MPREG... is that like .MPEG? or .MPGA?

[timepiececlock]

I've been thinking about it, and I don't understand the point of male pregnancy fics. I only heard about these three years ago, and have read less than five, never finishing one. So I'm not well-versed in the fandom. But I ask the whole of my friends list this:

If the character is going to become pregnant (and I, not having read many of these fics, am perhaps naively assuming that it will be like that stupid Governor Schwartz movie that I never actually watched where he who must not be named walks around with a fake pregnant belly, and not like that stupid episode of Enterprise that I never actually finished where the Trick Trip Tiff whatever his name is character sticks his hands in pudding and gets his body taken over, but manages to avoid being shaped like a mellon), then isn't that just like, in a sense, making the male into a female? If men could be pregnant and have all the appropriate hormones and body changes and emotional stuff that entails... wouldn't we call them women? And if you want to do that, why not do the fun gender-switching fic thing and just turn the character into a female in the first place? I can understand those fics-- thrill and humor of experiencing life as the opposite gender. But if you're going to make a man be pregnant to achieve the same effect... that doesn't make him a man's brain in a woman's body, that makes him a woman. Because in humans the females are the ones with the female parts, and the males have male parts. That's how we tell the difference, most of the time. So if you change that, then what's the point of calling it male pregnancy? It's an oxymoron.

Why isn't it called "Pregnancy of a person who used to be male but now, based on the mere fact of said pregnancy, is obviously not a male at all, but in fact a pregnant woman with an extraneous bit of banana flesh hanging out beneath the belly and an appointment with for a future c-section." ?

I'm really very, honestly curious about this.

If what I think MPREG is about isn't what is about, and this whole line of logic complaint is void, then explain that too.

Comments

[47-trek-47.livejournal.com]

well, you don't know me, probably... but I am actually writing an MPREG at the moment. I never actually *planned* to write an MPREG. But, see, one day, I was reading someone's post which was, I believe, complaining about the genre, and all of a sudden, this scene jumped into my head with Giles nervously asking Anya if, in her career as a vengeance demon, she'd ever made a man pregnant.

So, I wrote it down, cause I thought the scene, by itself was fairly amusing, but I didn't plan to *do* anything with it. But the more I thought about it, the more fascinated I became with it. Because, in my experience, all of the MPREGs I have read (or, seen, at least, I haven't actually read very many) have been in slash fanfic, set in an established relationship, and have, generally, involved the character in the pair who is most often portrayed as the more "feminine" character. There's not a whole lotta "m" involved at all, really.

But, this random Giles MPREG plot bunny of mine wouldn't leave my head, because I do see Giles as a very masculine character. And it was just fascinating to me to think what it would be like for him to go through that. As someone mentioned in comments on my story at one point, even for a female, sometimes, the idea of pregnancy is strange. The thought of having another human being growing inside of you... it's very alien, in a way. Like something out of a sci-fi movie. And I think, that by putting a male character in that situation, you can truly deal with that idea, that strangeness, in a more metaphorical way.

Also, I think, it's probably motivated to a certain extent, by the same forces that motivate h/c. Put a male character in a vulnerable position, which allows him to accept the care of another character, allows greater closeness than may normally be permitted.

And this is all late-night rambling that probably won't make too much sense, but I hope it makes at least a little...

P.S.

[47-trek-47.livejournal.com]

Also... as to the question of whether or not MPREG really is *male* pregnancy... I'd say that gender identity is very much in the mind to begin with... so even a fic like the B.J. Sandburg series from the Sentinel fandom, which does involve a gender swap, *could* still be considered a male pregnancy, since Blair remains a *male* character even though technically, his body is currently female.

Re: P.S.

[thisficklemob.livejournal.com]

Not sure I concur on the language usage. The M in Mpreg means to me a male, as in the (externally) male body, somehow (science, magic) modified to have some kind of womb on the inside. (Usually retaining male genitalia and not having breasts.) Thus a person who is both biologically male on the outside, appears male, and yet is pregnant.

If a man is turned into a woman, and then became pregnant, I woudn't call that Mpreg, because the female body is evolutionarily designed to be able to carry a child. However the man turned into a woman, once he's a she, his body is female. You could use labels like "fem-preg, post gender switching pregnancy," but not Mpreg... it would give the wrong impression, for those who both want to see actual Mpreg, and those who would rather not.

I'm not the arbiter of the meaning of fanfic terms, or anything... this is just how I've understood them to be used.

caia

Re: P.S.

[47-trek-47.livejournal.com]

Yes, that's a good point. I don't think that story should have been labled an MPREG. (and it wasn't, as far as I know) But, I do feel like it involved a male (in his own self-image, at least) who was pregnant.

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

Giles nervously asking Anya if, in her career as a vengeance demon, she'd ever made a man pregnant.

:laugh: Oh, that would be a priceless scene! And something I can imagine Anya doing out of spite.


I think focusing on the alienness of it would make more sense to me as a reader than focusing the awe of "mother"hood, so I can kinda imagine approaching it that way.

Actually, your idea conveniently would solve for me the problem of suspension of disbelief-- probably the *only* way I ever could get my head around it would be if it was an Anya vengeance wish, just because universe-shifting power and weirdness are so keenly tied to what Anya's vengeance is all about. It's more specific than just having it be some accidental random curse (because I am already used to suspending my disbeleif for Anya's character) and less unrealistic than a science type explanation. Um... okay that was a strange last sentence to type. Also, the meanness of nature attached to vengeance curses would make it more of a bad thing than a happy baby thing, which would kind of fit with themes of it being unnatural.

But actually, that's where my interest would end in such a fic. I would be tweaked at the idea of it as a vengeance wish, and be curious to see what the end result was on the amn in question, but I'd have no interest the 9 months leading up to it. I guess that's why I can't understand the appeal.

[47-trek-47.livejournal.com]

Yeah, actually, the mpreg part of the fic didn't entirely hold my attention either. I've ended up spending most of my time on the developing romance, which is actually largely unrelated to the the mpreg stuff.

And this fandom really is one of the few that I can buy the concept of an mpreg in, too, because magic gives you so much leeway. Biologically, pregnancy would probably either kill a man, or at least change him a great deal, and certainly be extremely unpleasant, what with all the conflicting hormones and the unusual stresses placed on a body not designed to handle them.

(Although, actually, technically, it wasn't Anya who cursed him, it was Ethan Rayne. But it *was* motivated by vengeance.)