ABSTRACT
When men are screened in order to become sperm donors, many things are assessed: their sperm quality, their physical and genetic information, their personality, as well as their social characteristics. Far from being an objective process, donor screening at sperm banks draws on many social norms when looking for the right men. Based on ethnographic observations at Danish sperm banks, interviews with sperm bank staff and directors, sperm banks’ marketing material, as well as legal frameworks for sperm donation at EU and Danish national level, this chapter shows how sexuality as a category of knowledge is used by sperm banks to select men as sperm donors. Arguing that the figure of the responsible donor guides this selection process, this chapter shows how screening processes at sperm banks involve normative assumptions about what constitutes acceptable sexual behaviour, thereby selecting men who conform to the standard of heterosexual, monogamous, and procreative sexuality.
