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Mpreg

Trope · Genre
Synonyms: Male Pregnancy, MPREG, MPreg
Related: kidfic, Pregnancy
See Also: kink, Dominance Hierarchy
Tropes · Slash Tropes · Tropes by Fandom
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Contents

Nine Months ... and Beyond, cover by L.A. Adolf

Mpreg is a plot device in which men become pregnant. It is a genre that was not generally addressed by fans until the mid-to late-1990s. [1]

In canon, mpreg is often explained by alien biology. Alien Nation and Star Trek: Enterprise both have canonical male pregnancy, Torchwood has a reference to it as well, and in Farscape one of the alien male characters accidentally does much of the gestating of John and Aeryn's child.[2]

Male pregnancy is also a subgenre of fanfiction, occurring with some frequency in slash and only very rarely in het. The male who gets pregnant is usually human, and often the story offers no explanation for the phenomenon, although it may be explained by magic, medical experimentation, or simply the existence of an Alternate Universe where men are commonly pregnant. In some dystopian Mpreg AUs, the role or status of males able to get pregnant may differ markedly from that of impregnating males.

Mpreg is a rather polarizing genre: Whereas some fans really like it, many fans go out of their way to avoid it, and relatively few fans are indifferent to it.

Fempreg

Fempreg refers not to all stories in which women are pregnant, but to stories in which conception is due to f/f sex. It is almost vanishingly rare and would probably not have a name if it were not for mpreg's popularity. Xena: Warrior Princess has a rare example of canonical fempreg with Callisto's ghost impregnating Xena.

Another example of canonical fempreg occurs in Kotobuki Tarako's mostly mpreg-filled manga Sex Pistols (published in English language as Love Pistols). Madarame Makio, a female character, has given birth to two sons by two different fathers and has also 'fathered' two more sons with her female partner Tokashiki Karen.

Examples of Mpreg in Fanworks

Stories

pregnant elf!Blair manip from Soul Quest 7
In Soul Quest 2 it's just Blair who is pregnant (and an elf). Art by Lorraine Brevig.

Life from the Ashes -- early, long, OTT X-Files AU with Mulder mutated to have sex in his belly-button and frequently pregnant. (Written in 2000.)

Misconceptions[3] by Diana Williams -- early, long (60 parts) Highlander AU with Methos becoming pregnant. As Immortals are normally incapable of bearing children, a lot of stories in the fandom tried to figure out ways to give the Immortals children. Sometimes a threesome was required, sometimes the Immortal had to be over several thousand years old, and sometimes...well, things happened. (Started sometime in 2001.)

The Seahorse story: Clutch, Incubate, Hatch, and Nest by Betty Plotnick, a popslash series where Justin gets knocked up and lays eggs. (2003)

MPREG by Rhys -- popslash story where men-who-have-children are a group even more unusual than overpaid popstars. 2004

a very early example, (perhaps the first?) of mpreg art, from the 1980 Star Trek: TOS zine Galactic Discourse #3, artist Linda White. "Bones, would you come to my cabin please? I think it's time you learned the truth about Setarcos." It is a riff on the story Beyond Setarcos.
Art by Jou. Pregnant!Kirk from the Inheritance Series. The caption reads: Jim is having a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. He feels like crap and has to wear XXL uniforms to uh... accommodate his condition.

I Put a Spell on You (Because You're Mine) a Supernatural story by estrella30. She describes it as "schmoopy mpreg-wingfic-incest fic", or in other words, a deliberate attempt to write crackfic and still make people like it. (2006)

Bric-a-brac series by Lenore -- a surprisingly popular SGA series that may have made mpreg more respectable to fans.

Roo'verse by Tzzzz, an SGA mpreg which is unusual in that the biology of the men being able to become pregnant (a subtype of humans attributed to Ancient experimentation) is that of a marsupial, so the pregnancy does not resemble a regular human pregnancy. [4] (2009)

Side Effects by Jane Elliot. SGA story in which, in a relatively rare plot-turn[5], the pregnant man chooses to terminate the pregnancy. (2008)

Surrogate by Seekergeek. SGA story in which John chooses to use a device to become pregnant with Rodney's child because Rodney can't otherwise have a child like he wanted. (2009)

There has been a resurgence of mpreg stories in Star Trek reboot fandom, with the LJ kirkspock community, alone, recording over 30 stories[6] featuring this trope in the year following the release of the movie. It is likely to be the setting that has caused this upswing in popularity, with a number of writers explaining away the process as either alien biology, or through the use of futuristic technology and medicine.[7] [8]

Mpreg is not an uncommon trope in Naruto fandom, aided in part by the existence in canon of jutsu such as Naruto's Sexy no Jutsu. Some examples from the KakaIru pairing include: megyal's A Measure of Company (with fanart by jofelly), Kita the Spaz's Mission's Gift, and Side Effects, an early example from ChibiRisu-chan.

MPreg Vids

Music

Mpreg Meta

Resources

References

  1. ↑ oral history interviews -- Escapade 2012 -- need more advanced citation.
  2. ↑ For further examples of Mpreg in books, movies, television and mythology, see Alchemia's Mainstream MPreg List, 13 June 2008. (Accessed 09 November 2008)
  3. ↑ Diana Williams. Misconceptions (Accessed 15 December 2009)
  4. ↑ Tzzzz. Roo'verse (accessed 15 Dec 2009)
  5. ↑ Mpreg#Mpreg_Meta
  6. ↑ mpreg trope tag for stories posted to the LJ kirkspock community
  7. ↑ Unexpected by ceres_libera (following genderswap from alien intervention) Kirk/McCoy
  8. ↑ After It All by slash4femme (genetics, test tube baby + artificial womb) Spock!Prime/McCoy
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