But sharing is caring: why won’t Chinese men donate their sperm?

There seems to be a shortage of sperm donation in China. Sperm banks in China were set up in 2001, and there is a maximum limit of one per province or autonomous region. As of last year, only 10 operate nationwide, and all of them are state-run. In southern Guangdong province, 14 percent of the population, which was around 104 million in 2010, cannot conceive. Having one sperm bank is, needless to say, kind of a problem when there are families waiting up to a year for viable sperm, and they would like a child (but just one, please).


If we’re building on the assumption that we are not more immensely concerned with overpopulation in China, it seems as though this pesky problem needs to be addressed. You know this has become a serious issue when Chinese officials start spouting propaganda in an effort to convince men to donate. Luo Wenzhi, who is the head of Guangdong’s family planning commission, has some encouraging words of thought: 

"Donating your sperm is healthy. It will neither harm you nor kill you."

Indeed, it will not do either. Yet why are Chinese men reluctant to donate their sperm?


According to the Time article “Is China Running Out of Sperm?”, sperm is associated with vitality, and giving it away is considered a cultural taboo. Wang Jian, a graduate student in Beijing who has an “excellent sample” of sperm (sperm donations have strict standards), told the China Daily last year that he kept his donation a secret from his family because he feared they might kill him “for letting a stranger use the precious family seed.”

Maybe it’s the lack of a proper sex education that have men still believing donating sperm is potentially harmful or life-threatening. Maybe it’s just one of those irrational cultural beliefs that just won’t be eradicated, no matter how irrational we know it to be (I still refuse to buy anything in amounts of four, since the number four sounds like the word death in Chinese). Maybe it’s their conservative nature to feel queasy about doin' the dirty in a cup, and then subsequently handing over their cup to some stranger. It is the precious family seed, after all.

Regardless, there’s some poor Chinese couple out there, some couple who is perhaps desperate to pass down their family name, or enjoy a nice dose of filial piety in their later years.

So guys, guys, have some heart. There are 200 to 500 million of your little swimmers every time you ejaculate. Help some fellow comrades out. Spread those seeds!

Somewhere in China, a happy couple will be thanking you.

"Wanna go to the sperm bank?"