What does it mean to be a man in our biomedical day and age? Through ethnographic explorations of the everyday lives of Danish sperm donors, Being a Sperm Donor explores how masculinity and sexuality are reconfigured in a time in which the norms and logics of (reproductive) biomedicine have become ordinary. It investigates men’s moral reasoning regarding donation, their handling of transgressive experiences at the sperm bank, and their negotiations of gender, sexuality, intimacy, and relatedness, showing how the socio-cultural and political dimensions of (reproductive) biomedicine become intertwined with men’s intimate sense of self.
As outspoken in his day as Richard Dawkins or Christopher Hitchens are today, American freethinker and author ROBERT GREEN INGERSOLL (1833-1899) was a notorious radical whose uncompromising views on religion and slavery (they were bad, in his opinion), women's suffrage (a good idea, he believed), and other contentious matters of his era made him a wildly popular orator and critic of 19th-century American culture and public life. As a speaker dedicated to expanding intellectual horizons and celebrating the value of skepticism, Ingersoll spoke frequently on such topics as atheism, freedom from the pressures of conformity, and the lives of philosophers who espoused such concepts. This collection of his most famous speeches includes the lectures: [ "The Gods" (1872) [ "Humboldt" (1869) [ "Thomas Paine" (1870) [ "Individuality" (1873) [ "Heretics and Heresies" (1874)
Sperm Donor Offspring: Identity and Other Experiences explores the psychological experience of sperm donor descendants, in order to examine the impact and implications of reproductive technologies.
This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license. It is free to read at Oxford Scholarship Online and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations. Each year, tens of thousands of children are conceived with donated gametes (sperm or eggs). By some estimates, there are over one million donor-conceived people in the United States and, of course, many more the world over. Some know they are donor-conceived. Some do not. Some know the identity of their donors. Others never will. Questions about what donor-conceived people should know about their genetic progenitors are hugely significant for literally millions of people, including donor-conceived people, their parents, and donors. But the practice of gamete donation also provides a vivid occasion for thinking about questions that matter to everyone. What is the value of knowing who your genetic progenitors are? How are our identities bound up with knowing where we come from? What obligations do parents have to their children? And what makes someone a parent in the first place? In Conceiving People: Identity, Genetics and Gamete Donation, Daniel Groll argues that people who plan to create a child with donated gametes should choose a donor whose identity will be made available to the resulting child. This is not, Groll argues, because having genetic knowledge is fundamentally important. Rather, it is because donor-conceived people are likely to develop a significant interest in having genetic knowledge and parents must help satisfy their children's significant interests. In other words, because a donor-conceived person is likely to care about having genetic knowledge, their parents should care too.
This is the inside, never-before-told story of the Nobel Prize sperm bank, the most radical experiment in human breeding in U.S. history. More than 200 children were born from this sperm bank between 1980-1999. It is also the story of the extraordinary meetings between the children and their donor fathers.
The ready availability of donated sperm and eggs has made possible an entirely new form of family. Children of the same donor and their families, with the help of the internet, can now locate each other and make contact. Sometimes this network of families form meaningful connections that blossom into longstanding groups, and close friendships. This book is about unprecedented families that have grown up at the intersection of new reproductive technologies, social media and the human desire for belonging. Random Families asks: Do shared genes make you a family? What do couples do when they discover that their children shares half their DNA with a dozen or more other offspring from the same sperm donor? What do kids find in common with their donor siblings? What becomes of these chance networks once parents and donor siblings find one another? Based on over 350 interviews with children (ages 10-28) and their parents from all over the U.S., Random Families chronicles the chain of choices that couples and single mothers make from what donor to use to how to participate (or not) in donor sibling networks. Children reveal their understanding of a donor, the donor's spot on the family tree and the meaning of their donor siblings. Through rich first-person accounts of network membership, the book illustrates how these extraordinary relationships -- woven from bits of online information and shared genetic ties -- are transformed into new possibilities for kinship. Random Families offers down-to-earth stories from real families to highlight just how truly distinctive these contemporary new forms of family are.
The Pea That Was Me is a charming introduction to sperm donation for kids of single moms by choice for children ages 3 and up. In a positive and upbeat way, children are told about it takes a sperm and an egg to make "a little pea", that grows into baby, and then becomes a little boy or girl. Emphasis is on how much the child was wanted, and how grateful mommy is to the "very kind donor" who helped make it all possible.
“What happens when sex cells sell? Do human bodies become degraded objects of commerce? Challenging simplistic accounts of commodification, Almeling offers a compelling analysis of contemporary markets for eggs and sperm. A superb contribution to 21st century economic sociology.” -Viviana A. Zelizer, author of Economic Lives: How Culture Shapes the Economy “This is a highly informative book. Almeling provides a balanced approach to this highly controversial subject. Although you might be conflicted by the ethical issues, you will definitely be extremely well-informed when you finish this book.” -Alan H. DeCherney, MD, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development “Almeling offers a wonderfully thoughtful analysis and an innovative cultural lens for viewing the gendered lives of sex cells and their commodification in the contemporary USA.” -Rayna Rapp, author of Testing Women, Testing the Fetus: The Impact of Amniocentesis in America
What can sociology tell us about our personal lives, families and intimate relationships? This book explains how key theoretical perspectives and relevant contemporary research in the discipline can shed new light on even the most familiar areas of our everyday worlds. From friendships and pets, to political engagement and social legislation, the text shows how distinctions and connections can be drawn between our public and private lives. Each chapter explores a familiar topic that illustrates how individual relationships and lives can be shaped by social contexts, and how personal choices shape the wider social world. Using vivid case examples drawn from topical areas of debate, such as marriage rights and the role of social networking, the book is clearly laid out and easy to read. It gives useful explanations of theory and invaluable advice on how to carry out research on personal lives and relationships. This is essential reading for students of sociology interested in family, relationships and beyond. New to this Edition: - Pre-existing chapters have been fully re-written - Includes a number of new chapters on topics such as the body, home and personal life in public spaces. - Reformulated 'questions for discussion' at the end of each chapter.
With reproductive medical technologies becoming more accessible, assisted donor conception is raising new and important questions about family life. Using in-depth interviews the authors explore the lived reality of donor conception and offer insights into the complexities of these new family relationships.
