Ed Houben is a unique type of sperm donor. He does not go to clinics to donate his sperm. Instead, he sleeps with women in order to help them conceive the traditional way. He claims to have fathered 87 children so far and there are five more not far behind.
“Ten years ago, I was not exactly David Hasselhoff in Baywatch,” he said. Houben lives in Maastricht, Holland.
When Houben began donating his sperm he was doing so the traditional way, going to a sperm bank. He then reached the limit set forth by the sperm bank so he thought of different ways he could help. He began offering his sperm donation services on the internet.
“From my own experience, statistically natural insemination is faster,” Houben said. “If people are coming all the way from Italy, they don’t want to be trying for three years.”
Houben said that he is not looking for cheap sex. Instead, he said the women he sleeps with are not women he would freely choose as sexual partners in his life.
“This isn’t Heidi Klum coming round and saying: ‘Let’s do it’,” he said. “It’s genuine people who I would never want to hurt. I have a good old fashioned Catholic guilt feeling and I would be a candidate for therapy if I did this for the wrong reasons.”
“In the old days I would gladly travel,” he said, “but my job has changed and I have to be around much more. Now people to come to me. I can easily imagine that not everyone agrees with everything I do, but so far I’ve seen happy people and happy children. If you saw them, you wouldn’t question what I’m doing.”
Houben said that some of his offspring are located in Australia, Israel, Britain, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, Belgium as well as Holland. Houben’s oldest offspring is 9 and his youngest is a newborn. Houben said that he offers his clients traditional sperm donations but they find it cold and clinical.
“They appreciate being able to see who the biological father of their child will be and that any future offspring will be able to contact me,” he said.
Houben does not make money off his endeavors. He also asks to see medical records for the women to make sure they do not have diseases and that they do not use illegal drugs. Houben can also turn down women who drink, smoke or are obese if he so chooses.
“I think an unhealthy lifestyle is one of the greatest dangers for a child’s future,” he said.
