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This page is about the genre of fiction. For male pregnancy in biology, see male pregnancy and transgender pregnancy.

In fan fiction and fan art, mpreg[a] is a trope and genre that depicts cisgender men becoming pregnant, usually as a result of sex with other men. Mpreg is a subgenre of slash fiction, a genre of fan works that focus on same-sex relationships, and works in the genre range from domestic romance to BDSM and body horror. Explanations for male pregnancy in mpreg fics vary and often do not exist, but many fics incorporate elements from the omegaverse, a fan fiction genre involving a sexual hierarchy of dominant alphas that impregnate submissive omegas. Depictions of childbirth are rare in mpreg and typically involve delivery by cesarean section.

The trope first gained popularity alongside fan engagement with the Supernatural (2005–2020) television series and the subsequent boom in omegaverse fan fiction. Works of mpreg fan fiction are abundant in many fandoms.

Scholars of fan studies are mixed on whether mpreg is normative or non-normative: some scholars have praised the genre for challenging traditional conceptions of gender and masculinity, while others have criticized it for relying on heteronormative tropes like the nuclear family and stereotypical gender roles. While domestic mpreg fan works often depart from traditional depictions of male pregnancy in media, erotic mpreg fan works.... Sentence about transgender experiences.

Characteristics

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Content ratings of mpreg fics on Archive of Our Own
  Explicit (37%)
  Mature (25%)
  Teen and up (19%)
  General audiences (10%)
  Not rated (10%)

Mpreg (an abbreviation of male pregnancy) is a trope and genre within fan fiction and fan art that depicts cisgender men[b] becoming pregnant.[2] Depictions of mpreg in fan fiction generally reflect real-life pregnancy, with pregnancy being the result of insemination during sex.[3] Mpreg is a subgenre of slash fiction, a genre of fan fiction focusing on the romantic and sexual relationships between characters of the same sex.[4] In some fics, mpreg may only happen to tertiary character

mention mpreg as something that could happen .

Mpreg fics tend to focus primarily on the emotional, interrelational and sometimes erotic consequences of male pregnancy, rather than the specifics of male pregnancy.[5]

Mpreg can be present in both erotic and non-erotic fics, and stories in the genre can range from domestic romance to BDSM and body horror.[6] Erotic mpreg fics draw their eroticism from breaking taboos around pregnancy and BDSM practices; these fics sexualize the pain of the pregnant belly and the relative submission of the pregnant partner.[7] Non-erotic mpreg can intersect with domestic fic, a genre of fan fiction concentrated on depicting mundane aspects of everyday life.[8] Common narrative devices in these fics include first-time homeownership, preparing to raise the baby and choosing a baby name.[9] Some mpreg stories develop speculative worlds that contextualize male pregnancy with alternate gender hierarchies and discrimination.[10]

Pregnancy and childbirth

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Explanations for male pregnancy in mpreg fics vary and often do not exist.[11] A majority of mpreg fics draw upon dynamics from the omegaverse—a related[c] fan fiction genre that involves a "biologically determined" hierarchy of sexually dominant alphas that impregnate sexually submissive omegas.[12] In addition to male pregnancy, omegaverse fics frequently employ animal terminology like heat cycles, bonding and knotting.[13] Other popular tropes to justify male pregnancy in mpreg fics include "angelic intervention, demonic rape, or curses".[14]

Works of mpreg fan fiction often omit the process of childbirth or depict it with little detail.[15] Mpreg fan fiction rarely describe men giving birth through a birth canal, which many authors view as "feminizing"; instead, most works describe childbirth via cesarean section.[16] In a small number of stories, childbirths occur through "anal delivery", which is disparagingly described by the term "ass baby".[17] In other works, childbirth is explained through the growth of a temporary "pseudo-uterus" or through other birthing technologies like potions or apparition, a fictional form of teleportation from the Harry Potter series.[18]

