or acquaintances who were identified by the participants as lesbians (16 of these men were gay). Of the 17 men who had donated in the context of private arrangements, 12 had donated to a lesbian couple, and five had donated to a single lesbian woman. Four of the men who donated to known lesbian recipients negotiated with the women to donate via clinics so that the sperm could be screened and reproductive technologies employed to ensure fertilization. The majority of the men identified as white Australians (90%).

Procedure

A semi-structured interview schedule was utilized, with questions focusing on the men's motivations to act as sperm donors, the emotion work involved in sperm donation, and their beliefs around family and children (findings from these aspects of the project are reported elsewhere: Riggs 2008, 2009). Interviews lasted on average 30–45 minutes. All 30 interviews were orthographically transcribed for the purpose of thematic analysis with participants being assigned pseudonyms at this stage. An initial thematic analysis of the entire sample found that all of the men spoke on topics outside of the interview schedule. One such topic was the value or meaning accorded to sperm (this topic was spoken of across all participants for a total of 35 discrete incidences). In order to explore this topic in more detail, portions of the interviews dealing with this topic were then transcribed using Jeffersonian conventions. On subsequent re-readings of the selected data sub-themes were identified within the overall topic of value or meanings accorded to sperm. These were (1) sperm as a marker of genetic legacy; (2) responsibility for sperm as genetic material; and (3) sperm as a “gift” to others. These are explained in greater detail in the analysis, where selected representative extracts from each theme are analyzed.

Analytic approach

The analytic approach used in this paper is informed by a synthetic approach to discourse analysis (Wetherell and Edley 1999), referred to as such as it involves the combination of two different major branches of discursive research: one coming from a focus on specific rhetorical features of talk, and the other being concerned with the broader power structures in which people live. At the level of rhetoric, talk reflects the pragmatics of the specific interactional context in which the talk takes place. A focus on this micro level examines the rhetorical effects of particular forms of language use. At the same time, everyday talk reflects broader, socio-culturally produced patterns of making sense about the world. A focus on the macro level deals with how people use languages in ways that can be understood to be both situated in particular cultural and historical contexts, and constructive of understandings of both the social world and intelligible identities. Of course both of these approaches focus on what is accomplished and constructed by talk: the action-orientation of language (Hepburn 2003). However, as each of these approaches understands language to be action-oriented at different levels, a synthesis of the two approaches allows us to deal with these different levels on which talk operates.

Adopting a discourse analytic approach brings with it a particular style of analysis, one that is not focused on determining the “authenticity” of participants' claims, nor imputing intrapsychic processes to participants in order to explain their narratives. Rather, discourse analysis as undertaken in the framework we outline above involves examining the rhetorical effects of particular patterns of speech, both at the level of the interpersonal and at the broader social level. This does not mean that “the individual” disappears; far from it. Instead, the individual is treated as a culturally competent member whose talk reflects something about some of the culturally intelligible ways in which the given topic can be spoken about. In this sense, our claim is not that the findings can be generalized to represent the thoughts or beliefs or all sperm donors. Indeed, we make no comment about donors' thoughts or beliefs per se. What we are interested in, by contrast, are the possibilities that are opened up or closed down by particular accounts of sperm, and the particular meanings attributed to it in relation to notions of genetic relatedness.

Analysis

Before presenting our analysis, it is important to provide some specific points of clarification about this particular dataset. As we noted in the introduction, to date much of the research and advocacy about donor sperm, access to identifying information, and the implications of this for all parties, has focused upon heterosexual families. This focus, while reflecting the constitution of the majority of donor-conceived families, is not easily applicable to lesbian-headed families. This is particularly the case given the ongoing investment in many sectors of western societies in constructing lesbian-headed families as “lacking” a male (see Clarke 2006, for a summary of this). Furthermore, research suggests that a significant majority of lesbian mothers make use of donor sperm from gay men (historically because access to donor sperm to single and/or lesbian women in clinics was not available, and also because of the assumption that gay men might be more critical of patriarchal norms relating to kinship, and thus be “better” donors, see Dempsey 2004, for more on this). Yet our previous research and that of others has indicated that gay men are not automatically less invested in the value of their sperm as a marker of genetic relatedness, and indeed that the fewer options available to gay men to become parents may lead them to become more invested in their sperm as a marker of genetic relatedness than heterosexual men might be (Riggs 2008, Ripper 2008). Of course in stating this, our intention is not to demonize gay men, but rather to note the specific impact of heteronormative social contexts upon both lesbians and gay men in regard to sperm donation. We provide these points of clarification due to the fact that the following analysis includes a significant number of extracts from gay men who donated sperm to lesbian recipients. While providing information about demographic characteristics of participants is not strictly standard practice for discourse analysis (because the focus is on the rhetorical effects of participants' talk, rather than inferring that their talk is “caused” by their identity per se), it is nonetheless important in the context of this study to do so in order to acknowledge the issues identified above that impact upon the differing investments that a range of men might have in the meanings of their sperm in the context of sperm donation.

