So what DOES it pay?

I was watching tonight's Men In Trees and one of the plot lines had a character going to a sperm bank to "de-donate" as he put it. Turns out he had been there years before to make a deposit in exchange for much needed financial reward, but now that he was engaged and planning to start a family at some point in the near future he wanted to take his swimmers off the market if they hadn't already been utilized.

I won't bother going into any more of the story, but that got me thinking... So how much do sperm banks pay for donations? I then Googled up this Slate article, "The Genius Factory: My short, scary career as a sperm donor" (by David Plotz) and skimmed it until I found...

Amanda held forth enthusiastically and at great length about money. "You will get paid $50 per usable specimen, for starters. Then you will get $5 for every vial from the specimen. The average is 10 to 14 vials per specimen. When a vial is released from quarantine after six months, you will get another $5. So the average payment is $209 per deposit." She paused. "Now, this is ordinary income, but we don't do withholding. We send checks twice a month, but later we will just give you a check every six months. We will send you a 1099 form at the end of the year."

Amanda had managed to take a mysterious and sexual and profound process and make it sound exactly like ... a job. I considered asking her about the 401(k) and dental benefits.

There you have it. One anecdotal sample is, of course, not necessarily representative, but it at least gives some sort of an idea which is all I was seeking.

It's just that I've seen the "sperm bank plot" used so many times in different variations over the years in all kinds of TV shows and movies and it seems that there are usually two main reasons I can recall for making a deposit: 1) for personal use, sort of "baby insurance" for the future, and 2) as a means for young men in need of quick cash to get some. I'm not really sure if those two scenarios could even be realized via the same facility. There may be different venues required for each.

Anyway, it wasn't until tonight that I actually wondered just what sort of cash one might get for donating. Of course, the shows/movies often make it seem as if a young man walks into an office, fills out some simple forms, does his thing (so to speak), and leaves with the cash in hand. The reality seems to be that you must fill out an exhaustive amount of paperwork detailing massive amounts of personal and family medical histories and endure a lengthy screening process over a period of weeks, if not months...

According to the application, if my written application made the cut, I would be invited for an interview, where I would "produce" a semen sample for analysis. If that were satisfactory, I would return for more semen analyses and a physical. Only if I passed those would I qualify as a donor.

I mailed my application to Fairfax and waited. And waited. And waited. After two months, I was miffed. How dare they ignore my semen? That semen had produced two healthy children! That semen had run a marathon! Then my irritation turned to worry: Did Fairfax know something I didn't about my health? Was my future that bleak? Was all that heart disease really so bad? Suddenly I found myself desperate to be chosen.

I also found this page on The Process of Sperm Donation from The Oprah Winfrey Show "Secrets of Sperm Donation". It doesn't mention donor payment, but here's what it states regarding the donor process...

Anonymous donors are chosen by characteristics such as eye color, hair color, education level, ethnicity and even personality.

The California Cryobank requires that potential donors have a high sperm count and have a clean medical history. Once a donor has been accepted into the program, he must return two or three times each week for a set period of time in order to make further donations. Technologists then analyze samples, and reject those with any serious genetic flaws, sexually transmitted diseases or less than 20 million sperm.

I'm gathering that the rigorous screening process eliminates most potential donors well before the eventual goal.

The "sperm bank plot" seems like a handy little device for writers to use in TV shows, but if they were to portray it in a realistic manner it would probably preclude much of the usefulness for the scenario as a literary tool to thrust the plot forward, ever closer to the eventual climax of the story.