Community

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Although mpreg fan fiction can be dated as far back as the 1980s, fan scholars generally believe that the popularity of mpreg can be attributed to online fan engagement with the Supernatural (2005–2020) television series and the boom of the omegaverse genre.[19] These online fan communities are mostly female

Gender

Mpreg fan fiction is increasingly abundant in many different fandoms, but the genre is especially popular in fandoms for series with supernatural or magical elements.[20] By December 2022, more than 70,000 works of fan fiction on Archive of Our Own (AO3) had been tagged as mpreg.[21]

Mpreg fan communities vary across different publication platforms Tumblr, AO3, LiveJournal).[22]

In fan fiction culture, the primary mode of interaction between readers and writers of fics is the process of reviewing, in which fans praise and promote what they mutually believe to be "good mpreg".[23]

Scholarship

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Scholarship on mpreg and mpreg fan communities is limited, in part due to the genre's stigmatized nature.[24] Pop culture scholar Constance Penley was the first scholar to discuss male pregnancy in the 1990s, though her remarks on the subject were brief.[25] Observing the role of mpreg in Kirk/Spock fan fiction, Penley described what she believed to be significant subversive potential in mpreg fan fics.[26]

Motives

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"Mpregs come in all shapes and sizes and, as a result, can fulfill a vast variety of fan desires: a romantic need to create a love child between male lovers, an interest in pregnancy's emotional and physical fallout on a partnership, or even a fascination with the horrors of forced breeding."

Kristina Busse, "Pon Farr, Mpreg, Bonds, and the Rise of the Omegaverse"[27]

Mpreg fics raise different questions than

Mary Ingram-Waters argues that mpreg can be understood as a "thought experiment about gender, sexuality, and the male body".[28] Busse suggests that female fans use male pregnancy to interrogate pregnancy and themes of reproduction from an emotional distance.[29]

Osborne argues that mpreg is used, not as an end in itself, but as a tool to further increase intimacy.[30]

Masculinity and cisheteronormativity

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Mpreg has been both praised as non-normative and criticized as normative.[31] Critics of mpreg highlight the genre's reliance on heteronormative tropes like the nuclear family and stereotypical gender roles,[32] while proponents highlight the potential for mpreg to subvert traditional conceptions of gender and masculinity.

Critics

  • Åström concludes that while mpreg fan fiction has the potential to produce narratives that challenge social norms, these stories can also end up reinforcing normative structures, writing that "what may at first seem like resistance may in the end reinforce heteronormative structures".[33]
  • Ingram-Waters argues that by having men participate in the stereotypically feminine behaviors of pregnancy, mpreg fics both broaden understandings of masculinity, but maintain it.[34] According to Ingram-Waters, while the mpreg genre redefines cisgender masculinity to include pregnancy, the genre's insistence on maintaining cisgender masculinity ultimately ends up erasing transgender identity.[35]

Others have suggested that mpreg may serve as a means of rendering male–male relationships so that they stay consistent with heteronormative.[36] Kyra Hunting similarly argues that while mpreg can be subversive, it ends up assimilating queer relationships into the heteronormative reproductive goals of sex.[37]

Suzuki warns that mpreg stories end up excluding the female body from pregnancy and leaves the unequal .[38]

Supporters

Other fan scholars have noted the potential for mpreg to...

  • J.T. Weisser, writing in Cultivate, argues that pregnancy in mpreg has the potential to resonate with transgender and intersex experiences with pregnancy.[39] Andrea Wood, writing in the book Imagining "We" in the Age of "I", similarly suggests that, when written well, mpreg can provide nuanced and diverse treatments of gender that can appeal to trans and genderqueer readers.[40]

Jesse Ashman

Ingram-Waters points out that fans are often cautious of reproducing heteronormative tropes in mpreg and avoid feminizing the pregnant partner.[41]

Depiction of pregnancy

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"His prick jerked in his hand and come hit the base of his belly, painting his stretch-marked skin. His body shook with orgasm and the force of the contraction, and he hoped that John would finish soon, because god he could feel [the baby] moving down."

