“Between our three locations, I’ll usually have 180 unique donors donating,” Mr. He said his company was selling 20 percent more sperm now than a year earlier, even as supplies dwindled.

we’ve broken our records for England, Australia and Canada,” said Angelo Allard, the compliance supervisor of Seattle Sperm Bank, one of the country’s biggest sperm banks. “We’ve been breaking records for sales since June worldwide not just in the U.S. Men have stopped going in as much to donate, even as demand has stayed steady at some banks and increased rapidly at others. But now, the coronavirus pandemic is creating a shortage, sperm banks and fertility clinics said. That has always been true, especially if one is discerning. For the rest of us, it is very much neither.

If you are one of the roughly 141 million Americans whose body produces sperm, the substance likely seems abundant and cheap.