You probably won’t be able to have kids. It was Valentine’s Day last year when a urologist gave Conor the results of his semen analysis. The 30-year-old project manager had been trying to have a baby with his wife for just over a year. “Up until that point, I still didn't think [the problem] could possibly be me. Men are taught that you're pretty much forever fertile,” he says. After researching online, he ended up ordering an assortment of supplements from Amazon: zinc and vitamins B12, E, D, as well as folate and lycopene from a German company called Sunday Naturals. “I set myself a three-month window,” Conor said. He was going to try every research-backed fertility improvement method he could find.
There was a whole world of content waiting for him on the internet, where discourse around male fertility is booming. On subreddits like r/maleinfertility, thousands of men exchange tips, based on varying degrees of scientific evidence. They’re dipping their balls in ice water, eating raw garlic cloves, taking supplements like ashwagandha, shilajit and black maca. Meanwhile, fertility advice has infiltrated the brosphere on TikTok. “Men should have to spend nine months getting into the best physical shape of their life before having a baby,” says one man, in a video that has been liked 2.5 million times. Another creator takes viewers behind the scenes of his daily fertilitymaxxing routine, consisting of press-ups, cold plunges and protein-heavy lunches (the video is captioned: “Just a regular 33-year-old improving his health and fertility one day at a time 🤙🏻”).
It’s a short road from proteinmaxxing to spermaxxing, as a lot of these creators are already part of the gym bro and biohacking world. Last October, longevity guru Bryan Johnson proudly posted on X about eliminating 85% of microplastics from his ejaculate (research has linked microplastics and reduced sperm count), while a certain corner of TikTok is littered with people sharing their at-home sperm mobility tests, with captions like, “Not all swimmers are Michael Phelps.” A few weeks ago, the 2026 Sperm Racing World Cup was announced, with ‘athletes’ from 128 countries battling for a $100,000 prize. Last year’s edition, won by a 20-year-old USC student, involved competitors having their fresh ejaculate analyzed under a microscope.
There is evidence male infertility is a growing problem—with lifestyle factors like smoking, obesity, alcohol and heat exposure linked to poorer sperm parameters. One 2017 meta-analysis found that sperm counts in Western countries had decreased by nearly 60%, while a Fertility Index Survey found that 16% of men under 34 have experienced fertility issues, compared with 6% of men over 55. As it stands, roughly half of heterosexual couples experiencing infertility involve a male factor. Problems conceiving have long been framed as a gendered issue, with women often ‘blamed’ for infertility and undergoing rounds of invasive treatments before sperm is even tested, but awareness is changing.
In many ways, male fertility content on the internet—both factual and dubious—is filling a gap left by our healthcare system. Recent research from Fertility Action revealed that 80.6% of doctors hadn’t received education on male fertility, while 97% wouldn’t be able to accurately examine for varicocele—a cluster of enlarged veins near the testicles which can lower sperm production and quality. Men are often an “afterthought” in fertility challenges, says Dr. Ippokratis Sarris, director of King’s Fertility, a consultant in reproductive medicine and chair-elect of the British Fertility Society. But in the past decade, Sarris says this has been changing, as men have become more open about their fertility challenges. They’ve gone from asking him how they can support their partners to asking him, “‘What can I do?,’ which is a very new thing,” he says.
The wellness industrial complex has responded with characteristic eagerness, and new products and platforms focused on male fertility have arrived on the market. Earlier this year, a digital platform launched called Spermaxxing, which enables users to optimize their reproductive health with daily tracking and lab analysis, while the supplement SwimClub claims to boost sperm quality and volume within 90 days. While men gush about their OTC pills and powders on online forums, experts caution against ordering something without booking a medical consultation first. “You really don't know what's in the packet,” Sarris says.
Many products contain “large and high doses of 10 or 20 ingredients, and there's very little evidence that these complex combinations are more effective than simpler formulations,” he says. Improved sperm count doesn’t necessarily translate into higher chances of pregnancy or birth rates, either, and in some cases, even supplements that are branded as ‘natural’ can be harmful when interacting with licensed medicines.
“Male infertility can sometimes signal other underlying medical problems, such as hormonal disorders, varicoceles or genetic conditions,” Sarris adds. “Just randomly taking a massive dose of multiple supplements, which are expensive, apart from being bad for your wallet, it's also not necessarily good for health.”
Still, it’s a net positive that the online buzz is making men think more about their fertility. “[Men] don't want to talk about it because it's embarrassing on a sort of masculine level,” says Jack, a 40-year-old London resident who works in sales and has experienced fertility challenges. When he and his wife tried to conceive, Jack decided to quit drinking for three months. He started eating nuts for lunch and having high-protein dinners. “It was deeply lonely,” he said, “[Fertility] was just a constant, all-encompassing thought.”
He recalls needing to provide a semen sample in a broom cupboard in a London hospital because they didn’t have a sample room. The results from the test looked positive (his sperm count was high), but it overlooked DNA fragmentation. If he hadn’t paid for a test privately, Jack’s fertility challenges might have never been solved.
The shadowy wild west of unregulated supplements and DIY fertility cures exists in large part because male fertility care hasn’t been properly institutionalized. If men could easily receive rigorous fertility testing from the get-go, then spermaxxing communities would likely become less atomized and potentially financially exploitative places, and guys would be less susceptible to misinformation and feel less ashamed. “The system seems set up to basically put all the pressure on the woman,” Jack says, “whilst also offering very little understanding or support” for men.
In the weeks after his sperm analysis results, Conor stopped keeping his phone in his front pocket (mobile phone exposure has been linked to reduced sperm viability and motility, though the research isn’t conclusive). He switched to loose underwear (letting the testicles hang lower, in an effort to lower their temperature and boost sperm production). He started sleeping naked and cutting down drinking to one day a week. When he was watching TV in the evenings, he’d place an ice pack over his crotch. Gradually, his sperm count improved, and towards the end of the year, his wife received a positive pregnancy test. But he can’t be sure whether his spermaxxing efforts had any real impact on the result. “People always want the magic pill,” he said. “I just don't think it exists for male fertility.”
This story originally appeared in British GQ.