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Making men pregnant(MPREG) – good fiction, funny or just twisted revenge?

Okay let’s weigh in on this one. It seems in fanfiction and slash, making a male character get pregnant is a common occurance (if not, then why is there a category for it and whole communities devoted to it, hmmm?). It’s so prevalent, I’ve even seen an episode of Grey’s Anatomy where a guy came into the hospital because he was “pregnant”. I have to admit, it was hilarious. But did you know that there is actually a procedure for making a man pregnant with In Vitro Fertilization and  a man named Lee Mingwei did become pregnant? There’s even a website for it: www.malepregnancy.com.  Unfortunately for Lee, the chances of him surviving birth with all his abdominal organs intact are pretty low (if he doesn’t hemorrhage to death).

Enough with the gory details of reality and on to why in the world we want to make our male characters pregnant. Is it because we have some revenge vendetta against men and want to make them experience the pains of pregnancy? I have been pregnant and have kids, so I know all about the poking, prodding, testing and pains that go along with pregnancy. Okay, and the wonderful little moments like the first ultra sound where you get to see your baby inside you and the first time you actually feel them move. It’s pretty cool, all in all. But men…pregnant? The concept lends itself to a host of hilarious situations. So do we enjoy this facet of the M/M genre because of its comedic value? Or how about this, maybe we have a need for our male heroes to have all that hetero couples have – marriage and children. So we let one of them somehow get pregnant and off they go into the world of raising kids and living a “normal” life.

Now I’ve read a few of these mpreg fanfictions and I must say, overall I’m not impressed. And now I’ll admit that I find the concept ridiculous and somewhat retarded, but that’s just me. So in my quest to find out what this is all about, I did do some more reading and I actually found a story that I must say, was believable, had a good plot, was handled very well and had some hilarious moments in it. It was an FMA story on www.fanfiction.net and Roy Mustang, as a result of an alchemy experiment gone awry, ended up pregnant. I wish I could find it again so I could share, but alas, I can’t >.<  What was so great about this story, is the situation of a man being pregnant and also being an officer in the military was handled realistically. And when Roy had to tell Edward his predicament, comedy ensues;)

 

 

 

 

 

 

So I couldn’t find much with Roy getting pregnant, but OMG, Naraku and Sesshoumoru with Sesshy getting pregnant? Priceless:) And it looks like they already have one baby.

So maybe the bottom line here is, it’s all of the above. We like to see men “tortured” in the way women have over the eons of time, we like to read about funny situations and let’s face it, men dealing with pregnancy is funny and some of these stories, when handled properly, are really good fiction. It’s a difficult thing to write properly, which is why I think there are so many stinkers out there story-wise and why it sometimes gets a bad rap. What do you think?

15 Comments

  1. Zuul

    Lee Mingwei’s “pregnancy” is a hoax. http://www.snopes.com/pregnant/malepreg.asp The only men getting pregnant these days are transmen who still have their uteruses intact.

    I don’t see it as a revenge scenario or anything like that. I feel more like it’s a transgression of the boundaries of biological sex and exploring the characters beyond the ordinary limits of the world. In fiction, two men can create a child together. In the real world, when two men want to have a child together they by definition have to involve a third party. This breaks down that barrier and heightens intimacy and takes characters to new places. If done well, that is. If done poorly, it’s just a horrible self-parody.

  2. Christie Gordon

    It’s a hoax??? Damn. And I fell into their diabolical trap! I see your point about it heightening intimacy. I mean, when we read romantic fiction, we’re usually looking for that all-important happily ever after, right? Of course, in my real world, having children around does not necessarily “heighten” intimacy, LOL. I’m lucky to get any when my boys are around;)

  3. Zuul

    Yeah, I don’t have kids yet so I can’t relate to that. 😀

    But from a m//m perspective at least, I can see where wanting to have this nice, cozy little family unit without having to involve other people could appeal.