Annabagnell, Double Your Pleasure, p. 6.[42]

In early mainstream depictions of male pregnancy, pregnancy and its feminine connotations were posed as a "monstrous" threat to the male character's masculinity.[43] In her study of Supernatural fan fiction, Åström argues that domestic mpreg departs from this characterization by depicting male pregnancy as a natural process that do not challenge the character's masculinity.[44] As Western culture typically codes pregnancy as wholesome and devoid of eroticism except as sexual fetish, mpreg can also be employed as a means to desexualize homosexual relationships and depict "life-affirming experiences resulting in the joy of fatherhood".[45]

Conversely, Jesse Ashman argues that in erotic mpreg, male pregnancy is sexualized and thus subject to the sexual fetishism ordinarily imposed on pregnant women.[46] In his study of erotic Merlin (2008–2012) and Sherlock (2010–2017) mpreg fan fiction, Ashman contends that erotic mpreg maintains the "monstrosity" of male pregnancy through its detailed and sexualized description of male pregnancy.[47] As pregnant male bodies lack breasts, pornographic mpreg fics often turn to eroticizing the restriction, feminization and pain of pregnancy and childbirth.[48] Ashman writes that mpreg can thus be used to queer narratives of the virgin pregnant body.[46]

Stigmatization

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Although mpreg is a small genre, its works are highly visible and stigmatized.[49] Penley has suggested that popular averse reactions to mpreg are because such depictions present "the most extreme retooling of the male body".[50] Within mpreg fan communities, stigmas are attached to stories involving vaginal delivery and breastfeeding, which fans view as "feminizing", as well as anal delivery.[50] Ingram-Waters, discussing her field research interviewing mpreg authors while visibly pregnant, reported that authors of mpreg fan fiction are highly attentive of this stigma and try "reaffirm their legitimacy" by trying to write male pregnancy "convincingly and accurately".[51]

Much like in anglophone fandoms, the use of mpreg is controversial in Japanese yaoi and Chinese danmei fandoms.[52] Japanese yaoi fandoms often snub stories that seriously grapple with mpreg, though comedy doujinshi manga have sometimes featured mpreg.[53] Surveys of fans support that mpreg enjoys niche popularity and has relatively greater popularity in sinophone fandoms than in anglophone fandoms.[52]

See also

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Notes

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  1. ^ An abbreviation of male pregnancy
  2. ^ Works of fan fiction involving pregnant trans men are not widely considered to be mpreg and the genre relies on the pregnant character's cisgender identity.[1]
  3. ^ Duggan 2023 describes the omegaverse as a subgenre of mpreg, while Heggestad 2023 writes that mpreg and omegaverse constitute two distinct genres that only sometimes overlap.

