“Desperately Seeking Sperm’ is the radio 4 documentary that I mentioned in class yesterday. In it Jolyon Jenkins investigates the shadowy world of illegal sperm donation.

It’s illegal to sell sperm, but some men are making a living doing so. Others offer free sperm in return for “natural insemination”, i.e. sex. Some women report that men who start by appearing to offer free sperm, gradually exert pressure on them to have sex.

But what of those who want neither money nor sex in return for their sperm? Jolyon discovers the world of the “super donor” – men who compete to inseminate as many women as possible, in an acknowledged bid to spread their genes as widely as they can. Their activity can border on the obsessive.”It is a bit like stamp collecting really,” says one. “I devote three hours per day to it, through travelling to donate or arranging my spreadsheets or doing my photo albums of the children”.

Listen to the programme at:http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04yb2x0

Inge