The plight of the redhead continues. Cryos International in Denmark, the largest sperm bank in the world, has stopped accepting sperm from flame-haired would-be donors.
The Telegraph reports that the rejection is simply a matter of supply and demand: sperm from redheads is rarely requested from those who are buying the, er, product. “There are too many redheads in relation to demand,” said Ole Schou, the director of the bank, told a Danish newspaper. “I do not think you choose a redhead, unless the partner — for example, the sterile male — has red hair, or because the lone woman has a preference for redheads. And that’s perhaps not so many, especially in the latter case.”
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While he doesn’t mention if all redheads are equally denied — are there more requests for, say, strawberry blonde or dark auburn sperm than from fire-red sperm? — Shou does note that most people request sperm from brown-haired and brown-eyed donors. Donating sperm pays up to $500, which has led to an over-supply of the semen (there’s currently a waiting list of 600 donors) which has allowed the bank to be a bit choosier when it comes to what sort of submissions they accept.
But it’s not total rejection for redheads: apparently their sperm is in high demand in Ireland, where Schou (rather grossly) noted that it goes like “hot cakes.”