Fishing for taddies: Emotion work in lesbian women's search for sperm donors in South Australia

Abstract

This article focuses on one aspect of the experience of lesbian conception through donor insemination that has received scant attention in the literature about lesbian family formation. That focus is upon the emotion work that goes into the negotiations with potential sperm donors by lesbians who seek to establish their families with known donors. The article speaks to a number of theoretical, practical and pragmatic debates currently under consideration in the fields of lesbian studies, law, reproductive technologies (ART), social psychology and the sociology of emotions. The analysis utilises the concept of emotion work and assesses its usefulness in describing the experience of negotiating sperm donation with known donors. The data to which the analysis refers is one aspect of a wider study of lesbian conception strategies in South Australia (SA), a legislature in which access to ART is restricted to medically infertile women. In SA, fertile lesbian (and heterosexual) women have, by necessity, higher rates of DYI insemination, and apparently higher reliance on known donors than is the case in less restrictive legislatures. This article draws on interviews with lesbians who had sought known donors and either conceived children, or attempted to do so in the recent past or who were currently planning or in the midst of the process of seeking a donor.