Sperm as a marker of genetic legacy

The participants who were grouped in this first theme drew upon a notion of “genetic legacy” in talking about why they decided to act as sperm donors. Specifically, among these participants sperm was treated as serving a functional purpose for donors, enabling them to “leave their mark” upon the world. The first example of this comes from an interview with Paul, a single childless gay man who was in the process of negotiating donating his sperm to a lesbian couple.

Extract 1

1 Paul:	=	umm (0.5) an interesting thing is now that um (.) I am <middle aged> and don't plan to die so:on,
2 Interviewer:	=	mhm
3 Paul:	=	umm (.) i-i- the interesting question comes up to wher- um who am I going to leave all my worldly ↑goods to.
4 Interviewer:	=	mmm
5 Paul:	=	you know it seems a strange sort of thing, but when I was young I- I didn't think about those sorts of things.
6 Interviewer:	=	mmm
7 Paul:	=	and so (0.5) um (1.0) it is important (0.5) to me (.) um (.) or would be nice to know that um <when I fall off the> ↑perch that um I will leave something behind
8 Interviewer:	=	mm
9 Paul:	=	or part of me behind, you know
10 Interviewer:	=	mm
11 Paul:	=	So quite honestly my motives a-a-a- they are up front, whe- you know I want to know I can share the experiences and financial gains that I HAve,
12 Interviewer:	=	mm
13 Paul:	=	the knowledge and experience. Aah It would be nice. and give me a nice warm feeling to know that there is PART of me left.
14 Interviewer:	=	mm
15 Paul:	=	Lots of stuff you READ is about people having th- (0.3) um feeling that the line is continued and you know there's a part of you left behind or continue on.

Paul indicates his investment in an understanding of sperm as a marker of genetic legacy in his statement that it would be “nice to know that when I fall off the perch I will leave something behind” (lines 7). Importantly, however, Paul clearly states that he does not want to leave just anything behind, but rather that he wants to know “that there is part of me left” (line 13). While Paul also mentions leaving “worldly goods” (line 3), “experience” (lines 11 and 13), “knowledge” (line 13) and “financial gains” (line 11), his emphasis is upon the “warm feeling” (line 13) of leaving a genetic mark upon the world. In addition to making clear statements as to his own investment in notions of sperm as a marker of genetic legacy, Paul makes a consensus warrant to bolster his claims, in the form of “lots of stuff you read is about people having the feeling that the line is continued” (line 15). This serves to endorse and justify his position as one that is not simply his alone, but rather one that is widely held and therefore valid according to “lots” of other people.

In the following extract Joe, another single childless gay man who was donating to a lesbian couple, employs a similar argument to that made by Paul, namely that acting as a sperm donor allows him to leave something behind in the world. Different from Paul, however, Joe was explicit in his desire to have a child.

Extract 2

1 Joe:	=	Doing this means I will be creating a child and I think for me the thing out of it, is not so much the creation of a child which would be- is kind of exciting, of course
2 Interviewer:	=	[mm]
3 Joe:	=	but I think for me by the time any child would be (.) u:mm (.) wanting to see me, I will be you know 65
4 Interviewer:	=	mm
5 Joe:	=	you know um I would be retired or about to retire I think at that sort of third age of life to have something like that come into it,
6 Interviewer:	=	yep
7 Joe:	=	I think it's (.) partly it's partly about giving me ah so::mething(h) heh a little package, a little present.

