Freezing Sperm for the Future: Reconceptualizing Kinship, Love, and Legacy

Abstract

Since the 1950s, human sperm has been cryopreserved and stored for personal use. However, men’s reasons and reflections regarding sperm storage have yet to be explored in feminist science and technology studies. Drawing on 30 semi-structured interviews with men who have cryopreserved their sperm in Denmark, this study asks, How does the phenomenon of kinship emerge and (re)configure as men cryopreserve their sperm? Using the term ‘phenomenon’ from agential realism, I explore how kinship emerges. The notion of this phenomenon enables an analysis of whether and how cryotechnology, and sperm as a substance, takes part in the emerging reconfigurations of kinship, love, and legacy. This article reveals that not only does the cryopreservation of sperm enable prolonged fertility, but also the technology co-constitutes, reconfigures, and sometimes displaces kinship in relation to past, present, and future love relationships across time and space.