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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Not MPreg...MFem...
Date: 2004-01-09 10:48 pm (UTC)And then...it all backfired on him. ;-D Because pregnant FemSpike is just funny.
Still...maybe it will turn out okay. Nos...I will so finish it. Afterall...Tango is about to be finished and I never thought it would be.
Rabid/Raeann
Re: Not MPreg...MFem...
Date: 2004-01-10 12:54 am (UTC)Re: Not MPreg...MFem...
Date: 2004-01-10 04:03 pm (UTC)But maybe why it happens in m/m slash is a result of the writers wanting to give the characters something they couldn't have in reality, the (creepy or uplifting, even for women, depending on your POV) experience of creating life within them. And plenty of people like to write babyfic; if your couple is m/m, well, maybe you just do what ya gotta do. On the other hand, one of my best male gay friends very much wants to be a father – he wants to have six kids. (I was like, remember, you're not going to be the one having them, you know.) It's not easy (or inexpensive) in this society for male gay couples to adopt or have a surrogate with donated eggs, but it is certainly possible. So if m/m-writers want their couples to have kids, they can without doing Mpreg. Still, I suppose part of the attraction of Mpreg is that it's very personal to the characters, and might be a happy surprise, like some m/f pregnancies. (Again, I ask, how the baby gets in there in such cases.) I still don't get it.
I think I've read exactly one Mpreg story. It was XF fic, and M/S, and while I don't remember, I think Mulder had been knocked up by aliens. I suppose I could buy that. It still squicked me out.
caia
Re: Not MPreg...MFem...
Date: 2004-01-10 01:36 am (UTC)I am also going to have to read Tango. Though, I might hold off for fear of getting '-cubus' ideas. :)