References

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Citations

  1. ^ Duggan 2023, par. 4.1: "In most mpreg, the male characters who fall pregnant have 'a normative masculine gender identity that also matches their physical sex,' so 'none of them are transgender or genderqueer'"; Osborne 2021, p. 234: "Many fan fiction stories are written about trans men becoming pregnant, but these are not widely considered to be 'mpreg,' where the pregnant character’s cis identity is part of the appeal of the genre."
  2. ^ Ingram-Waters 2023, p. 166; Goldmann 2020, p. 253; Osborne 2020, p. 224
  3. ^ Goldmann 2020, p. 254; Busse 2013, p. 319
  4. ^ Neville 2018, pp. 7, 173; Duggan 2023, par. 4.1
  5. ^ Osborne 2020, pp. 232–233
  6. ^ Osborne 2020, p. 224; Ashman 2018, p. 140
  7. ^ Ashman 2018, pp. 144–146
  8. ^ Åström 2010, par. 1.4
  9. ^ Goldmann 2020, p. 254
  10. ^ Osborne 2020, p. 232
  11. ^ Osborne 2020, pp. 232–233; Busse 2013, p. 319: "Mpreg is...sometimes explained within the logic of the source show's universe through magic or science, but more often just [occurs] spontaneously."
  12. ^ Goldmann 2020, pp. 253–254: "What I have to emphasize at this point is the fact that even though a majority of Mpreg scenarios result from these A/B/O dynamics, not all of them feature that particular trope."; Duggan 2023, section 4.2: "The omegaverse, a subgenre of mpreg which emerged in 2010...includes a 'biologically determined' hierarchy of six genders including both human and wolf traits, with the wolfy aspects of characters usually relating to sexual reproduction through heat, bonding, and 'the ever-popular knot...'"; Ashman 2018, p. 146: "In the Omegaverse, dominant Alphas claim, breed and impregnante submissive Omegas."
  13. ^ Busse 2013, pp. 318–319; Ashman 2018, p. 146
  14. ^ Goldmann 2020, pp. 252–253
  15. ^ Goldmann 2020, p. 254; Ingram-Waters 2023, p. 171
  16. ^ Ingram-Waters 2023, p. 171; Ingram-Waters 2015, pars. 4.24–4.27
  17. ^ Goldmann 2020, p. 255; Ingram-Waters 2015, par. 4.26
  18. ^ Ingram-Waters 2015, par. 4.24
  19. ^ Heggestad 2023, par. 1.3; Ingram-Waters 2015, par. 1.4
  20. ^ Duggan 2023, par. 4.3; Heggestad 2023, par. 1.5
  21. ^ Duggan 2023, par. 4.1
  22. ^ Ingram-Waters 2015, par. 2.5
  23. ^ Ingram-Waters 2010, pars. 3.2–3.3; Ingram-Waters 2023, p. 171
  24. ^ Ingram-Waters 2015, par. 2.4; Duggan 2023, par. 4.3
  25. ^ Duggan 2023, par. 4.1; Goldmann 2020, p. 254; Ingram-Waters 2015, par. 2.2
  26. ^ Hunting 2012, par. 6.9
  27. ^ Busse 2013, p. 320
  28. ^ Ingram-Waters 2015, par. 1.1
  29. ^ Osborne 2020, p. 235
  30. ^ Osborne 2020, pp. 231–232
  31. ^ Duggan 2023, par. 4.3: "Within the limited scholarship, the genres are both criticized as gender normative and praised as anti-gender normative."
  32. ^ Duggan 2023, par. 4.4; Wood 2021, p. 195
  33. ^ Hunting 2012, par. 6.9; Neville 2018, p. 173
  34. ^ Ingram-Waters 2023, p. 166
  35. ^ Ingram-Waters 2015, par. 5.1, discussed in Duggan 2023, par. 4.3
  36. ^ Madill, Zhao & Fan 2018, p. 430: "Although as Huang (2013) points out it is monstrous pregnancy, Mpreg may be a way of heteronormalising male‒male relationships: that is, situating them within a socially-normative trajectory of family life and kinship ties based on the differential rights and roles of men and women."
  37. ^ Hunting 2012, par. 6.9; Neville 2018, pp. 173–174
  38. ^ Suzuki 1998, p. 264; Neville 2018, p. 174
  39. ^ Weisser 2019, discussed in Duggan 2023, pars. 4.7–4.11
  40. ^ Wood 2021, p. 195
  41. ^ Neville 2018, p. 174
  42. ^ Quoted in Ashman 2018, p. 143
  43. ^ Ingram-Waters 2023, pp. 168–170; Åström 2010, par. 1.5
  44. ^ Åström 2010, par. 1.5
  45. ^ Ashman 2018, p. 142; Madill, Zhao & Fan 2018, p. 430; Åström 2010, par. 1.5
  46. ^ a b Ashman 2018, pp. 142–143
  47. ^ Ashman 2018, p. 143
  48. ^ Ashman 2018, pp. 143–144
  49. ^ Goldmann 2020, p. 254: "This small yet exceptionally visible subgenre faces a huge stigma."; Ingram-Waters 2015, par. 1.1: "As a fan fiction genre, mpreg occupies a relatively small yet highly visible and sometimes stigmatized, position."
  50. ^ a b Goldmann 2020, p. 255
  51. ^ Ingram-Waters 2010, cited in Ingram-Waters 2015, par. 2.4
  52. ^ a b Madill, Zhao & Fan 2018, p. 430
  53. ^ a b Bauwens-Sugimoto 2011, p. 11
  54. ^ Madill, Zhao & Fan 2018, p. 430; Bauwens-Sugimoto 2011, p. 11

