MPREG... is that like .MPEG? or .MPGA?
Jan. 8th, 2004 07:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
timepiececlockI'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.
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.
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P.S.
Date: 2004-01-08 10:40 pm (UTC)Re: P.S.
Date: 2004-01-08 11:15 pm (UTC)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.
Date: 2004-01-09 07:31 am (UTC)