The first part of this extract presents a view of sperm donation where Joe is placed at the center. This can be seen in Joe's emphasis upon his role – “I will be creating a child” (line 1) – even though he is just one of the people involved in the creation of the child, and even though he had not negotiated with the recipients of his donation (in a private arrangement) to play any parental role. He then goes on to state, contrarily, that “for [him] the thing out of it, is not […] the creation of a child” (line 1), which appears to indicate that the child is incidental to the situation in Joe's view. In other words, what is important is not the child as a person, but rather what the child will come to represent. This can be seen at the end of the extract, where Joe refers to the child as a “little package, a little present” (line 7). Joe's willingness for contact to occur may of course be a positive outcome for some donor-conceived children, who increasingly report a desire to know their genetic history (Turner and Coyle 2000). Nonetheless, Joe's emphasis upon sperm donation as providing something for “him” may have negative implications in the future for the recipients of his sperm.

In the final extract in this theme, Sam (a married childless heterosexual man who was in the process of being screened as a donor by a clinic) indicates some of the potentially negative emotional effects that could arise if donors, who are invested in an idea of genetic legacy, are unable to fulfill their desire to “leave something behind.”

Extract 3

1 Interviewer:	=	Did you find the experience of sperm donation emotionally taxing?
2 Sam:	=	You know it was something that I suppose (0.5) you know you you ah (.) i- it wasn't so much taxing, it was just (.) okay this is: ah serious
3 Interviewer:	=	yep
4 Sam:	=	um (.) a::nd (.) you know (.) ahh I've still got to get the genetic counseling and I've got a nephew that does have a genetic condition
5 Interviewer:	=	ok
6 Sam:	=	and I suppose in that sense, ahh if I get knocked out of the ↑ring, (0.5) at this stage, I think that would be ↑I think that would that would be that's something that would be very upsetting to (.) e- you know even in these narrow remote circumstances to be denied that opportunity, u:m that that that would be that would be ha:rd that would be ha:rd

In this extract Sam uses the metaphor of getting “knocked out of the ring” (line 8), a powerful description of donating sperm that compares it to engaging in competitive sports. The use of sporting metaphors for sperm has been well documented (Martin 1991, Moore 2002), where in general such a reference is used to denote a man's sperm “winning” (i.e. “first one over the line”). Sam's usage of a sporting metaphor, by contrast, references the possibility of “losing.” Sam's investment in winning is evident in the anxiety we can see in the way he talks about the “narrow remote circumstances” (line 6) in which he may have the “opportunity” to leave something behind, and that to be denied this, he repeats, “would be hard” (line 6).

The participants reported within this theme of sperm as a marker of genetic legacy (as broadly indicative of all participants who fell within this theme) would appear clearly invested in sperm donation as a means to leaving something behind in the world, or even having a child. Importantly, none of these men spoke of a desire to raise a child or contribute to parenting, though they were very interested in knowing about children conceived of their donations. From this perspective, to be refused the opportunity to donate sperm (i.e. in the case of Sam) would be a significant blow. While a willingness to be identified by donor-conceived children later in life is increasingly becoming important in Australia as most States now legislate for the release of identifying information (Riggs 2009), it is important to consider how the investments that men may have in their genetic material (or children conceived from it) may not necessarily match with the needs of recipients.

Responsibility for sperm as genetic material

As Daniels et al. (2005) suggest, there is an increasing injunction upon sperm donors to be “responsible” for the outcomes of sperm donation (such as being aware of their health status and specifically any inheritable diseases, and to be willing to be identified by children conceived of their donations). The donors included in this second theme clearly orientated to a notion of responsibility, albeit in a diverse range of ways. In contrast to the previous theme, which emphasized the needs and desires of donors over those of children and recipients, in this second theme donors appeared somewhat more focused on their responsibility to children and recipients and their needs.

This notion of responsibility for sperm as genetic material is evident in the following extract, where Tom, a previously married heterosexual man with children of his own, and who had donated sperm anonymously to a clinic, speaks of the representations of sperm donation that he has seen in the media.

