Forging New Families in Contemporary Contexts: The Online Sperm Donation Project, 2022-2026

Turner-Moore, Rhys and Pacey, Allan and Smith, Lauren and Frith, Lucy and Lemkes, Alice and Taylor-Phillips, Francesca and Krotoski, Aleks and Palmer, Tanya and Carless, David and Jones, Georgina and Forshall, Georgina and Eldred, Lucy and Jukes, Joe (2026). Forging New Families in Contemporary Contexts: The Online Sperm Donation Project, 2022-2026. [Data Collection]. Colchester, Essex: UK Data Service. 10.5255/UKDA-SN-858722

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights describes the family as the 'fundamental unit of society' and in 1969, the United Nations recommended that 'governments should, as a matter of urgency, make universally available information, education and the means to assist couples and individuals to achieve their desired number of children'. However, many people need help from a sperm donor to start or build their family, and even now, there are lots of barriers to them receiving this help at an NHS or private clinic. So, instead, many people are looking for a sperm donor online. Unfortunately, there is very little information available to them about what online sperm donation involves and how it might change their lives for the better - or, possibly, for the worse. In the media, for example, there have been stories of men registering with online sperm donation sites and then being abusive to women who are looking for sperm.

Relationships are at the heart of online sperm donation so our project starts there. There are the relationships between the person looking for sperm and the person who donates the sperm, and between these people and their life partner (if they have one). There are also the relationships between the many people who take part in the online sperm donation websites, and between these people and the person who owns the website. Sometimes, these relationships go well; sometimes, they do not. The first aim of this project is to look at how people experience these relationships, who is being positioned as powerful, and any abuse that is happening. In the first part of the project, the main way that we will look at these relationships is by talking with people who want sperm and people who are looking to donate sperm. We will talk with them three times over two years, starting with their online search to find sperm or donate sperm. Over the two years, we will also talk to these people's life partner, and the person they find who gives them the sperm or who they donate their sperm to. In the second part of the project, we will look at the relationships between the many people who take part in online sperm donation websites, and between these people and the person who owns the website. The main ways we will look at this is by joining the online websites as a researcher and following how people interact with and treat each other over one year, and by talking with the people who own the websites.

The research will increase everyone's understanding of three important topics in our society: violence, health, and the internet. For violence, it will make people more aware of how women looking for sperm online (and possibly other people, too) are being abused, what support they need, and how we can stop this abuse from happening. For health, it will help decide whether NHS clinics should have more funding for sperm donation and who can access it, and whether the government should regulate online sperm donation. For the internet, it will help people discuss how the internet affects our lives and what safety and support we need online.

It will be essential to ask the people involved in online sperm donation what they think needs to change in online sperm donation (e.g., public awareness, policies, laws, support services). So, the second aim of the project is to find out what people involved in online sperm donation think is the 'ideal future' for online sperm donation and work with them to make these changes. In the third part of the project, we will run workshops to share the research findings using comics and drawings, and together, work out what needs to change in online sperm donation, plan and do activities that will lead to this change, and log what changes happen. During the whole project, we will also share our findings with people involved in online sperm donation, researchers, professionals working in abuse, health, and internet safety, people who make policies and laws, and the public, to help effect change.

Data description (abstract)

People looking for sperm (‘recipients’) and people providing sperm (‘donors’) are increasingly connecting via informal online platforms, such as ‘connection websites’ and social networking sites. Typically, research has not focused on this route to conception. Little is known about how people involved in online sperm donation initiate, negotiate, sustain or end their relationships with each other, how power or influence operates within this context, or what the impacts of these influences might be. Previous research has suggested that abuses of power and morally challenging behaviour can occur. The first aim of this project is to explore the interpersonal relationships, power relations and potential abuses of power across the social ecology of online sperm donation. The second aim is to harness this new knowledge to explore the imagined ideal futures of those involved in online sperm donation and to work with them to start to realize these ideal futures.

The project comprises three phases: (1) a two-year qualitative longitudinal study following the lives of prospective recipients, donors, and their partners via life story interviews, visual socio-ecological power narratives, and interaction logs; (2) a one-year digital ethnography of five online sperm donation sites (Not Deposited); (3) action research workshops with recipients and their partners, donors and their partners, and platform owners, respectively.

The multi-modal data will be analysed using narrative, discourse, and thematic analysis. The project will be carried out by a multi-disciplinary team, comprising academics and researchers with psychosocial, bioethical, medical, and legal expertise, and Public Involvement in Research members with lived experience of online sperm donation. The project will produce unique and holistic knowledge of online sperm donation and harness this knowledge to produce impacts across the social ecology that are identified by, and important to, those involved in online sperm donation.

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