“An exceptional ethnography of modern reproduction, Romancing the Sperm centers lesbian couples and single women as they engage with sperm donors and banks in a quest to become pregnant. Tober’s extensive research spans decades, from the 1990s to the present, documenting critical shifts over time in sperm banking institutional and modern family formation practices. An accessible read, the book makes a tremendously valuable contribution to feminist writing on reproductive technologies and politics.”
~Rajani Bhatia, author of Gender before Birth: Sex Selection in a Transnational Context
“A fascinating and engaging book! It just gets more and more interesting as it goes and is never boring. The quotes from those interviewed are perfect and poignant—they give so much insight into the struggles undergone by those choosing some form of artificial conception. The book thoroughly dispels traditional notions of “family” and shows the multiple and highly creative ways in which families are currently being generated in this brave new world of assisted reproduction. For many, this book will be not only a fascinating, but also an empowering read.”
~Robbie Davis-Floyd, author of Birth as an American Rite of Passage and Ways of Knowing about Birth: Mothers, Midwives, M
~RT America
~Huff Post FML Becoming Family’ podcast
"Written with scholarly attention to detail, and including a wealth of firsthand testimonies from women who have chosen to use sperm banks, Romancing the Sperm is fascinating and insightful from cover to cover. Highly recommended."
~Midwest Book Review
"Tober has written a retrospective ethnographic study of the first generation of women openly to buy sperm to make families. The book is about female choice, or, as she puts it, 'the biopolitics' of choice when women have resources of their own and the sperm of various male types can be bottled, screened, studied for motility, frozen, catalogued and transported."
~Times Literary Supplement
~New Books Network - New Books in Anthropology
~Los Angeles Review of Books
"The book will be useful to scholars and students interested in broader historical perspectives on assisted reproduction, and its clear language and readability will make it appealing in undergraduate courses in medical anthropology, science, technology, and society, kinship and family, and gender and sexuality."
~Medical Anthropology Quarterly
“[Tober’s] groundbreaking book shows us that modern families might be built on contradictions, and yet the kids are still alright.”
"What gives Tober’s account unique insight into modern families is that it captures decades of social and academic change....[A] welcome addition to sociological classes on family or reproduction, and some chapters would be particularly useful in classes on gender, masculinity, or sexuality."
~Social Forces