Extract 4

1 Tom:

=

There has been several documentaries about people who ar- (.) sort of looking for their donors. and um (0.5) I-I-I find that ahh a bit awful really that these people don't know that they don't even record ↑even the hospital didn't really record anything, even if you are not going to tell th- the .hh person who was created which is ↓wrong but even if you weren't you would have thought the hospital would have some kind of record. It is important that donor records should be kept and that kind of thing. I fully agree with that entirely. I think it is foolish to take donations from anywhere and everywhere and then go off and create people because you don't know medical histories o:r who's related to who or anything

In this extract Tom constructs an identity for himself as someone mindful of the rights of donor-conceived children (“It is important that donor records should be kept” line 1). The account of responsibility that Tom provides, however, is one where hospitals (line 1), rather than Tom, are accountable for missing records or inadequate screening. This construction of hospitals as accountable may be seen as a tool used by Tom to manage his identity as a previously unknown donor: it is not he who is accountable for the lack of records, but rather hospitals that must be held to account. Nonetheless, and by advocating for a position of open records (in his suggestion that not telling “the person who was created” about their donor is “wrong,” line 1), Sam recognizes that there is a responsibility to provide donor-conceived children with knowledge about their genetic history.

In the following extract Mark advocates for a different understanding of responsibility, one that precedes the conception of children. Mark, a single childless gay man who had previously donated anonymously to a clinic, and who was now looking to donate sperm in a private arrangement to a lesbian couple, was concerned that donors and recipients operating outside clinics should be responsible in their negotiations of sperm donation.

Extract 5

1 Mark:	=	I- I believe (0.5) we should (.) look (.) at having quality donors and not necessarily quantity (.) and one of the things that worries me is if some recipients go wham bam thank you ma'am and do it and they say well fine we've GOT um we've got our sperm, without knowing what the father(.)'s ↑health is like. He could
	=
	=	be a drug addict, he could be something else, he could carry genetic things and I see that as irresponsible. and the same. From both sides for a guy that says look you know well here is my sperm just d:o it and take it, and I think that's ahhh (0.7) irresponsible. I think that's yea- (.) um I think we need to get over (.) as a community generally th- that (1.0) whatever and look at what is really imPORtant and that is we want healthy children
2 Interviewer:	=	yep
3 Mark:	=	and see even encourage people to look after themselves. you know just generally (.) and so those are a concern to me

In this extract Mark clearly constructs himself as a responsible donor through contrast with what he constitutes as “irresponsible” donors or recipients. “Irresponsible” recipients are depicted as potentially not mindful of donors who might be “a drug addict” or someone “carrying genetic things” (lines 1–3). Donors themselves are constructed as potentially irresponsible in just handing over their sperm (line 3). In constructing the image of an inappropriate donor, Mark implicitly depicts himself as a donor who would, by contrast, act responsibly and acceptably. Interestingly, and as per the previous extract, it is notable that Mark emphasizes an account of responsibility that focuses on others, rather than himself. In other words, by focusing on other people's potential lack of responsibility, no attention is paid by Mark to the fact that his previous anonymous donations may be constituted in the present as irresponsible – as failing to consider the future needs of children conceived from his donations.

Another example of donors discussing responsibility only to largely abdicate it appears in the third extract in this theme, where Eric talks about issues of consanguinity. Eric, a single heterosexual man with children of his own, had donated sperm anonymously to a clinic almost three decades ago, and had more recently donated sperm in private arrangements to lesbian couples.

Extract 6

1 Eric:	=	The other thing is the consanguinity issue u:m
2 Interviewer:	=	mmm
3 Eric:	=	because I have children who are now 28 and 29 that I don't know about, they could be having children of their o:wn.
4 Interviewer:	=	mhm
5 Eric:	=	> at this point in time< So (.) 25 years down the track when I am dead or almost dead, there is a possibility of my grandchildren breeding with my children.
6 Interviewer:	=	right
7 Eric:	=	a:nd no one has ever addressed this in (.) ah any sort of (0.5) studies hh because no one has looked into the ↑future.
8 Interviewer:	=	Mm
9 Eric:	=	And (.) I see the statistical probability as zero but (.) h because I don't know how many children I have from ‘78–79 .hh um sort of extrapolating into darkness hh
10 Interviewer:	=	Yeah
11 Eric:	=	That is why I am going to quit at the end of this yea:r, when I turn 60 I figure that is enough contribution to the gene pool of Australia

