Sex Cells: The Medical Market for Eggs and Sperm by Rene Almeling Read Free Book Online Page B

raises the question of whether being paid to undergo IVF affects women’s physical experiences of the technology.
    In contrast, sperm donation does not require participation in risk-bearing medical procedures. Men must simply masturbate on a regular basis in the sperm bank, alternating their deposits with periods of abstinence. Scholars know little about men’s experiences of masturbation, so it is an open question whether these are affected by variation in social context, that is in doing it for fun in one’s bedroom versus doing it for money in the sperm bank. In detailing their activities, egg and sperm donors offer insight into the embodied experience of donating sex cells for money and provide evidence that the social context in which physical experiences occur can produce variation in how the body feels.
    THE EMBODIED EXPERIENCE OF EGG DONATION
    Research on the experiences of infertile women who are using IVF to conceive children suggests that it can be extremely disruptive to lives, careers, and marriages. The technology is portrayed as “all-consuming,” and infertile women routinely describe feeling like they are on an “emotional roller coaster.” In Sarah Franklin’s study, many of the infertile women quit their jobs so as to manage the physical and emotional consequencesof the treatment. She writes, “Women [repeatedly] emphasized that they did not realize how demanding the technique would be, how intensely it would affect them, and how much their lives would feel as though they had been ‘taken over.’ ” Here are descriptions from two of Franklin’s respondents.
Jeanette Ives: It’s a very intense procedure and if you’re up at the hospital every day virtually and you are being monitored all the time so obviously it’s a very intense time and you do get very involved in it all. Much more so than you imagine you will do, it’s not like having one injection, you know, it’s really involved. . . . And it does sort of take over your life to quite a big extent.
Mary Chadwick: I didn’t know what hit me, I honestly didn’t know what hit me, I couldn’t believe the intensity of the programme. . . . All you do is eat, drink, and talk IVF, your dinner conversation revolves around how big your follicles were that day, which side you had your injection in and that sort of thing, you just do, you just live and die IVF. 2
    In another interview study, Gay Becker finds that as women become immersed in biomedical fixes for infertility, they may experience “depersonalization” and begin to view their bodies as “defective.” 3
    The question is whether egg donors offer similar accounts or whether being paid to undergo these procedures and not hoping for a long-awaited pregnancy alters the physical experiences of IVF. In fact, in explaining how the shots and surgery fit into their daily lives, egg donors described a very different embodied experience of the technology. They use matter-of-fact language to report each step required, from learning how to inject medications to attending medical appointments and recovering from egg retrieval surgery.
    Shots and Surgery
    The nineteen egg donors I interviewed had participated in a total of 42.5 cycles, including those in progress at the time we spoke. 4 Most of the women had cycled once or twice, but their experiences varied. Two donors had been matched with recipients but not yet donated, and onewoman had already completed six cycles and was matched for a seventh. Two of the women had donated years before, but in most cases, the donation experience was much more recent; six women were in the midst of cycles, and five had cycled within the last two months. 5 Almost half the egg donors had a future cycle to which they were committed. In addition to participating in cycles organized by OvaCorp, Creative Beginnings, Gametes Inc., and University Fertility Services, some women had donated through other commercial agencies and university programs, and one had