  4. Julie

    I think, as an outsider, you have missed the point entirely for most mpreg. It is about our gay boys having biological children of their own, and being able to do in fiction what cannot, at least at the present time, be done in rl. Not for purposes of torture as you suggest, but from love for our gay couples and their desire for procreation. You need to do it correctly, but it can be done well, if you try. Like anything else, there are good and there are bad stories. I have always enjoyed roleplaying a pregnant Sirius, with Remus as the doting daddy, but that’s just me, and I make sure it has its own logic, within the confines of fiction (having access to magic helps too, and I find it amusing to involve Snape for certain potions).

    Hope that helps! 🙂

  5. Starfox Howl

    The only “Male Pregnancy” I’ve heard of was a F2M trans-sexual who had been declared legally ‘male’ but still had ‘her’ anatomy intact. As Zuui has pointed out already.

    I don’t think it’s revenge, really, but more on the order of, kinky, forbidden, slightly different, like a normally straight man wearing panties under his business suit.

  6. Christie Gordon

    I was really curious as to how the placenta would attach and be nourished without a womb with the Lee Mingwei thing and they explained all how it attached to his abdominal organs and such. Anyhow, since it is possible to have both male and female “parts”, I suppose that is the only way a “man” could get pregnant, huh? Unless there Harry Potter swooped in and waved his magic wand on, I don’t know, Snape or something, LOL. Isn’t the Harry Snape thing big with MPreg fans?

    Regards,
    Christie

  7. Christie Gordon

    This all sort of goes into my last post on if gay men are being exploited by us writing about them in not so real terms. But it’s fiction and therefore, we don’t necessarily have to be real. Fantasy is just that, fantasy. Interesting to think that genetically, two men could have a boy or a girl while two women could only have girls;) Yeah, I’m off my freakin rocker now, LOL.

    Regards,
    Christie

  8. M.L. Rhodes

    I hadn’t been exposed to male pregnancy until I started reading slash several years ago. One of my fave stories was a Harry/Draco slash where they both got pregnant to spite Lucius. *g* I no longer have the link to it, but it was one of the first male preg stories that I actually found believable. Probably, as someone already said, because of the magic involved.

    And fwiw, I, too, think readers who enjoy m/m or slash pregnancy stories probably do it because they enjoy that special intimacy it creates. 🙂 I know that’s what appeals to me, as a reader and a writer.

  9. Marfisa

    About the only FMA mpreg story I can think of in which Roy gets pregnant is one that technically isn’t mpreg at all, since it involves Roy having been born a girl, accidentally reversing his own and Hawkeye’s genders during an ill-advised childhood alchemy experiment, and then inadvertantly returning to his/her original gender by some alchemical process gone wrong later on. Since this happens shortly before the concluding events of the first anime, in which the Fuhrer is assassinated and Ed winds up being transported to our dimension, Roy figures that he/she has enough problems with the military already and attempts to conceal the gender switch. But since s/he had sex with Edward right before Ed disappeared and wound up getting pregnant as a result, nine months later, his/her superiors find out and Roy and the baby end up being exiled to an isolated sentry post on Briggs Mountain, even though most of his/her fellow soldiers think Mustang is still male. There is an eventual happy ending, though.

    (Non-genderswitch) FMA mpreg stories that involve Ed getting pregnant are a lot more common. One of the best of these is actually a series of stories by Rainjoyous, posted primarily to the steelandsparks Roy/Ed community on LiveJournal. This starts out with a very gripping story whose title I unfortunately can’t recall in which Roy and Ed find out the hard way after a drunken post-Christmas party encounter that, thanks to the warped sense of humor of the creatures who inhabit the interdimensional Gate, Ed now possesses a functioning uterus. Since his body is otherwise not designed for childbearing, he nearly dies during the resulting pregnancy, and eventually miscarries. Much sturm und drang (and tricking Roy into getting him pregnant again) later, Ed does manage to carry a second child to term, albeit with permanent damage to his own health. Once he’s recovered enough to come home from the hospital, Ed displays his characteristic obsessive overconscientiousness and insists on becoming a stay-at-home parent and basically raising the baby (and doing virtually all the housework) all by himself, despite being a spectacularly bad cook.