This extract is interesting for the way that Eric raises points about responsibility to donor-conceived children, only to dismiss his own culpability. So while Eric recognizes that he has “children who are now 28 and 29 that I don't know about” (line 3), and that this could mean the “possibility of my grandchildren breeding with my children” (line 5), he nonetheless at the time of the interview stated his intention to continue donating sperm until the end of the year. His willingness to continue doing so, it may be suggested, evokes the notion of sperm as a marker of genetic legacy as outlined in theme 1, as can be seen in his final statement that he will quit at the end of the year as he has made “enough contribution to the gene pool or Australia” (line 11). Eric manages the dilemmatic nature of donation as a sense of “contribution” versus the potential harm this could cause by abdicating his own responsibility for assessing the likelihood of consanguinity. So in line 7 Eric states that “no one has ever addressed this in any sort of studies” and “no one has looked into the future,” thus apportioning responsibility for this lack of consideration to everyone in general, rather than to him as an individual. That Eric has enough information to warrant caution (i.e. that there could be children conceived of his earlier donations that he doesn't know about) is explained away by claiming the “statistical probability as zero” (line 9), after having just recognized the possibility of consanguinity (which would have significant negative repercussions, even if the likelihood is minimal).

In this theme the participants variously recognized the need to be responsible for genetic material; however, this responsibility was typically placed upon the shoulders of others (hospitals, researchers, recipients, other donors), who were at times constructed as irresponsible. Such abdicating of responsibility thus does very little to indicate that donors themselves will concretely engage in what they deem “responsible” practices, and certainly in the case of Eric, it would appear that some donors continue with behaviors that may be seen as irresponsible at the same time as claiming that their awareness of certain issues (i.e. consanguinity) makes them responsible.

Sperm as a “gift” to others

As we outlined in the introduction, sperm is increasingly treated as an alienable commodity that can be donated or sold for its reproductive potential. As Daniels and Lewis (1996) note, a discourse of the “altruistic donor” is often evoked to several differing ends: (1) it combats negative depictions of the “deviant donor” who is in it for his own gratification (Thomson 2008); (2) it potentially refuses the treatment of sperm as alienable (i.e. a gift engenders a relationship between the parties); and (3) it constructs for donors a positive identity that is about them as a person, not just them as the producer of a commodity. This third and final theme examines how some of the participants appeared to orient their talk to a desire to help others through giving away their sperm. For some men sperm donation was spoken of in very pragmatic terms – that they had no use for their sperm, so they may as well give it away to others, as was the case for Andy, a single childless gay man who had donated to a heterosexual couple.

Extract 7

1 Andy:

=

I think so I-I-I don't think it is seen as being um a (.) reasonable thing ahh to do, I think it's kind of seen as someone getting their rocks off jerking off and you know o::r still doing it for money o::r I think most people don't get that um somebody might ah have an altruistic d(h)esire to actually say hey I'm not doing, as I say, “I am not using my sperm someone may as well do something with it.” I think for a lot of men who donate to clinics they think they are doing good. It is like donating blood. A body fluid to be given to someone else if they need it.

This extract is interesting for the way that Andy constructs sperm donation as an almost banal gift to others. This emphasis on banality may at least in part be a product of the social context in which sperm donation occurs; one where, as Andy states, “it's kind of seen as someone getting their rocks off jerking off and you know o::r still doing it for money” (line 1). In the face of this type of accusation, then, Andy may be seen as invested in depicting sperm donors as “altruistic” (line 1) men who “are doing good” (line 1). It is also interesting that Andy switches in line 1 from speaking in the first person to speaking about donors in general. This may be seen as functioning to manage Andy's own investment in an image of himself as a good person by distancing himself from the situation, by suggesting that his claims pertain not just to himself, but to all men who donate at clinics. Finally, in saying in lines 1 that “most people don't get that somebody might have an altruistic desire” to donate sperm, Andy implicitly identifies himself as one of those who do have such altruistic motives and constructs himself as a donor acting in the interests of someone else and giving his genetic material away to others who need it.