Books

  • Penley, Constance (1997). NASA/TREK: Popular Science and Sex in America (pbk. ed.). London: Verso. ISBN 978-0-86091-617-8.
  • Suzuki, Kazuko (1998). "Pornography or Therapy? Japanese Girls Creating the Yaoi Phenomenon". In Inness, Sherrie Anne (ed.). Millennium Girls: Today's Girls Around the World. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 243–268. ISBN 0-8476-9136-5.
  • Busse, Kristina (2013). "Pon Farr, Mpreg, Bonds, and the Rise of the Omegaverse". Fic: Why Fanfiction Is Taking Over the World. Dallas, Texas: Smart Pop. pp. 316–322. ISBN 978-1-939529-19-0.
  • Fathallah, Judith (2017). Fanfiction and the Author: How Fanfic Changes Popular Cultural Texts. Transmedia. Amsterdam University Press. doi:10.5117/9789089649959. ISBN 978-90-8964-995-9. JSTOR j.ctt1v2xsp4.
  • Ashman, Jesse (2018). "Pregnancy as Bondage: Impregnating the Cisgender Man in Works of "Sherlock" and "Merlin" Slash Fiction". In Spacey, Ashton (ed.). The Darker Side of Slash Fan Fiction: Essays on Power, Consent and the Body. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company. ISBN 978-1-4766-3174-5.
  • Neville, Lucy (2018). Girls Who Like Boys Who Like Boys: Women and Gay Male Pornography and Erotica. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-69134-3. ISBN 978-3-319-69133-6.
  • Goldmann, Julia Elena (2020). "How to Write House… Mpreg Fan Fiction and Concepts of Bodies, Gender and Family". In Hausbacher, Eva; Herbst, Liesa; Ostwald, Julia; Thiele, Martina (eds.). geschlecht_transkulturell: Aktuelle Forschungsperspektiven [transcultural_gender: Current Research Perspectives]. Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden. pp. 251–265. doi:10.1007/978-3-658-30263-4_15. ISBN 978-3-658-30262-7. S2CID 235058519.
  • Osborne, Heather (2020). "The Pregnant Man Story: Echoes of Octavia E. Butler's Themes of Reproductive Anxiety in Fan Writing". In Hampton, Gregory Jerome; Parker, Kendra R. (eds.). The Bloomsbury handbook to Octavia E. Butler. London New York: Bloomsbury Academic. pp. 221–238. ISBN 978-1-350-07963-2.
  • Wood, Andrea (June 18, 2021). "His Baby Daddy Is an Alien?!: Mpreg fantasies and queer reproductive intimacies in contemporary M/M science fiction romance". In Harrod, Mary; Leonard, Suzanne; Negra, Diane (eds.). Imagining "We" in the Age of "I": Romance and Social Bonding in Contemporary Culture (1 ed.). London: Routledge. pp. 191–207. doi:10.4324/9781003039365. ISBN 978-1-003-03936-5. S2CID 237926809.
  • Ingram-Waters, Mary (2023). "Pregnant Men and Their Reconfigurations of Pregnancy". In Berkowitz, Dana; Windsor, Elroi J.; Han, C. Winter (eds.). Male Femininities. New York University Press. pp. 165–184. doi:10.18574/nyu/9781479870585.001.0001. ISBN 978-1-4798-7058-5.

Journal and magazine articles

Dissertations

Category:Slash fiction Category:Romance genres Category:Fantasy genres Category:Tropes Category:Pregnancy in art Category:Pregnancy in popular culture Category:Works about human pregnancy Category:Fiction about sexuality

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