    Meanwhile, Roy has managed to get elected Fuhrer despite his unorthodox homelife and the controversial–and potentially incriminating, for Ed–fact that the person who gave birth to his child is another man. (They rather vaguely explain this away as an alchemical accident, since going into too much detail about how Ed acquired the more crucial female reproductive organs would expose the fact that years earlier he had attempted human transmutation–a crime punishable by death in Amestris.) Their life as Amestrisis’ First Couple weathers an assassination attempt in their own home (spectacularly foiled by Ed); a would-be sensationalistic newspaper expose about the odd domestic arrangements of Fuhrer Roy and his spouse; Ed’s offhandedly deciding to teach himself and two-year-old Maes to speak and read Ishbalan; and Roy’s eventual successful effort to legalize same-sex marriage and make his relationship with Ed undisputably official. The most recent installments of the series are told partially from their son Maes’ point of view and are titled “The Secret Diary of Maes Elric-Mustang,” Parts 1 and 2 (so far). This series is extremely well-written and is a lot more realistic than most mpreg stories about everything from the medical repercussions of male pregnancy to the social awkwardness of being the only living male “mother” in the world, on top of being the “First Husband” and occasionally having to try to make awkward conversation with military wives at state occasions.

  10. Christie Gordon

    Sadly, this is not the one… The one I was thinking of involved and alchemic explosion in the lab and then a month later (of course he’s been boinking Ed the whole time), his stomach starts getting bigger and bigger and he thinks he’s just getting fat, but then has some sort of check up and finds out he’s pregant. There were no chimeras;)

  11. Velvet V

    Its only been a week since i found out that this type of yaoi exist. I have read Sex Pistols, a couple of fan ficts and original short stories. I really dont know yet what makes such stories appealing and actually thats how i came across this post. I agree that most of the (few) things i have read are poorly written and give no explanation to how a male pregnancy can be possible. Unfortunately bad writing doesnt also create this intimate feeling that everyone is looking for (well yes there is hardcore yaoi that closely resembles porn, but thats not what were talking about).

    And even in Sex Pistols, which is considered to be one or the to mpreg manga, i still got a feeling that something was missing. Too much information about the love lives of different characters…. it made me feel like i was reading an “mpreg encyclopedia”
    Dear reader: mpreg stories can go like this….., like this…….., like this …….., like this ……. and like this …….. And the characters can be either this, this, this, this or this.
    Dunno id like your opinion.

    Anw back to the point. The one thing i understand now that im writing this post, that Sex Pistols made clear for me is that mpreg has nothing to do with revenge, farce or making fun of men. I think its trying to show that beautiful, strong, independent, smart (or not), straight or gay men can have a more mellow, fragile (maybe) personality.

    But as i said its only one week since i found out that this kind of fiction exists so i dont know much.

  12. marisa

    There is another FMA fanfiction where Roy becomes pregnant. it is called An Out of Body Experience. he and Riza get switched and roy gets pregnant. It is quite funny.

  13. Rachel

    I personally have read quite a few mpreg fanfictions and I agree that if it is written out well it can make a very appealing story that is enjoyable to read. Though there are the bad ones just like every type of fanfiction that feels like it was rushed and not thought out well. Though there is one mpreg story that it in my opinion that can be found in mpreg central called The Hunted and I believe that it is a really well thought out and written and dare I say, hot and sexy piece of writing. I wont give away to much all I’ll will say is that there are vampires in the story. Though it is not yet completed you should all give it a read.

  14. sarah

    when i was pregnant twin boys .my husband wore emphany belly that had two seven pound balls that repersented the twin boys for 48 hours were the empany belly.he loved when the babies kicked him and punch him but he hated go to the potty and bachache .he also dressed as woman for our lamaze class and i got to video tape the assiment.he was also taking care three kids a six year old boy and four girl and two year old girl and being a pregnant with twin boys.he was only man that made it 48 mark in our class.i also called a hymotis to show him what labor was like for woman.i called mom she took kids for day.hymontis took 1 hour but in his mind he was in labor for 16 hours and i was his lamaze coach and midwife.he birth in our guest bedroom in birthing tub push the twins out like a champ as if a woman.when babies come belly and assiment was over suit was returned.

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