No sex required

He doesn't look like a headhunter of investment bankers, although he used to be. There's no obvious sign of a broken nose, for all that he was a professional boxer when he was 18. But then there are a lot of contradictions about John Gonzalez. His first language is Spanish, but he was brought up in Woking and talks with a touch of the East End. He's a Catholic, married, and the father of four girls. And he runs the first sperm donation website for lesbians and single women who want babies.

Gonzalez laps up the controversy. He wants to talk. No holds barred. Adrian, his press officer, is on the phone, making the pitch: "Your sperm boy here." It's been almost a year since ManNotIncluded.com went live. The first baby will soon be born and others are, if you'll pardon the phrase says Gonzalez, in the pipeline. He'll answer his critics and open himself to scrutiny, he says.

It's got to be difficult to upset Gonzalez - which is just as well, given his hefty boxer's build (he was due to appear in a charity bout the night we met). The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), which licences fertility clinics, has not yet managed to get under his skin. His operation is legit and outside its remit, he says, because he's not doing fertility as such. ManNotIncluded.com is an introduction agency. Man donating sperm is introduced, anonymously, to woman who wants sperm. "We're not inseminating anybody," says Gonzalez. The HFEA put out a disapproving but non-specific press release, but has no power to stop Gonzalez's business.

Nor have other European countries which have more restrictive laws on fertility services. Germany, France and Italy, for three, do not allow fertility treatment for single women or single-sex couples. By the end of this year, Gonzalez plans to have offices in each, plus Spain, the Netherlands, Australia and either the US or Canada. He's wary of the US because of the anti-gay hate email from rightwing Christian groups already clogging his inbox.

Is he courting trouble? Obviously. Does he care? Not a bit. He wants to expand out of the website to set up "New Life" centres, where some women can donate eggs while others are offered insemination rather than having to do it at home. That means taking on regulatory authorities such as the HFEA and existing clinics. Quite a fight. He grins. "Yeah - but it will be such fun."

Gonzalez got into sperm donation because he was looking to start up a business. He was fed up with headhunting. "It wasn't fun any more." That word again.

A friend was thinking of starting an organisation running singles parties. Gonzalez did some research into the gay scene, wondering if it could be a good market, and kept noticing ads for sperm donors. He replied to a couple, he says, and began to realise that this had untapped potential. These women were mostly unable to get treatment from a clinic and had to resort to friends or complete strangers, neither of whom would have undergone any tests.

"I sat down and talked to my wife about it and then I came up with a concept for an internet site. There's nowhere that does this anywhere in the world - even the States," he says. "Now we're 12 months down the line. We have proved that we're not just a concept company. We have proved that we are successful. On average we do about 65 to 75 deliveries a month. At the moment we have about 22 announced pregnancies."

The first baby - to be born to a heterosexual couple in the south-east who wish to remain anonymous - is due at the end of July; and two women in Liverpool - Jaime Saphier and Sarah Watkinson - are reported to be the first lesbian couple to become pregnant via ManNotIncluded.com.

Gonzalez claims around 4,000 donors on his books worldwide, although they only donate locally because the sperm has to be fresh. The profile he describes is surprising - there are cash-strapped students in need of the £40 payment per donation, but, he claims, they are in the minority. "Most tend to be 30 to about 35 and married with children. The main reason for doing it is that they have all had children and they feel it is outrageous that people should be deprived of having a child because of bigotry or bureaucracy."

Has he donated sperm himself? There is the faintest hint of a blush. "I've done it four times - no, three, because the last two were twins," he says, referring to his own children.

So what does this staunch family man say when he is accused of helping to bring children into the world who will be reared in unconventional and possibly unstable circumstances? The HFEA demands that the clinics consider the welfare and happiness of the future child in deciding who should be treated; Gonzalez will send sperm to anyone who wants to pay for it.

"I don't think any of us are fit to judge anybody else, to be truthful," he says. "If I look at what we do compared with a standard clinic, I'd say there is probably no difference at all, except that we are less bureaucratic. We don't judge people before they walk through the door.

"You read the emails I get every time we are successful and you tell me why I'm a two-headed, venom-spitting devil, because I can't see that. Often people are judgmental because of ignorance.

"I have four daughters and I was never vetted to have children and nor is anybody else. I believe, having spoken to the people we work with, that these children are going to a loving, caring environment.'

His family, he says, support him and some applaud him, although his mother, now back in Spain, veers between pride and telling him not to send a Christmas card. Many of his critics will be of his own religious persuasion. That does not unsettle him. "Being a Spanish Catholic boy at a Catholic school from the age of four, taking three or four lessons of religion a week, taught me that religion isn't actually about religion - it is about control.

"Do I pray? Yes. Do I go to church? No - I don't need to. There's a great text in the Bible - the rich man prays in the middle of the street so that everybody can see him, while a true believer prays in a darkened room."

Gonzalez may feel an inner glow of ethical satisfaction, but in the end, ManNotIncluded.com is a business and he intends that it should grow. In fact, he has his sights set on the fertility clinics. Already there have been lunches in clubs off Harley Street, where he has rented an office. He needs to get into the clinic business if he is going to expand, and says he could cut overheads, make profits and bring in a new consumer culture to fertility if he did so.

Some might agree that a consumer revolution in the fertility business - the last bastion of the patriarchal, life-giving, godlike consultant - is well overdue. Whether Gonzalez is the man to achieve that is another question. The clinics, the consultants and the HFEA are likely to rise up in his path like soldiers springing from the hydra's teeth. He doesn't care. "It will be such fun," he says.