In the following extract Rick, a gay man with children of his own who had donated to a lesbian couple, also constructs an image of himself as giving sperm as a gift to others, and again that what is being given away is clearly marked as something he doesn't have a use for.

Extract 8

1 Rick:	=	I've been very much from the beginning not been intere- biology isn't something that matters to me (.) children my children I am not biologically related to, s:o (0.5) .h I (1.0) don't put a lot of stock in biology and so for me my line was probably was always from the beginning, I am being a donor for you for you (.)um
	=	that is the end of the story. My biological relationship to any child that could be born was largely >irrelevant and I think that is what made those negotiations so much easier because I was very cle:ar< about that. (.) and have no interest in claiming biology (.) further down the track. U::m (0.5) And one of the docos I saw recently, I really liked the idea that what you are giving is potential, you are not giving away a baby, whereas some people say oh if you donate sperm you are giving away your own child but you are not you are giving away the potential away for someone else to have a baby; you are not giving away your own child. And I really like that idea, especially in the context of being a parent myself and not wanting to have more kids in that way<

Rick constructs a view of kinship whereby genetics do not constitute a family when he talks about his own family and the “children [he is] not biologically related to” (line 1). With the subsequent sentence on line 1 (“so I don't put a lot of stock in biology”), Rick is able to label any relationship to the children born of his donations as “irrelevant” (line 1), indicating that to him the act of donation has no more meaning for him than him “giving away the potential … for someone else to have a baby”; that it is not like “giving away [his] own child” (line 1). Thus Rick accords no further value to his donation of sperm beyond a genetic contribution given away to someone else, a claim very similar to Andy's analogy to blood donation. Nonetheless, Rick is clearly aware that it is indeed possible to have a stake in notions of genetic legacy or the claiming of rights on the basis of genetic relatedness. In this sense, and much like the previous extract, Rick does have an investment in depicting sperm as something he does not need, and thus that he can freely give it away to others.

In the following and final extract Kyle, a single childless gay man who had donated to two lesbian couples, talks clearly about his understanding of sperm donation as a gift to others.

Extract 9

1 Kyle:	=	Well the first thing I should make clear is that I have been a donor to different couples. Both couples are same sex couples and they live in different states. Both couples I knew as friends and both couples asked me independently if I would help them to conceive a child. It wasn't my desire to be a father, but it was my desire to help them achieve their goal, to give
	=	them the one thing they didn't have to achieve that, to give them a gift. I knew in both cases that they would be wonderful mothers and that the child would be greatly loved and cared for and have a wonderful childhood. I really didn't have any reservations about doing it.

In this extract Kyle is clear that what he is doing as a donor occurs in the context of friendships and the accompanying desire to help other people “achieve their goal” (line 1). Helping others have “the one thing they didn't have” (line 1) is constructed as a gift from Kyle to the recipients. Yet, following Ripper's (2007) work on lesbian recipients of donor sperm, we can nonetheless see that Kyle constructs the women in particular ways as deserving recipients of the gift of donor sperm: Kyle states that he knew they would be “wonderful mothers and that the child would be greatly loved and cared for” (line 1). As Ripper suggests, this places pressure on lesbian recipients to “display their credentials” in relation to their capacity to be worthy recipients, and that some women may feel judged on this basis. Finally, it is important also to note, and similar to the previous extract, that Kyle is explicit in his statement that he doesn't need his sperm (or at least not for reproductive purposes): “It wasn't my desire to be a father” (line 1). This of course raises the question as to whether or not Kyle would have been as forthcoming as a donor had he desired to have biologically related children.

The extracts in this theme highlight the relative generosity of men who act as donors, but also draw attention to the fact that such generosity is the product of both some men's differential relationship to the value of their genetic material (i.e. seeing it as simply “potential” for life or as analogous to blood donation) and some men's assessment of recipients as worthy (or otherwise) of their donation.

