The 1990s marked a new era in family formation. Increased access to donor sperm enabled single women and lesbian couples to create their families on their own terms, outside the bounds of heterosexual married relationships. However, emerging “alternative” families were not without social and political controversy. Women who chose to have children without male partners faced many challenges in their quest to have children. Despite current wider social acceptance of single people and same sex couples becoming parents, many of these challenges continue. In Romancing the Sperm, Diane Tober explores the intersections between sperm donation and the broader social and political environment in which “modern families” are created and regulated. Through tangible and intimate stories, this book provides a captivating read for anyone interested in family and kinship, genetics and eugenics, and how ever-expanding assisted reproductive technologies continue to redefine what it means to be human.
Diane Tober is an assistant adjunct professor at the University of California, San Francisco Institute for Health and Aging. In addition to her research, she also produced and directed the documentary film, The Perfect Donor.
Table of Contents
Table of Contents Chapter 1: Murphy Brown and the Lesbian Baby Boom Chapter 2: Technologies and Politics of Reproduction Chapter 3: Semen to Go: Choosing Conception Alternatively Chapter 4: Semen Transactions: Donor Screening and the Regulation of Sexuality Chapter 5: Grass Roots Eugenics and the Fantasy Donor Chapter 6: Semen as Gift, Semen as Goods: Reproductive Workers and the Market in Altruism Chapter 7: From “Old Eggs” to “Odysseus’ Journey”—the Phenomenology of Infertility Chapter 8: What’s Alternative About Family? Chapter 9: From Murphy Brown to Modern Families Chapter 10: Conclusion: Towards a New BioPoliTechs of Emerging Families Afterward Acknowledgements References About the Author
