Editor’s note: The following was translated from an article written on wenxuecity.com. In a country where couples are desperate for their one child, their one little prince, when they find out they are infertile their worlds fall apart. Many turn to sperm donation, but are hindered by the sperm shortage in many of China’s sperm banks. This article focuses on the men still willing to donate sperm, albeit illegally, and how they go about doing it. From QQ groups to meetings in dingy bars and bags of sperm this is the world of illegal sperm donation in China.

It is 9 o’clock at night in a dingy bar in Guangzhou’s Yuexiu District, Duan Xuanyu (a pseudonym) is drinking a beer. He gets a call from his wife and says he will be home early. Then, with a mouth full of alcohol, he turns to the couple next to him and says “Pick me and I’ll give you a boy”. He then takes out a bag of sperm, with ice around it, and hands it to them.

This is the world of illegal sperm donation in China. Xuanyu is a sperm donor. The couple he met with have been married for many years but sadly have not had success in conceiving a child. They have tried everything. Not wanting to give up they turned to QQ and that is how they found Xuanyu. The couple will pay Xuanyu for his services and when the woman gets home, using a syringe, she will push the sperm into her uterus.

Xuanyu is not the only donor, there are tens of thousands of men out there, who find themselves at night, standing in the darkness with flashing lights from the bars behind them pulling out their own bags of sperm, or being paid by women to have sex in the hope of conceiving.

The authorities have of course banned such activities but there is a sperm shortage in China and couples who are unable to conceive naturally are going to extreme measures to get pregnant. And QQ groups are helping to facilitate.

Techniques to woo potential clients

Xuanyu stated that he is the planning director at an advertising company. In a 20 minute QQ conversation it is hard to establish his true identity, but he sent screenshots of his desktop showing a logo with words such as “planning” and “material”. The background on the desktop is a great big photo of a smiling child; his 3 year old son. Donors who are already fathers will often send photos of their children to prove their fertility. He also doesn't forget to explain how easily his wife and he conceived, “My wife and I only had sex a few times before we got married, and I always used a condom. We stopped using them when we got married and almost immediately had a child”. Just more evidence to prove how fertile he is.

Getting into the business

Xuanyu has been a donor for two years. When living in Shenzhen he tried to answer the government’s call for donors to Guangdong’s sperm bank. However the two times he called, sperm bank personnel told him Shenzhen was too far from Guangzhou, and so rejected him as it would be too time-consuming.

This left Xuanyu feeling a bit depressed, but he was not put off and ‘went out on his own’. Around a week later he had set up a donor QQ group. The group includes a lot of information about the donors, and when he has time he checks the information: “I will speak privately to women who have put their information on the group and then ask if they want sperm.”

After a while, Xuanyu found himself enjoying the work and talking with the group, because there you can talk openly and frankly about sex: “Under normal circumstances, if I were to talk to a stranger about sperm or her husband’s fertility issues, I’d be accused of being indecent.” He has also found sperm donation a good source of income.

Xuanyu went on to say that these ‘abnormal donation channels’ are conducted by donor and recipient meeting privately either through direct contact or through an illegal fertility clinic. The QQ group has become very popular, especially among donors, because whether the woman conceives or not, the donor will make very good money. Some can make thousands of RMB.

“Almost forgot my payment; I wanted to get outta there so fast”

In February 2012 a 30 year old Xuanyu made his first donation. He hid in the toilet of a bar. There were water stains on the sink where he put a sandwich box filled with ice; with a shaking hand he held the box and turned his body….

After 10 minutes, he opened the door and handed the sandwich box full of “little tadpoles” to a 34 year old woman, and then he left. “At the time I almost forgot to get my payment because I wanted to run out of there fast”. He was given 500 RMB for his troubles. Two weeks later the woman contacted him to say it had failed, she was still not pregnant. After that he didn’t hear anything from her again.

After the failure of his first try Xuanyu started to research how to ensure success. He conducted a thorough investigation, finding out that you can buy ovulation charts off Taobao to better understand when a woman is ovulating. He looked at many pictures on the internet and read reports about what the best syringe is in order to get the most sperm into the uterus.

With all this new found knowledge he quickly stood out amongst the other donors. Soon after, he was contacted by a married couple, who after five years of marriage had still not conceived. That time, after the syringe was full Xuanyu and the woman’s husband helped to inseminate her. Xuanyu’s memories of the event were that the fly in the sink didn’t stop flying around, sweat was running down his face, the shadow he cast over the woman’s body and the sweat running over her belly. This time ended in failure too.

A month later the woman came back without her husband. Desperate for a baby, she and Duan Xuanyu had sex. They went to a hotel that didn’t require ID cards, turned off their phones and video making equipment. Two months later Xuanyu received a message via QQ; it was a picture of an ultrasound. She was pregnant. Two days later a barrel of honey was delivered to Xuanyu as a thank you.

Wanting to donate

On the QQ group, it is rare that women post threads asking for sperm. It is more common to find potential donors through their posted information. There are about 100 people in the group, but only about 12 regularly chat. Despite that, messages are posted everyday. Of these 12 most active members almost all have donated sperm that successfully lead to a pregnancy. “There is a definite hierarchy within the group and those that have had success are the ones who post.” But it doesn’t mean that everyone else in the group is inactive. Within 20 minutes of joining this reporter was inundated with messages. Compared with the bosses these people have to really sell themselves; they share their educational background, height, appearance, and even salary. One member called ‘211Doctor’ (211 院校博士在读) wrote that his height is 176, his parents were both healthy, that his grandmother died last year, but that all other relatives were alive”. Someone else, called 176Doctor, told this reporter that he was 31 years old and engaged in scientific research so didn’t have time for a wife and family: “Maybe I won’t get married, so I hope to leave behind offspring while I’m still young”.

Source: wenxuecity.com

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Keywords: illegal sperm donation in China sperm shortage in China