Discussion

In this paper we have explored some of the complex ways in which this sample of Australian sperm donors accounted for the value and meaning of their sperm. For some men donating their sperm represented an “investment in the future,” while for others it required responsibility, and for yet others it was a gift that could be given away. Yet regardless of the account that each man provided, there was relative similarity in an apparent investment the men had in managing their identity as “good” people, and as having some opinion about the value and meaning of their sperm. Thus while some men were clearly invested in the “pay offs” of sperm donation (i.e. of there being children who were genetically related to them), others were just as invested in depicting themselves as responsible, or as genuinely altruistic people.

Notably, there was no easy distinction between the narratives of gay men and those of heterosexual men, nor between those who donated to heterosexual couples and those who donated to lesbian couples, nor between those who had children of their own and those who did not (though such differences have been noted in quantitative research from this dataset, see Riggs 2009). In part this is because discursive analyses do not seek to make these types of claims, but partly this is because there were men in all categories represented across the three themes. This highlights the fact that investments in the meanings of sperm as a marker of genetic relatedness may not be relevant to only certain groups of men; such investments may more correctly be understood as a product of the synecdochic relationship between sperm and men as a whole that is likely the case for the majority of men living in patriarchal societies. As such, it is important to discuss, as we do in the remainder of this paper, the implications of the accounts of sperm identified in this paper for future uses of donor sperm.

A key concern identified by the findings is the potential differences between the plans of donors and the plans of recipients, and the negative implications of these differences. As indicated in our analysis, some men had a particular investment in the outcomes of their sperm, namely that a child would be born who at some stage would recognize them. For men whose sperm is not used (i.e. in clinics), this could result in significant feelings of rejection (see Riggs 2009 for a further discussion of this). For recipients and donor-conceived children, the expectation of meeting or involvement on the part of donors may be experienced as a considerable demand upon their own desires and options.

It is also important to consider the implications of the value and meanings of sperm attributed by the men who spoke of responsibility. For these men, it often appeared to be the case that there was a significant gap between rhetoric related to responsibility, and actual responsible practices. Issues of consanguinity, for example, are clearly mandated by reproductive health clinics across Australia (i.e. one man's sperm can be used by a maximum of 10 families), yet some men operating outside these systems (i.e. in private arrangements) may choose to “extrapolate into the darkness” and continue donating to a large number of women. While we are not suggesting that these men were being “irresponsible” per se, we certainly would note with concern the possibility that outside the regulated clinical setting sperm donation occurs in situations that could produce negative outcomes for donor-conceived children (and this is not limited to consanguinity, but also encompasses the possibility of transmission of disease due to the lack of access to screening of sperm in private arrangements).

Finally, it is noteworthy that even those men who spoke of giving away their genetic material freely as a gift often appeared forced into an engagement with dominant representations of sperm donors as deviant (Thomson 2008). While such refutation may be important for some men, for others focusing on refuting negative stereotypes may prevent them from fully considering their own investments and the implications of their role as donors. It also appeared that some of these men experienced a demand to account for why they were acting altruistically, and in so doing demonstrated some of the limitations to claims to generosity among sperm donors (i.e. only treating genetic material as a gift if they had no other use for it, only wanting it to go to “good homes” – see Ripper 2009 for more on this). This would suggest the need not only to challenge dominant images of sperm donation, but also to recognize the interrelationships between altruism, values and the meaning of sperm.

In conclusion, this paper has identified some of the ways in which a sample of sperm donors spoke about the meanings they attributed to their sperm, and specifically how they understood sperm as a symbol of genetic relatedness (and the value or otherwise of this for them). The findings suggest that recognizing how sperm functions as a synecdoche for men and masculinity more broadly demonstrates the fact that sperm cannot easily be separated symbolically from the men who donate it, and that this requires ongoing attention to the implications of this for all parties. Moreover, and while a significant shortage of donor sperm is reported throughout Australia (Ripper 2009), the findings presented here highlight the importance of being circumspect about the investments that donors bring with them, and the need to further explore the differences that might exist in these investments between differing groups of men.

Acknowledgements

We wish to acknowledge the sovereignty of the Kaurna people, upon whose land we live in Adelaide, South Australia. This research was supported by a Faculty of Health Sciences small research grant: 13103310.